ART. I.-GAYARRE'S HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.*

MR. GAYARRE's book has been on our table for some time, but other duties have debarred us the pleasure of its perusal, until now. In the dearth of literary production amongst us, the appearance of a work of much less interest than this would be hailed with pleasure and read with delight. Whilst the history of Louisiana is fruitful with events which furnish an extensive field of interesting research to the historian, and themes of inspiration to the poet, that field is comparatively unexplored. As with her commercial enterprise, so is it with her literature and her laws. Seated near the mouth of the mightiest river in the universe, whose shores are the limits of many friendly states, her metropolis is fast sinking in commercial importance, and coming events seem darkly to shadow its doom, and point the hour when, like Venice, her emporium shall sleep amid the waters; its quays deserted; its palaces tenantless. Art is surpassing nature, and the "iron roads," like creeping serpents, are enfolding themselves around her, and drawing from her bleeding bosom the life-blood which should enrich her children. With a position unsurpassed for commercial purposes, and from which an enterprising people would build a commerce that would enrich a world, her energies are paralyzed, and she is sinking, almost without an effort, into lethargy as fatal as death. Amongst our commercial class and capitalists, (for it is on these, after all, that the responsibility of the "decline and fall" of NewOrleans must rest,) there are a few exceptions to the general rule, and whom we would delight to honor; but we must not individualize. Let us wish this noble few the success their efforts merit; whilst for those, the larger class, who hold for the "pound of flesh," and draw from the resources of the people to add to their plethoric fortunes, and clutch their gains with a greedy grasp-let us hope, that in Heav

* Louisiana, its Colonial History and Romance. By Charles Gayarre. Harper & Brothers, New-York, 1851.

en's good time they will be taken to Abraham's bosom; that the lawyers, the notaries, and officers of court, will deal lightly with their successions; and that they, into whose hands these successions may fall, will be men of more liberal minds and more extended views. Numbering among her lawyers gentlemen whose talents and acquirements would honor the profession in any age or nation, her codes are without a commentary, and glaring incongruities exist in her books of law, which none among the many of the learned profession, who have thronged her council halls, have been found to correct by the ready means of legislative enactment. But enough.

As Mr. Gayarre's work is chiefly concerned with that portion of the formerly extensive territory of Louisiana embraced within the limits of the present state of that name, he commences his history with the advent of De Soto, and thus describes the landing of that valiant knight at Tampa Bay, on the western coast of Florida.

On the 31st May, 1539, the bay of Santo Spiritu, in Florida, presented a curious spectacle; eleven vessels of quaint shape, bearing the broad banner of Spain, were moored close to the shore; one thousand men of infantry, and three hundred and fifty men of cavalry, fully equipped, were landed in proud array, under the command of Hernando de Soto, one of the most illustrious companions of Pizarro, in the conquest of Peru; and reputed one of the best lancers of Spain. When he led the van of battle, so powerful was his charge, says the old chronicler of his exploits, so broad was the bloody passage which he carved out in the ranks of the enemy, that ten of his men-at-arms could, with ease, follow him abreast. He had acquired enormous wealth in Peru, and might have rested satisfied a knight of renown in the government of St. Jago de Cuba, in the sweet enjoyment of youth and power, basking in the smiles of his beautiful wife, Isabella de Bobadilla. But his adventurous mind scorns such inglorious repose; and now he stands erect, and full of visions bright, on the sandy shore of Florida, whither he comes, with feudal pride, by leave of the king, to establish nothing less than a marquisate, ninety miles long by forty-five miles wide; and there to rule supreme, a governor for life, of all the territory that he can subjugate. Not unmindful he, the Christian knight, the hater and conqueror of Moorish infidelity, of the souls of his future vassals; for twenty-two ecclesiastics accompany him, to preach the word of God. Among his followers are gentlemen of the best blood of Spain and of Portugal-Don Juan de Guzman, Pedro Calderon, who, by his combined skill and bravery, had won the praises of Gonzalvo de Cordova, yclept "the Great Captain;" Vasconcellos de Silva of Portugal, who, for birth and courage, knew no superior; Nuno Sobar, a knight above fear and reproach; and Muscoso de Alvarado, whom that small host of heroes ranked, in their estimation, next to De Soto himself.

De Soto, the favorite companion of Pizarro in the conquest of Peru, dazzled by the success of that leader, sought, doubtless, in his expedition hither, another field in which to reap a like harvest of glory, an increase of wealth and of power. He dreamed that within the deep recesses of the forest of this terra incognita, there existed cities rich in treasures of silver, of gold, and of precious gems; that those cities were held by people weak and enervate. In dreams the

haughty Spaniard had painted a march as triumphant, and as splendid in its event, as that of Pizarro or Cortez. He came, decked like a bridegroom to a marriage feast-he was but the victim arrayed for the sacrifice. Instead of a weak and timid population, he was opposed by a race of savages, whose home was the forest, possessed of no wealth, and there hung upon his path a relentless and indefatigable foe, whose tread was as stealthy as the panther's, and whose spring was as deadly. After three years of unprecedented hardships, he stood upon the banks of the Mississippi with trailing banner, with blunted sword, and hopes crushed, to find at last a grave amid the dark waters which rolled at his feet. It is curious to contrast the future destiny of the lands De Soto trod with those conquered by Pizarro and Cortez. The reader will readily trace the strange distinction, and find in the comparison instruction and a moral.

For more than a century and a quarter after the disastrous expedition of De Soto, no white man's foot pressed the soil of Louisiana. In 1673, Marquette, a Jesuit priest, and Joliet, a merchant of Quebec, under the patronage of Talon, Governor of Canada, crossed to one of the tributaries of the Mississippi, and following its course, reached that river and descended to the mouth of the Arkansas. Being satisfied that it emptied its waters into the Gulf of Mexico, they returned to Canada. What the fierce bearing and sharp blades of the Spaniards had failed to accomplish, was achieved by the gentleness and kind manners of the French priest and merchant. In 1682, this expedition was succeeded by another, under La Salle, who was successful in reaching the mouth of the Mississippi, when he proceeded by a proces verbal, to take possession, in the name of his sovereign, of all the territories drained by the said river and its tributaries.— The original of this act exists now in the archives of the Marine Department at Paris, and the reader will find a translation of it in the Appendix to Sparks' Life of La Salle, contained in the Library of American Biography. La Salle returned to France, and in the year. 1684, sailed thence, prepared to plant a colony on the Mississippi; but passing the mouth of that river, he landed on the coast of Texas, and perished by assassination, at the hand of a treacherous comrade.

The next visitor to our shores was D'Iberville, a French naval officer of distinction, who was dispatched to establish a colony in Louisiana. He selected Biloxi as its site, and having built a fort, returned to France, leaving Sauvolle, his brother, in command.Sauvolle's career was a brief one, and crowded with unpleasant events. Sufferings and privations were the lot of these early colonists; at last disease laid its heavy hand upon them, and Sauvolle himself became its victim. He was succeeded by Bienville, another brother, and not the least heroic of an heroic family. The vicissitudes of this early settlement under the successive administrations of Bienville, Cadillac, L'Epinay, are ably sketched in the pages of the work before us. Louisiana was conceded, in 1712, to Anthony Crozat, and the first series of Mr. Gayarre's Lectures terminates with the surrender of the charter granted to Crozat to the government, in 1717.

The second part of Mr. Gayarre's work opens with the history of John Law, one of the most remarkable characters of the 18th century. This individual, who figures so conspicuously in the financial history of his times, was born in the city of Edinburgh, in 1671, and Mr. Gayarre thus speaks of his early history.

He was educated in Edinburgh, and he is said to have been no mean adept in versification, if not in poetry. But he soon intuitively discovered that a scribbler's lot was not very enviable, and following the natural bent of his genius, he became so remarkably proficient in mathematics, that he could, with the greatest facility, solve the most difficult problems of that abstruse science. He also devoted his attention to the study of trade and manufactures, and made himself master of the principles of public and private credit. He minutely investigated the theory and practice of taxation, and all matters constituting the arcana of political economy. Such were the deep laid foundations of his future eminence. But John Law was a votary of pleasure as well as of study; and whenever he emerged from his closet, it was to attend the gambling-table, the racing-ground, and to indulge in convivial and amorous exploits. To some men, excitement of some sort or other is the very breath of life; it is the air which inflates and expands their intellectual lungs; without it, the flow of their minds would stagnate. Such was John Law. An orphan at the age of fourteen, free from paternal control, and the heir to an ample fortune, he had within his reach all the means of vicious indulgence; and sadly did he avail himself of them to barter away the very altars of his household gods. In 1694, goaded on by the desire of extending his sphere of enjoyments, he paid a visit to London, that great centre of attraction, where his wit, his graces, his manly beauty, his numerous attainments, gained him admittance into the best society. There, however, his profusions of every sort, his love for deep play, and his gallantries, soon rid him of his patrimonial lands of Lauriston and Randleston. These broad acres were converted into guineas, and melted away in the hands of prodigality; and thus, in early life, through his own folly, John Law stands before us a bankrupt. That bankrupt was also an adulterer, and the acknowledged paramour of a Mrs. Lawrence. That intrigue brought him into collision with a Mr. Wilson, whom he killed in a duel. Tried for murder, he was found guilty, sentenced to death, and pardoned by the crown. But an appeal was taken by the brother of the deceased; and the appeal was pending before the King's Bench, when Law, not deeming it prudent to await the result, escaped from his prison, and fled to the continent. Law was then twenty-three years of age. A bankrupt, an adulterer, an exiled outlaw; if to feel is to live, Law had thus gone through a variety and intensity of feelings, which, in the spring of youth, must have made his soul and mind as gray with age, as if over them a century had passed.

After these unfortunate circumstances, Law fled to Holland, but in 1700 returned to Edinburgh, and published a pamphlet entitled, "Proposals and Reasons for establishing a Council of Trade." In 1705 he presented to the Scottish parliament a plan for removing the financial embarrassment of the nation; but his various schemes for the enrichment of the kingdom do not seem to have met with much countenance from his phlegmatic countrymen.

Accordingly, he retired to the continent, whither let us follow him, as he flits, as an ignis fatuus, from place to place. Now we see him a man

of fashion in Brussels, where his constant success at play brought him into favorable notoriety. Then he dashes into the vortex of Paris, where, it is said, he introduced the game called "faro;" and became still more conspicuous than at Brussels, by his enormous gains at the gaming-table. His graceful person, the charms of his conversation, his insinuating manners, were rapidly favoring his ascent into the highest regions of society, when D'Argenson, the Lieutenant or Minister of Police, thought proper to cut short his brilliant career, and to order him out of the kingdom, with this pithy observation: "That Scot is too expert at the game which he has introduced."

He retired to Geneva, where he gave an extraordinary proof of his power of extracting money from the dryest sources, by gaining large sums at the expense of the sober-minded and close-fisted citizens of that puritanic little commonwealth. In Genoa and Venice he gave such evidence of his invariable luck at play, that the magistrates of those two cities deemed it their duty to interfere, for the protection of their fellowcitizens, and banished Law from these over-exhausted theatres of his exploits. At Florence, he became acquainted with the Duke of Vendome, whom he favored with the loan of a large sum of money. At Neufchatel he obtained access to the Prince of Conti, to whom, as to the Duke of Vendome, he imparted his financial schemes.

He was thus skillfully procuring protection for the introduction of his plans into France, on the first favorable opportunity. For several years Law rambled over Europe, proposing his financial systems everywhere, and to every body.

Next we find him in Paris. The long and brilliant reign of Louis XIV. was just about to close; a reign which cost France so dearly in the end, however bright the lustre with which it gilds her history. It left to the weak successor of Louis the Great the heritage of a kingdom exhausted of treasure, and a people oppressed to the last degree by taxation and prerogatives, and planted the seed which, in a few generations after, bore the bitter fruit of bloodshed and revolution. Law found a willing and powerful patron in the Regent of Orleans; and, assisted by his influence, his wildest dreams were realized. The history of Law's magnificent scheme, from its beginning to its full development, its absorption of some of the most important powers of the government, and its disastrous termination, is elaborately given in the present work. We will add one more extract, in which the fate of this man is portrayed, with farther information regarding his family.

In 1722, John Law turned his back upon England for the last time; and returning to the continent, retired to Venice, where he lived in obscurity, and where he died 21st March, 1729, in a state of indigence, and in the fifty-eighth year of his age. He had lost his wife and his only son; and there remained with him, to solace his last moments, but one faithful heart-a sweet Antigone, who closed his eyelids. That was his daughter. She afterwards married Lord Wallingford in England. A branch of the family of Law has preserved, to this day, in France, a very honorable position in society. A brother, whom he left in that kingdom when he fled from it, was taken under the special protection of the Duchesse of Bourbon. Through her favor, two of his sons found employment, in 1741, in the service of the East India Company; and greatly distinguished themselves. The eldest one, Law de Lauriston, rose to the rank