pitiless fury of man, and it thus explained in some degree this part of the inscription, "the date-tree shall grow on the traitor's grave."

Who was he, or what had he done, who had provoked such relentless and far-seeking revenge? Ask Nemesis, or at that hour when evil spirits are allowed to roam over the earth, and magical invocations are made-go, and interrogate the tree of the dead.

FIFTH LECTURE.

ARRIVAL OF THE CASKET GIRLS-ROYAL ORDINANCE RELATIVE TO THE CONCESSIONS OF LANDS-MANNER OF SETTLING THE SUCCESSION OF FRENCHMEN MARried to INDIAN WOMEN-FRENCH HUSBANDS-INDIAN WIVES - HISTORY OF MADAME DUBOIS, AN INDIAN SQUAW-CONSPIRACY OF the Natchez against the FRENCH -MASSACRE OF THE FRENCH AT NATCHEZ IN 1729-MASSACRE OF THE FRENCH AT THE YAZOO SETTLEMENT IN 1730-ATTACK OF THE NATCHEZ AGAINST THE FRENCH SETTLEment at NatchiTOCHES-THEY ARE BEATEN BY ST. DENIS-THE FRENCH AND CHOCTAWS ATTACK THE NATCHEZ-DARINg and Death of Navarre AND OF SOME OF HIS COMPANIONS-SIEGE OF THE NATCHEZ FORTS-FLIGHT OF THE NATCHEZ-CRUEL TREATMENT OF NATCHEZ PRISONERS BY GOVERNOR PERIER -DESPERATION OF THE NATCHEZ-THE CHICKASAWS GRANT AN ASYLUM TO THE NATCHEZ-CONSPIRACY OF THE BANBARA NEGROES-LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL OFFICERS IN THE COLONY IN 1730.

In the beginning of 1728, there came a vessel of the company with a considerable number of young girls, who had not been taken, like their predecessors, from houses of correction. The company had given to each of them a casket containing some articles of dress. From that circumstance, they became known in the colony under the nickname of the "filles à la cassette," or "the casket girls." The Ursulines were requested to take care of them until they should be provided with suitable husbands. Subsequently, it became a matter of importance in the colony to derive one's origin from the casket girls, rather than from the correction girls. What distinctions, however slim they may be, will not be eagerly sought after by human pride?

With great propriety, Governor Périer turned his attention to the encouragement of the agriculture of the country, and by words and deeds excited the colo

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nists to draw out of the fertile soil on which they dwelt, the wealth which was concealed within its bosom. Rice, tobacco, and indigo were cultivated with success by the two thousand six hundred negroes who had been imported, and the fig and orange trees, lately introduced, were thriving everywhere, and ornamenting almost every garden. Land was rising in value, and as surveys had been carelessly made, limits fixed in a very loose or arbitrary manner, and titles of property mostly incomplete from negligence, indifference, or from some other cause, a royal ordinance, in order to check anticipated lawsuits, and to prevent future confusion, was issued on the 10th of August, 1728, and declared:

"That all the orders of concession addressed, before the 30th of December, 1723, by the India Company in France, to its directors in Louisiana, if not as yet presented to said directors for confirmation, or if not as yet followed by the possession and improvement stipulated in the acts of concession, were null and void."

In obedience to this ordinance, every landholder was bound to show his titles to the Superior Council, within a specified time, and to designate the quantity of land he claimed and had cultivated, under the penalty of a fine of 1000 livres, and of the loss of the conceded land, which, in that case, should escheat to the company.

Every concession of land situated on both sides of the Mississippi, below Manchac, was to be reduced to twenty acres, fronting on the river, except it should be proved that a greater number of acres was under cultivation.

The depth of every concession was to vary from between one hundred acres and one hundred and twenty acres, according to the nature of the locality.

The company was authorized to raise a tax of one

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cent for every acre, cultivated or not, and of five livres for every slave. The revenue arising from this tax was to be consecrated to the building of churches and hospitals.

The expenses of the colonial administration had continued to be very great, and had amounted, this year, to 486,051 livres.

The year 1729 dawned on the colony under favorable auspices. Through the harmonious and joint administration of Périer and De la Chaise, tranquillity had been established in the country, which, for the first time, was free from the evils produced by the jealousies and quarrels of the governor, and of the king's commissaries. Unchecked in the exercise of the high authority with which he was clothed, De la Chaise turned his attention to the jurisprudence of the country, and to the settling of disputes and juridical conflicts among the inhabitants. A case presented itself, in which he used his influence much to the satisfaction of the colonists. Father de la Vente, the bigoted curate of Mobile, had demanded that the French be authorized by the government to take Indian wives. This demand had been opposed by the governor, Lamothe Cadillac, and the king's commissary, Duclos. The government had neither sanctioned, nor actually prohibited such marriages, but had merely recommended that they be discouraged as much as possible. However, the church had thought differently, and consecrated a great many alliances of that kind. It was, no doubt, very correct, in a moral point of view, but it gave rise to legal difficulties. Thus, on the death of French husbands, their Indian wives claimed, according to the customs of the Viscounty of Paris, half of their succession: and if they died without issue, the property acquired during marriage went to the Indian heirs of the wife in prefer

WITH INDIAN WIVES.

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ence to the French heirs of the husband. These Indian heirs frequently ran away with what was left by the deceased, and it was next to an impossibility to force them to pay the debts of the succession, and to subject them to the observance of those formalities required by, and inherent to, the laws of succession. The French were therefore clamorous to prevent Indian wives from enjoying the benefit of the custom of Paris, and they urged that, to deviate from it in such cases, would be nothing but an act of justice and of sound policy, on the ground that what had been acquired by the French should remain to the French, and not go to the huts of barbarians, who were their enemies. Taking these complaints into consideration, and on the recommendation of De la Chaise, the Superior Council decreed that, for the future, on the death of a Frenchman married to an Indian woman, the property left by the deceased should be administered, if there were minor children, by a tutor, and if there were none, by a curator to vacant estates, who should pay annually to the widow one third of the revenue of the estate, provided that this pension should cease in case she returned to dwell among her tribe. The expenses of preserving from deterioration, and of keeping up the goods, chattels, and movable or immovable property of the succession, were to be at the charge of the children, or of the other heirs.

The fact is, that the conduct of the Indian wives toward their French husbands was not such as to entitle them to much respect or sympathy, and adultery was one of the frequent offenses of which they became guilty. When brought into the society of the white race, it seems that they lost those qualities which they possessed when pursuing the savage and primitive life of their ancestors, and on the other hand, they ac