A census of the province, taken in 1788, just ninety years from the date of the first settlement, showed a population of 42,611. Of these, 19,445 were whites, 21,465 slaves, and 1701 colored freemen. New Orleans, then 70 years old, contained 5,338 inhabitants. The Baron de Carondelet was appointed Governor in 1792. During his administration, in the year 1794, the first newspaper, called "Le Moniteur," was published in Louisiana. At the same period the Canal Carondelet was commenced; and the cultivation of indigo and the sugar cane, which had hitherto been the great staples of the colony, was suspended. In 1795, by the treaty of St. Lorenzo, the navigation of the Mississippi was opened to the western States of the Union, and the great impulse given to the commercial prosperity of New Orleans, which secured forever the pre-eminence of the Crescent City. The same treaty defined the boundaries, as they now exist, between Florida and Mississippi. But Carondelet, being rather more tardy in yielding possession, than suited the active, enterprising spirit of the Americans, the territory was seized by an armed force, under Andrew Elliott. Two years after this, a plan set on foot by Carondelet, to dismember the American Union, by drawing the Western States into a separate compact, was detected and defeated by the address of General Wilkinson. Whether Aaron Burr was in the plot, or only took a hint from it a few years later, does not appear of record. Carondelet was succeeded by Gayosa de Lamor, Casa Calvo, and Salvado, who, successively, but for a very brief period, wielded the chief magistracy of the colony. In 1803, Louisiana was re-transferred to France, and immediately sold to the United States for 15,000,000 of dollars. The treaty which accomplished this important object was entered into on the 30th of April. Possession was taken, in behalf of the United States, by General Wilkinson and William C. Claiborne, amid the rejoicings of a people attached to liberty, and eager to grasp at any opportunity to shake off the yoke of Spain. The population of Louisiana, at the time of the purchase, did not exceed fifty thousand, exclusive of the Indians, and these were scattered over every part of its immense territory. Seven years after, the population had nearly trebled, and her prosperity had advanced in equal proportion. The year 1812 was a memorable era in the history of Louisiana, and marked with incidents never to be forgotten by her citizens. It was in this year, that the first Steam Boat was seen on the bosom of "the great river," now alive with hundreds of these winged messengers, plying to and fro. In the same year war was declared with Great Britain, and Louisiana, as now constituted, was admitted, as an independent State, into the great American Confederacy. [Illustration: The Cotton Plant] THE STATE OF LOUISIANA [Illustration: Plantation House and Works]