the  futui'e  edifice.  Witli  such  instruments  what  can
even  a  great  man  like  Bienville  do  ?  He  is  sat-
isfied that  the  dreams  about  gold  and  precious
stones  are  idle  and  empty ;  that  the  true  hope  and
welfare  of  the  colony  is  in  agriculture  ;  that  the  toil
of  the  people  can  alone  yield  them  the  means  of  sub-
sistence and  afford  them  the  materials  for  trade  ;  that
the  labor  of  the  husbandman  and  the  mechanic  fur-
nishes the  only  sure  basis  for  commerce  ;  and  that  their
metropolis  must  be  built  npon  the  banks  of  the  great
river,  so  as  to  command  by  a  practicable  and  easy
highway  the  resources  of  the  whole  interior,  and  have
opened  to  it  a  sure  and  immediate  communication
with  Canada.  But  he  is  bafiied  and  disheartened  by
his  filthy  and  worthless  coadjutors,  and  no  real  work
is  accomplished.  Thirteen  years  have  passed,  a  hun-
dred and  seventy  thousand  dollars  have  been  expend-
ed and  the  results  are  unsatisfactory  enough.  Only
two  hundred  and  eighty  settlers,  for  the  most  part
idle  and  dissolute  vagrants,  among  whom  are  twenty
domestic  negroes,  are  in  the  province.  The  king  and
council  are  discouraged  ;  something  must  be  done  for
Louisiana  ;  but  how,  or  what,  are  questions  hard  to
settle.  At  this  time  there  is  in  Paris  a  great  mer-
chant, one  Anthony  Crozat,  who  has  amassed  an  im-
mense fortune  by  trade  and  speculation.  The  king
offers  him  the  monopoly  of  the  country  flanked  on  its
eastern  side  by  Florida  and  the  Alleghanies,  on  its  west-


THE  FRENCH  CHARTER  RENOUNCED.       223

ern  by  the  Rio  del  l!Torte  and  tlie  Rocky  Mountains,
and  extending  from  Dauphine  Island  to  the  Lakes.
