St. Louis - The Fourth City, Volume 1. Walter Barlow Stevens

interfere with this final decision. Therefore the force must stop at the Illinois (St. Louis) only twelve or fifteen days to rest and to take the necessary provisions. If they can shorten this time it will be a great deal better as any delay may prove of great disadvantage to the purpose intended in the erection of these establishments."

      To build the forts and to establish the colony at the mouth of the Missouri, which was to overshadow if it did not at once absorb St. Louis, Ulloa sent a military force which exceeded the garrison of St. Ange at St. Louis two to one. He sent a marine composed of ten oarsmen for each boat. Two French officers accompanied the expedition, one of whom was to be the engineer of the colony. A priest, a surgeon, a carpenter, a mason, a stone cutter and

      several laborers and apprentices were included. The families of the married soldiers were encouraged to go.

      "The workmen brought from Havana must be married and bring their families with them. Steps have been taken so that the marine people will also get married. In order to succeed great care must be taken and everything must be done in favor of the married men. Treat them nicely and prevent them in a prudent way from using much liquor."

      To the soldiers unmarried inducements to take wives with them were offered.

      "The captain will offer the sergeants and corporals and soldiers a dower if they wish to marry before they go. They can obtain wives among the Acadians. A sergeant will be given fifty dollars, a corporal forty dollars, a soldier thirty dollars to buy whatever furniture is most needed for their homes. They will be allotted some land so they can cultivate it. They will be allowed to work it during the days they are not on duty and when there is nothing urgent for them to do. The married soldier will live with his wife in the house that they build on the land provided he will return on the days when, he is on duty. This dower will be paid upon receipt given by the soldier, signed by the girl. The signature of the priest also must appear."

      Even more than the dower, Ulloa's plan to make a city at the mouth of the Missouri provided. Soldiers whose terms expired were to be induced to become settlers:

      "They must be persuaded to establish themselves there. Some land will be allotted them. They can take possession of it with the understanding that should they not be married within a year they shall lose the right to the land and will have to leave it."

      Merchants, from St. Louis or elsewhere, were to be made welcome in the settlement at the mouth of the Missouri. They were to be given lots on which to establish themselves.

      "They must be given to understand that within two years they must marry or else they will have to go away."

      Don Antonio was an astute promoter. It occurred to him that such regulations to encourage matrimony might be thwarted by a dearth of the gentler sex. He inserted in his seventy-six rules for the colony at the mouth of the Missouri the following:

      "In case people establish themselves there and cannot get married before their terms are over, because there are no women, the government must be advised so that steps will be taken to bring to the colony orphan girls or some Florida girls from Havana where there are plenty of nice girls without means. They are white and of very good morals."

      Ulloa held out the hope of almost immediate increase of population. The migration of the Acadians was to be turned to account for the proposed Spanish colonial metropolis at the mouth of the Missouri.

      "From news obtained we have learned that families of Acadians are to arrive. As soon as this occurs, these families to the number of thirty or forty, will be sent to increase the population. They are law abiding people

      of good morals, meek and religious. At the time of their departure instructions will be given as to the way in which they shall be received. Land will be allotted them in the same manner as to other settlers."

      Immediately upon the arrival of the expedition at the mouth of the Missouri the regulations required the planting of a large vegetable garden.

      "Corn fields must be sown immediately, large enough for the demands of the place, as everybody must have enough to eat and hunger must not be known there. Later on wheat will be sown."

      Ulloa evidently knew something of the region to which he was sending his colony with such elaborate instructions.

      "At the beginning of this establishment there is much to be done. But it is a great relief to realize that just by using the gun and powder we can get enough meat to eat; that the lands are fertile and everything can be produced in abundance, the climate is so good and the soil so rich. Also it is a great consolation to know that the climate is healthy and suitable for the people. Measures have been taken so that the largest possible number of families will come in order to have the best results."

      Rui came up the river with the troops and colonists of whom Ulloa expected so much. He stopped at St. Louis and then went on to the mouth of the Missouri. Immediately he discovered that the low, flat ground on the north side was no place for a fort. On the south side he selected a site on the rocky bluff some distance above the mouth of the river. There Rui put his force to work building Fort Charles, the Prince. He made no effort to establish a colony. The captain spent most of his time in St. Louis. Valleau, the surgeon of the party, prepared to acquire property and to locate in St. Louis. The Spanish officers were treated courteously by Laclede and St. Ange. They were given quarters. They made no attempt to establish authority in St. Louis but contented themselves with the fort building to the extent that they deemed practicable. They seem to have concluded very soon after their arrival that Laclede had chosen the best location for a settlement and that any attempt to overshadow it with Ulloa 's proposed colony at the mouth of the Missouri would fail.

      Ulloa sent Don Pedro Piernas from Natchez to St. Louis in August, 1768. Rui, who had headed the Spanish expedition to establish forts and a colony at the mouth of the Missouri was having trouble. A sergeant, twenty soldiers and the storekeeper had deserted and had gone back down the river that summer. The mission of Piernas was to supersede Rui at the fort. Ulloa had departed from New Orleans; O'Reilly with the fleet and the army was there in force to establish Spanish authority, when Piernas returned from St. Louis and made his report under date of October 31, 1769, addressed to General O'Reilly:

       Monsieur de St. Ange, an old French captain, is recognized as commandant of this settlement (St. Louis), and of all the district of the Ylinoeses; but not his authority, for lack of military strength, for he has no troops, and his orders and provisions are frustrated by their non-observance by several transient traders who are absorbing the country by dint of loans and are inspiring the other humble and settled inhabitants with their opposition, although the latter are of a different nature and sufficiently easy to manage with regularity and submission.

       The civil and military department is governed by a council composed of four useless habitants and one attorney, a notorious drunkard called Labusciere, who is the substitute of the one who was attorney general in the superior council of this colony. Although the common welfare ought to be the concern of all, they only look after their own individual interests. And although the good-for-nothing Monsieur St. Ange is the one who as first judge presides, whatever is determined by the fancy of the counselors is authorized and executed through the good intention of the latter 's respectable old age.

      Piernas was evidently impressed with the independent spirit of the community. His report tends to support the impression that consent of the governed entered largely into such government as existed. While at St. Louis Piernas had a personal experience with the St. Ange government. The details of it he reported to General O'Reilly, expressing his astonishment that the community should assume such an attitude toward the Spanish king. This affair of Piernas had much to do with the formation of his bad opinion of the local government. It is also illuminating as regards existing public sentiment at St. Louis in 1769.

      Although Piernas started from Natchez September 4, 1768, he did not reach "San Luis," as he wrote it until the end of February. He was caught by an early winter and a frozen river between Cape Girardeau and Cairo and" had to come the rest of the way overland. On the 6th of March he went to Fort San Carlos at the mouth of the Missouri.