The little fort needed repairs;[75] and La Galissonière, with his usual sagacity, wrote, “The little colony of Illinois ought not to be left to perish. The King must sacrifice for its support. The principal advantage of the country is its extreme productiveness; and its connection with Canada and Louisiana must be maintained.” Apparently the urgency of La Galissonière produced some results. Macarty, the officer who had command of the post at the time of the collision between the French and the English at the headwaters of the Ohio, arrived at Fort Chartres in the winter of 1751-1752. Bossu, who accompanied him, writes from the fort: “The Sieur Saussier, an engineer, has made a plan for constructing a new fort here, according to the intention of the Court. It will bear the same name with the old one, which is called Fort de Chartres.” In January, 1755, Bossu arrived a second time at the post, having in the mean time made a trip to New Orleans. He says: “I came once more to the old Fort Chartres, where I lay in a hut till I could get a lodging in the new fort, which is almost finished. It is built of freestone, flanked with four bastions, and capable of containing a garrison of three hundred[76] men.” The construction of this fort was the final effort of France in the Valley of the Mississippi. It proved to be of even less value than the fortress at Louisbourg, upon which so much money was wasted, for it fell into the hands of the enemy without the formality of a siege. On the other side of the river, Bournion, who in 1721 bore the title of “Commandant du Missouri,” founded Fort Orleans on an island in the Missouri, and left a garrison[77] there, which was afterward massacred. Misère, now known as St. Genevieve, was founded about 1740. As events drifted on toward the end of the French occupation, the difficulties of the French Government elsewhere compelled the absolute neglect of Louisiana. Kerlerec writes in 1757 that he has not heard from the Court for two years; and in 1761 the French ambassador, in a memorial to the Court at Madrid, states that for four years no assistance had been furnished to the colony. An estimate of the population made in 1745 places the number of inhabitants at six thousand and twenty, of whom four thousand were white. Compared with the number at the time of the retrocession by the Company, it shows a falling off of a thousand whites. It is probable that the white population was even less at a later day. It is not strange that the feeble results of this long occupation should have led the Most Christian King to the determination to present the colony to his very dear and much-loved cousin, the King of Spain,—an act which was consummated in 1762, but not made public at the time. Its influence was not felt until later. * * * * *