278 LOUISIANA CEDED BY FRANCE TO SPAIN. [1762. 



que les dites terres, contrees, fleuves, rivieres et isles, soient et de- 

 meurent compris sous le nom du gouvernement de la Louisiane, qui 

 sera dependant du gouvernement general de la Nouvelle France, 

 auquel il demeurera subordonne ; et voulons en outre, que toutes 

 les terres que nous possedons, depuis les Illinois, soient reunies, en 

 tant que besoin est, au gouvernement general de la Nouvelle France, 

 et en fassent partie ; Nous reservant neanmoins d'augmenter, si 

 nous le jugeons a propos, l'etendue du gouvernement du dit pays 

 de la Louisiane." 



This description of the extent of Louisiana was sufficiently defi- 

 nite for the immediate purposes, of the concession : as the trade and 

 settlement of tHe country would necessarily be, for a long time, con- 

 fined to the vicinity of the great rivers, the precise determination of 

 its boundaries on the east and the west might well be deferred for 

 future arrangement with Great Britain and Spain. Crozat relin- 

 quished his privilege in 1717 ; the Illinois country was then annexed 

 to Louisiana, by a royal decree, and the whole region was granted 

 to the Compagnie d' Orient, better known as Law's Mississippi Com- 

 pany, which held it until 1732 : in that year it reverted to the 

 French crown, and was governed as a French province until 1769. 

 On the 3d of November, 1762, the preliminaries of peace were 

 signed at Paris, between France and Spain on the one part, and 

 England and Portugal on the other ; and on the same day, " the 

 most Christian king authorized his minister, the duke de Choiseul, 

 to deliver to the marquis di Grimaldi, the ambassador of the Catholic 

 king, in the most authentic form, an act, whereby his most Christian 

 majesty cedes, in entire possession, purely and simply, without ex- 

 ception, to his Catholic majesty, and his successors in perpetuity, all 

 the country known under the name of Louisiana, as also New Or- 

 leans and the island in which that city is situated." The cession 

 accordingly took place in form, on the 23d of the same month, in 

 precisely the same terms as to the extent of the territory ceded ; * 

 and on the 10th of February following, a treaty was concluded at 

 Paris, between France and Spain on the one part, and Great Britain 

 and Portugal on the other, by which Great Britain obtained posses- 

 sion of Canada, Florida, and the portion of Louisiana " east of a 

 line, drawn along the middle of the Mississippi, from its source to 



* The documents relating to this cession were kept secret until 1836, when copies 

 of them were obtained from the archives of the Department of Foreign Affairs at Mad- 

 rid, by the late J. M. White, of Florida; from which translations were made by the 

 author of this History, and published by the Senate of the United States, in 1837. 



