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LOUISA LOUISIANA TERRITORY. 



In 1315, Louis had expelled his brother, Rodolph, 

 who opposed his election from the Palatinate, but, 

 afu-r the death of the latter, had formed a convention 

 with his sons, by virtue of which their patrimony was 

 restored to them, and the electoral dignity was to 

 belong alternately to Bavaria and the Palatinate. The 

 vacant Mark of Brandenburg he conferred, in 1322, 

 on his eldest son. In his disputes with pope John 

 XXII., against whom he was joined by the Visconti 

 party in Italy, he maintained the dignity of the Ger- 

 man crown, and set up the antipope Nicholas V. 

 In 1346, Clement VI. excommunicated him, and 

 succeeded in causing five electors to set Charles of 

 Luxembourg, king of Bohemia, on the imperial 

 throne. In the midst of this dispute, Louis died 

 (1347). See Mannert's Louis If^., or the Bavarian, 

 in German, 1812. 



LOUISA, AUGUSTA WILHELMINA AMALIA, queen 

 of Prussia, daughter of Charles, duke of Mecklen- 

 burg-Strelitz, was born March 10, 1776, at Hanover, 

 where her father was commandant. When six years 

 old, she lost her mother; and her grandmother, at 

 Darmstadt, took charge of her education. In 1793, 

 the king of Prussia, then prince royal, saw her at 

 Frankfort, when she and her sister were presented 

 to his father. The prince was immediately struck 

 with her uncommon beauty, and was soon after 

 betrothed to her. Prince Louis, of Prussia, was 

 betrothed, on the same day, to her sister, the present 

 duchess of Cumberland. Dec. 24, 1793, the princess 

 Louisa was married to the crown-prince at Berlin, 

 and, when her husband ascended the throne, Nov. 

 16, 1797, she became, in her exalted station, the 

 model of a wife, a mother, and a queen, who allevi- 

 ated misery wherever she could, and promoted merit. 

 In 1806, when Prussia was suffering severely under 

 the burdens of war, this princess became still more 

 popular : indeed, her beauty and grace, her benevo- 

 lent and pure character, her sufferings and her forti- 

 tude, rendered her an object almost of adoration. 

 She died in 1810. 



LOUISBURG; capital of Cape Breton ; situated 

 on a point of land on the south-east side of the island; 

 Ion. 59 56' W.; lat. 45 54' N. Its streets are 

 regular and broad, consisting, for the most part, of 

 stone houses, with a large parade at a little distance 

 from the citadel, the inside of which is a fine square, 

 nearly 200 feet every way. The town is half an Eng- 

 lish mile in length, and two in circuit. The harbour 

 is excellent, and is more than half an English mile in 

 breadth in the narrowest part, and six miles in length 

 from north-east to south-west. The principal trade 

 of Louisburg is the cod fishery. It was taken from 

 the French by the British fleet, under Sir Peter War- 

 ren, and the American forces, commanded by Sir 

 William Pepperel, in the year 1745, but afterwards 

 restored to France, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 

 in 1748. It was again taken by the British, under 

 the command of admiral Boscawen and lieutenant- 

 general Amherst, in July, 1758, and its fortification's 

 have been since demolished. 



LOUIS D'OR ; a French gold coin, which re- 

 ceived its name from Louis XIII., who first coined 

 it in 1641. (See the article Coins.) The value of 

 the Louis is about eighteen shillings. Louis XIII. 

 coined, likewise, a piece of silver money, called 

 louis blanc, also ecus, and, among us, French, 

 crowns. 



LOUISIANA TERRITORY. The French, when 

 in possession of a great portion of the continent of 

 North America, seem to have applied this name, in 

 a vague manner, to all the territories claimed by 

 them south and west of Canada. In this sense, it 

 must Ire considered as coextensive with the valley of 

 the Mississippi, bounded on the east by the Alle- 



ghanies, and stretching westerly an unknown and 

 indefinite extent to the Spanish dominions and the 

 then unexplored wilds of the interior. By the treaty 

 of 1763, which made the Mississippi the boundary 

 between the British and French colonies, the name 

 was limited to that part of the valley west of the 

 river, but still of an unsettled extent westward. 

 This region was purchased of France by the United 

 States, by which it has been explored, and formed 

 into the states of Louisiana and Missouri, and 

 the territories of Arkansas and Missouri. We shall 

 here give a general account of the progress of dis- 

 covery in this great region, and of its history, refer- 

 ring, for local details, to the separate heads above 

 mentioned. The Spaniards were the first to colon- 

 ize, if not to discover, Florida, the western limits of 

 which were by no means accurately fixed ; and De 

 Soto was probably the first white man who saw the 

 Mississippi, which he crossed in one of his expedi- 

 tions, not far from the'., influx of the Red river. In 

 1673, a French missionary, Marquette, with Joliette, 

 a citizen of Quebec, crossed the country from Jake 

 Michigan to the Mississippi, which they descended 

 to the mouth of the Arkansas. See Recueil des 

 Voyages (Paris, 1681), published by Thevenot, as a 

 supplement to his collection. Six years later, De la 

 Salle, commander of a fort on lake Ontario, set out 

 to explore the country, having in company father 

 Hennepin. They passed the winter on the Illinois, 

 and La Salle returned to Canada to procure supplies, 

 leaving the missionary with orders to ascend the 

 Mississippi to its sources. In the spring of 1680, 

 Hennepin accordingly descended to the mouth of the 

 river, followed up its course to the falls of St Antho- 

 ny, and, on his return to France, published an ac- 

 count of his travels, in which he called the region 

 Louisiana, in honour of Louis XIV. See Hennepin. 



The first attempts at the colonization of this region 

 were not made till 1699, when an expedition sailed 

 from Rochefort, under the command of Lemoine 

 d'Ibberville, a Canadian naval officer of reputation, 

 who was the first to enter the Mississippi by sea, and 

 who laid the foundation of the first colony at Biloxi. 

 The Spaniards, who had not long before established 

 a settlement at Pensacola, protested against the 

 occupation of this country, which they claimed to be 

 included within the limits of Mexico, by the French, 

 but were not able to prevent their occupying a new 

 post on Mobile river, in 1702. The French had 

 kept up a communication between their colonies in 

 Canada and Louisiana, and had been active in 

 exploring the country, principally on the river and 

 to the east of it. In 1713, a census of the latter 

 colony gave a population of 400. In the year 1712, 

 Antoine de Crozat, who had amassed a fortune of 

 40,000,000 livres in the Indian trade, purchased a 

 grant of this country, with the exclusive right of 

 commerce for sixteen years. Disappointed in hia 

 speculations, Crozat gave up the grant in 1717, 

 and the Mississippi commercial company obtained 

 it. A new government was formed, consisting of a 

 governor, intendant, and royal council; and grants of 

 land were made to individuals. New Orleans was 

 founded, the cultivation of tobacco was introduced, 

 and miners were sent to work the mines near St 

 Louis ; but, in 1731, the company gave up the coun- 

 try to the crown. 



The early hostilities of the French with the Span- 

 ish and British colonists, and with the different 

 native tribes, it is not our intention to relate. (See 

 Natchez.) The struggle of the French and British 

 power in North America, from 1754, is a subject of 

 more interest. The French had scattered themselves 

 over the more central parts of the beautiful valley of 

 the Mississippi. Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Vincennes, St 



