Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II LOUISIANA UNDER SPAIN When Canada was lost to France the Ohio Valley was also lost, and the region, too, south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi River. There remaiiieiL to. France in America only NevTTOrleans and the unexplored area west of the Mississippi, to which now the name Louisiana became restricted. Sore and discouraged through. her misfortunes, she abandoned for a time dreams of foreign empire, feeling that her interests would be best served by fostering development at home. To win the good-will of Spain, whom, in her weakness, she desired as an ally, Louis XV signed a treaty by which Louisiana was ceded to that power -- a treaty regretted by the nation and long kept secret,. Thus France stripped herself of her American Barbe-Marbois, History of Louisiana. possessions. Naturally, desire for revenge upon England constantly rankled -- a craving that was fully gratified twenty years later, when, through her well-timed and energetic help, the Thirteen Colonies wrested themselves free, and for the moment Britain appeared to undergo a humiliation deeper even than that which her rival had suffered. D'Abadie, the French governor at New Orleans, at last broke the news of the cession to the people. The hearts of the creoles were filled with consternation that their country should thus withdraw itself. Their fate seemed almost worse than that of the Aca- dians, whom the English had driven out; many of the Acadians, indeed, who Had sought a refuge in Louisiana, now for a second time underwent expatriation. The Spaniards were slow in taking hold, leaving the French administration undisturbed for more than five years. Not until 1768, while the colonists were still begging not to be alienated, did the Spanish governor appear. Gayarre, the creole his...