as to pay the governor and other Crown officers, and during the
first nine years the troops also; though after that time Crozat was to
maintain them till the end of his term.

In consideration of these and other privileges, the grantee was bound to
send to Louisiana a specified number of settlers every year. His charter
provided that the royal edicts and the _Coutume de Paris_ should be the
law of the colony, to be administered by a council appointed by the
King.

When Louisiana was thus handed over to a speculator for a term of years,
it needed no prophet to foretell that he would get all he could out of
it, and put as little into it as possible. When Crozat took possession
of the colony, the French court had been thirteen years at work in
building it up. The result of its labors was a total population,
including troops, government officials, and clergy, of 380 souls, of
whom 170 were in the King's pay. Only a few of the colonists were within
the limits of the present Louisiana. The rest lived in or around the
feeble stockade forts at Mobile, Biloxi, Ship Island, and Dauphin
Island. This last station had been partially abandoned; but some of the
colonists proposed to return to it, in order to live by fishing, and
only waited, we are told, for help from the King. This incessant
dependence on government relaxed the fibres of the colony and sapped its
life-blood.

The King was now exchanged for Crozat and his grinding monopoly. The
colonists had carried on a modest trade with the Spaniards at Pensacola
in skins, fowls, Indian corn, and a few other articles, bringing back a
little money in return. This, their only source of profit, was now cut
off; they could sell nothing, even to one another. They were forbidden
to hold meetings without permission; but some of them secretly drew up a
petition to La Mothe-Cadillac, who was still the official chief of the
colony, begging that the agents of Crozat should be restricted to
wholesale dealings, and that the inhabitants might be allowed to trade
at retail. Cadillac denounced the petition as seditious, threatened to
hang the bearer of it, and deigned no other answer.

He resumed his sarcasms against the colony. "In my opinion this country
is not worth a straw (_ne vaut pas un fetu_). The inhabitants are eager
to be taken out of it. The soldiers are always grumbling, and with
reason." As to the council, which was to be the only court of justice,
he says that no such thing is po