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dence that under that system and under those institutions they will, without interference with the welfare of other citizens of the United States, enjoy a greater measure of personal liberty and greater opportunities for the pursuit of happiness than they have enjoyed under the system of government to which they have been heretofore accustomed.

EDWIN T. MERRICK.

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THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE.

EDWIN T. MERRICK, OF NEW ORLEANS.

Probably the first time that the white man ever visited Louisiana soil was in 1528 or 1529. At that time De Narvaez landed in Florida with a commission to govern the provinces on the mainland from the "Rio de las Palmas in Mexico to the Cape of Florida."

Under this commission the Spaniards, finding it impossible to conquer the country assigned to their charge, sailed into the Gulf of Mexico. Forty of them, under Cabeza de Vaca, discovered the mouth of the Mississippi, and finally landed on the coast of Texas, either at Galveston or St. Joseph's Island. Here they were captured by the Indians and held in slavery for six years. DeVaca and three companions finally made their escape and reached a Spanish settlement in Mexico.

In 1539-1541 De Soto undertook an exploration in which he rediscovered the Mississippi and crossed it, coming back to it at about the mouth of Red River, where he succumbed to fever, and his body was sunk in the bosom of the Father of Waters to conceal his death from the Indians.

From this time one hundred and forty years passed before canoes with whites under the command of Robert Cavelier de La Salle and his faithful Tonti passed down the mighty Mississippi to its mouth and gave the name of Louisiana to the land he was unable to colonize. It is true

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that in 1673 Pere Jacques Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi and passed down that river as far as the mouth of the Arkansas River, about seven hundred miles from the Gulf, but they turned back for fear of the Indians.

In 1699 came Iberville, who settled the first colony in that region at Old Biloxi, not to be confused with the pres ent Biloxi, but now known as Ocean Springs. Ocean Springs is one of the handsomest summer resorts of the South todar, and is visited every season by many wealthy New Orleans citizens. Among the colonists were the three brothers Iberville, and Bienville and Sauvolle-Bienville, the founder of New Orleans in 1718, and Sauvolle, the first Governor of Louisiana.

Louis XV in 1762 ceded Louisiana to Charles III of Spain The citizens of by a secret treaty-the treaty of 1762. Louisiana were filled with consternation that their country, for which they had endured so many hardships, had deserted them. The unfortunate Acadians of Louisiana, who had sought refuge from foreign domination, were for a second time expatriated. The prophecy in Evangeline:

"That no King George of England shall drive you away from
your homesteads,

Burning your dwellings and barns, and stealing your farms
and your cattle."

did not include Spanish tyranny and oppression.

But the Spanish were slow in taking possession of the province, and left the French Administration undisturbed for more than five years, when Antonio Ulloa was sent over by the new government to take possession of Louisiana. Upon the receipt of a letter from the French King at this time, announcing the cession to Spain, a mass-meeting of citizens and planters from the adjoining parishes was called to meet at New Orleans. The Attorney General, Lafreniere, made an animated speech concluded by a proposition that the sovereign should make such arrangements with his