loss, the same extent of lands, presenting equal advantages.

In order to avoid all future discussions, and to prevent deceit as much as possible, a minute tariff was agreed upon, in relation to the price and quality of every articlo which they were to be furnished with, and for which they were to give in return a certain quantity of peltries. The most stringent regulations were also made by the Spanish Governor, to protect the Indians against the malpractices of the traders, who were to be permitted to introduce their merchandise in their villages. These regulations began with this declaration as a preamble: "The trade with the Indian nations is to be conducted on principles of good faith and equity; and those that engage in it shall take care so to demean themselves as to secure, by all the means in their power, the attainment of so important an object, without availing themselves, to avoid these obligations, of the despicable subterfuges of fraud and deceit."

A contract was passed, on the 24th of July, between the Spanish government and James Mather, a resident and merchant of New Orleans, by which this individual bound himself, on certain conditions, to employ two vessels to import all the goods and merchandise wanted for the Indian trade. These two vessels were to navigate under the Spanish flag, and one was to land its cargoes at Pensacola, the other at Mobile. Mather had reserved to himself the privilege of sending his vessels for the supplies he was to procure, either to the Dutch, Danish, or English islands, in America, or to one of the European ports belonging to these three nations. His return cargoes from Pensacola and Mobile were to consist of the productions of the colony.

The fortitude of the inhabitants of Louisiana, to whom the Intendant Navarro, in his circular of the 29th of

EXTRAORDINARY SEVERITY OF THE WINTER OF 1784. 163

August, 1780, had recommended the patience of Job, was put to another trial by the prodigious rigor of the winter of 1784. The months of July and August of the preceding year had been so cool, that the colonists, to their great amazement, had to resort to their winter clothing. White frosts made their appearance in the beginning of September, and continued to be frequent to the 15th of November (1783) when the cold became intense.* There was a constant succession of squalls, and the wind blew with unheard of violence, from the north and north-east, and then from the south, going almost through the whole round of the compass. With rapid transition, the keen northern blast froze the ground, and the warm breath of the southern breeze brought back the genial temperature of the spring. The variations of the weather were such, that, several times, in six hours, Reaumur's thermometer fell from twenty degrees above the freezing point to two and three degrees below it, in a closed room where fire was kept up. On the 13th of February, 1784, the whole bed of the river, in front of New Orleans, was filled up with fragments of ice, the size of most of which was from twelve to thirty feet, with a thickness of two to three. This mass of ice was so compact, that it formed a field of four hundred yards in width, so that all communication was interrupted for five days between the two banks of the Mississippi. On the 19th, these lumps of ice were no longer to be seen. "The rapidity of the current being then at the rate of two thousand and four hundred yards an hour," says Villars, "and the drifting of the ice by New Orleans having taken five days, it follows that it must have occupied in length a space of about one hundred and twenty miles. These floating masses of ice were met by ships in the 28th degree of latitude."

* Villars' despatch, 25th of February, 1784.

Another cause of distress for the poor colonists was the depreciation of the royal paper money, which had been issued at par to meet the expenses of the war, and which had fallen down fifty per cent. of its original value. As if this was not enough, commerce was crippled by a decree of the Court of Spain, which was published in New Orleans, in the beginning of September, and which prohibited foreign vessels from entering the river under any pretext whatever, either stress of weather, or want of provisions, &c. The administration of the colony considered this decree as being a revocation of the schedule of 1776, in relation to the French Islands, and wrote to Spain to obtain further instructions as to the manner of carrying the new decree into execution.

In the beginning of the year, 1785, Galvez was appointed Captain-general of the island of Cuba, of the province of Louisiana, and of the two Floridas. But, on the death of his father, in the summer, he succeeded him in the viceroyalty of Mexico, and was allowed the privilege of retaining the captain-generalship of Louisiana and the Floridas.

Galvez was one of the most popular viceroys that Mexico ever had. He governed that extensive country nine years, with all the powers of absolute and despotic sovereignty; and his administration was so mild, so just and so enlightened, that he became the idol of the people. He had that nobleness of mien, that gracefulness of manner, that dignified, and, at the same time, easy affability for high and low, which, in persons of his rank, never fail to win the heart. He was a man of profuse magnificence in his habits, and the gorgeous displays which he used to make on public occasions, were much to the taste of all classes of the population.

Then, as I said, the Duke, great Bolingbroke-
Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed,

THE CHARACTER OF GALVEZ.

165

Which his aspiring rider seemed to know

With slow, but stately pace, kept on his course,

While all tongues cried-God save thee, Bolingbroke !
You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old

Through casements darted their desiring eyes
Upon his visage; and that all the walls,
With painted imag'ry, had said at once-
Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bolingbroke!
Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,
Bare-headed, lower than his proud steed's neck,
Bespake them thus-I thank you, countrymen :
And thus still doing, thus he passed along.

His wife, who was a native of Louisiana, was of surpassing loveliness, and as charitable, gracious and intelligent as she was beautiful. She was literally adored by the Mexicans and Spaniards, and she greatly contributed to her husband's popularity.

Galvez had caused to be constructed, at a short distance from his capital, for himself and his successors, as he pretended, on the rock of Chapultepec, which has since become famous in the war of the United States against Mexico, a superb country seat, which had cost him immense sums. Surrounded by large and deep ditches, flanked with strong bastions well supplied with artillery on the side looking towards Mexico, and protected on the northern side by an immense forest, this edifice, whatever might be the name and the disguise given to it, looked more like a fortress than a peaceful seat of rural enjoyment. Immense subterraneous vaults, filled with provisions to last many months, and many underground ways, communicated from the castle both with the city and the forest. This pretended country seat was, in fact, an impregnable fortification, and as it could not be intended by Galvez against the people, whose idol he was, and to whom it would have been impolitic, under such circumstances, to show any distrust, it became an object of wondering comments, hints and

insinuations. It was even rumored that Galvez, who was the son of a viceroy, and who had succeeded his father in the same capacity, as it were by the regular laws of legitimate succession, was not disposed to relinquish, at the caprice of his sovereign, the power which he considered to be an hereditary heir-loom in his family, and that he was secretly aiming at occupying the throne of Mexico, not as the representative of the king of Spain, but in his own right. It is said that, owing to these vague and probably calumnious whisperings, the Court of Madrid was preparing to recall Galvez, when, in consequence of too much exposure and fatigue in hunting, he died in August, 1794. He was then in the full meridian of life, being only thirty-eight years old. His death was felt to be a great public calamity, and was deplored as such by the whole population of the kingdom of Mexico.