e toil and a constant exposure to hardships and
peril!

After the charter of Crouzat, in September 1712, and a subsequent
charter to a new corporation five years after, the settlement of the
colony was better attended to, and measures taken to advance its
prosperity. Unfortunately for humanity, and perhaps for the ultimate
happiness of the province, it was found, or thought, to be necessary, to
introduce the negroes of Africa, for the cultivation of the soil. This
species of labour was resorted to in Louisiana in the year 1719.

"Experience had shown the great fertility of the land in
Louisiana, especially on the banks of the Mississippi, and its
aptitude to the culture of tobacco, indigo, cotton, and rice;
but the labourers were very few, and many of the new comers had
fallen victims to the climate. The survivers found it
impossible to work in the field during the great heats of the
summer, protracted through a part of the autumn. The necessity
of obtaining cultivators from Africa, was apparent; the company
yielding thereto, sent two of its ships to the coast of Africa,
from whence they brought five hundred negroes, who were landed
at Pensacola. They brought thirty recruits to the garrison."

Whatever may hereafter be the consequences of this determination to
employ slave-labour, its immediate effects were beneficial to the
planters; and in the next year, it is said that the company represented
to the king that "the planters had been enabled, by the introduction of
a great number of negroes, to clear and cultivate large tracts of land."
It will be observed, that at this time the cultivation of sugar was not
thought of.

The discursive manner of our author frequently furnishes us with
anecdotes of interest, sometimes relating to habits of the Indians, and
sometimes to other persons and subjects. In this class we reckon an
account of a female adventurer who appeared in Louisiana so early as the
year 1721.--

"There came, among the German new comers, a female adventurer.
She had been attached to the wardrobe of the wife of the
Czarowitz Alexius Petrowitz, the only son of Peter the Great.
She imposed on the credulity of many persons, but particularly
on that of an officer of the garrison of Mobile, (called by
Bossu, the Chevalier d'Aubant, and by the king of Prussia,
Maldeck) who having seen the princess at St. Petersburg,