But where were the eastern boundary of Louisiana, and the western limit of Florida to be fixed? Had the French expedition under Iberville reached Florida before Arriola’s, Pensacola would have been included in Louisiana, and afterwards in the State of Alabama. But Arriola’s settlement was first, in point of time; and it is to him must be attributed the establishment of the Perdido as the boundary line between the French and Spanish colonies, and the consequent exclusion of Pensacola from the limits of the great State of Alabama, her political influence, her fostering care, and, comparatively, from the vitalizing influence of her vast mineral and agricultural resources. The interest of history consists not in the mere knowledge or contemplation of events as isolated facts, but in studying their interrelations, and following their threads of connection through all the meshes of cause and effect. It is, therefore, an interesting reflection that the settlement of Arriola may not have been the absolute, though it was the apparent, cause of the consequences above pointed out. Behind it, in the shadow of a century and a third, may perchance be discerned the ultimate and final cause of those consequences in the settlement of de Luna. He planted the first colony, and because he so did, Arriola settled his on that spot upon which the lost chart and tradition probably coincided in fixing the Pensacola of 1559. How illustrative of the truth that as one human life can have but one beginning, so it is with that aggregate of human lives which we call a people. “In the almighty hands of eternal God, a people’s history is interrupted and recommenced—never.”[2] ----- Footnote 2: The last sentence of Guizot’s History of France. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV. Iberville’s Expedition—Settlement at Biloxi and Mobile—Amicable Relations of the French and Spanish Colonies from 1700-1719. The French expedition referred to in the previous chapter, the delay of which was so fateful to the growth and commercial future of Pensacola, appeared off the mouth of the harbor in January, 1699. But, observing the Spanish flag flying from the mast-head of two war vessels lying in the Bay and from the flagstaff of Fort San Carlos, they did not enter the harbor, but cast anchor off the Island of Santa Rosa. Thence an application was made to the Spanish governor for permission to enter, which was promptly refused. After that curt refusal of the Spaniards, the fleet, consisting of three vessels under the command of Lemoine d’ Iberville, accompanied by his brothers, Bienvielle and Sauville, which was taking out a colony with the necessary supplies to settle southern Louisiana, sailed westward and took formal possession of the country west of the Perdido river.