[294] Gayarre, _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (1846), i. 69. Benard de la Harpe, _Journal historique_ (1831), 20. Coxe says, in the preface to his _Description of Carolana_ (1722), that "the present proprietor of Carolana, my honour'd Father, ... was the author of this English voyage to the Mississippi, having in the year 1698 equipp'd and fitted out Two Ships for Discovery by Sea, and also for building a Fortification and settling a Colony by land; there being in both vessels, besides Sailors and Common Men, above Thirty English and French Volunteers." Coxe adds that the expedition would have succeeded if one of the commanders had not failed to do his duty. [295] Gayarre, _Histoire de la Louisiane_ (1846), i. 69. [296] _Memoire pour servir d'Instruction au Sieur d'Iberville_ (Margry, iv. 348). [297] _Journal du Voyage du Chevalier d'Iberville sur le Vaisseau du Roy la Renommee_, 1699, 1700. [298] _Memoire de la Junte de Guerre des Indes. Le Ministre de la Marine au Duc d'Harcourt_ (Margry, iv. 553, 568). [299] Iberville wrote in 1701 a long memorial, in which he tried to convince the Spanish court that it was for the interest of Spain that the French should form a barrier between her colonies and those of England, which, he says, were about to seize the country as far as the Mississippi and beyond it. [300] _Nicolas de la Salle au Ministre, 7 Septembre, 1706._ [301] "Il est clair que M. de Bienville n'a pas les qualites necessaires pour bien gouverner la colonie." Gayarre found this curious letter in the Archives de la Marine. [302] _Depeche de Bienville, 12 Octobre, 1708._ [303] D'Artaguette in Gayarre, _Histoire de la Louisiane_. This valuable work consists of a series of documents, connected by a thread of narrative. [304] _La Mothe-Cadillac au Ministre_, in Gayarre, i. 104, 105. [305] "Que si M. de Lamothe-Cadillac lui portoit tant d'animositie, c'etoit a cause du refus qu'il avoit fait d'epouser sa fille."--_Bienville in Gayarre_, i. 116. [306] _Memoire du Cure de la Vente, 1714._ [307] The earlier cargoes of girls seem to have been better chosen, and there was no difficulty in mating them. Serious disputes sometimes rose from the competition of rival suitors.--Dumont, _Memoires historiques de la Louisiane_, chap. v. [308] Prominent officials of the colony are said to have got wives from these sources. Nicolas de la Salle is reported to have had two in succession, both from the hospitals. Benard de la Harpe, 107 (ed. 1831). [309] _Lettres patentes en forme d'Edit portant etablissement de la Compagnie d'Occident_, in Le Page du Pratz, _Histoire de la Louisiane_, i. 47. [310] _Reglement de Regie, 1721._ [311] Saint-Simon, _Memoires_ (ed. Cheruel), xvii. 461. [312] _De Chassin au Ministre, 1 Juillet, 1722_, in Gayarre, i. 190.