u se
maintenir dans la possession de leur liberte et da leur
independance."--Charlevoix.]

[Footnote 420: "Il (Prior) etoit pareillement autorise a traite sur les
limites de l'Amerique septentrionale, et s'il plaisoit au roi, ces deux
articles pouvoient etre regles en peu de tems."--_Memoires de Torcy sur
la Paix d'Utrecht_, vol. iii., p. 426.]

[Footnote 421: It is hardly remembered at the present day that the
French nation once claimed, and had begun to colonize the whole region
which lies at the back of the thirteen original United States, from the
mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi, comprising both
the Canadas and the vast fertile valley of the Ohio, and had actually
occupied the two outlets of this whole region by its ports at Quebec and
New Orleans.[422] Canada, the oldest French colony, and the only one on
the continent to which that nation has sent any considerable number of
settlers, was under the management of an exclusive company, from 1663 to
the downfall of what was called the Mississippi Scheme, in 1720; and
this circumstance, still more, perhaps, than the vicious system of
granting the land to non-resident proprietors, to be held by seignorial
tenure, checked its progress. Louisiana, with more sources of surplus
wealth from climate and soil, was never a very thriving colony, and was
surrendered to Spain with little reluctance, from which last power its
dominion passed to the United States.

The French traders and hunters intermarried and mixed with the Indians
at the back of our settlements, and extended their scattered posts along
the whole course of the two vast rivers of that continent. Even at this
day, far away on the upper waters of these mighty streams, and beyond
the utmost limits reached by the backwoodsman, the traveler discovers
villages in which the aspect and social usages of the people, their
festivities and their solemnities, in which the white and red man mingle
on equal terms, strangely contrast with the habits of the
Anglo-American, and announce to him, on his first approach, their Gallic
origin.--Merivale, vol. i., p. 58; Sismondi, _Etudes sur L'Ecole
Politique_, vol. ii., p. 200; Latrobe.]

[Footnote 422: "La ville de Nouvelle Orleans fut fondee dans l'annee
1717. M. de Bienville fit choix de la situation. On a nomme cetto
fameuse ville la Nouvelle Orleans. Ceux qui lui ont donne ce nom
croyoient qu' Orleans est du genre feminin, mais qu' importe? l'usage
est eta