AN HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 13 
and bloody massacres of defenceless settlements. Still the 
country was difficult to reach, and means of conveyance 
were expensive and hazardous, rendering the progress of 
settlement slow and uncertain. It was under these circum- 
stances that the French government, desirous of promoting 
a more rapid growth, in accordance with the views then 
prevalent, granted a monopoly of the trade of the country 
for fifteen years, to a successful and wealthy merchant, M. 
Crozat, this grant bearing date September 14th, 1712. Af 
ter an unsuccessful experience of five years, during which 
Crozat, instead of realizing immense wealth, only dimin- 
ished his private fortunes, and failed to add to the growth 
and prosperity of the country, he surrendered his grant, 
which passed into the hands of an organization known as 
the Mississippi Company, under the management of a cele- 
brated financial schemer, John Law, a visionary Scotchman. 
The ostensible plan of this company was to enrich every 
body connected with it by a gigantic system of credit, based 
on undeveloped mineral wealth and agricultural resources 
yet unrealized. ‘The first effect of this scheme was greatly 
to encourage emigration; glowing prospects were held out 
to the settler of sudden wealth attained without labor, and 
independent of capital. Hence, at this period we note the 
location of some of the principal towns of Lower Louisiana, 
including New Orleans, dating from 1720, Natchez, as early 
as 1716. Upper Louisiana was too far removed to share to 
any considerable extent in these enterprises, though mining 
schemes were extensively projected in the lead regions of 
Missouri and the Upper Mississippi valley. The final col- 
lapse of this bubble, which, after a nominal existence of 
barely fifteen years, finally exploded, though necessarily dis- 
astrous to those directly engaged, who had at the com- 
mencement anything to loose, nevertheless, to the country 
at large, left some permanent benefits, among which we 
may enuroerate a manifest increase of population, more at- 
a ee ee 
