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

knowledge of the elegant language in which it is written can be permitted to say,— "St. Ange de Bellerive " may be rendered as having been the Blessed Angel of the beautiful waterside. He, supported by the unanimous voice of his constituents, did and performed every act and deed deemed necessary and proper for the common weal of all without fear, favor or affection. His numerous grants of land, to their honor be it spoken, were afterwards confirmed by the Spaniards and again reconfirmed by United States commissioners, notwithstanding the efforts of the speculating landsharks who sought to impugn their validity.

      The late Pierre Chouteau and Judge Walter B. Douglas made exhaustive investigation of the St. Ange government. Both had access to the most recent discoveries among the archives. They arrived at radically different conclusions and only a few months before Mr. Chouteau's death in 1910, engaged in a good-humored controversy to convince each other. Mr. Chouteau, arguing from records as he interpreted them and from traditions with which, as a descendant of Laclede he was familiar, held to the view that Laclede was the master mind in the government as he had been in the founding of St. Louis. He believed that when St. Ange went beyond the exercise of military authority to protect the habitants and to insure good order, he did so by virtue of the desire of the community expressed through the leading spirits of whom Laclede was chief. Mr. Chouteau summed up his argument, in which he quoted from the treaty, from the order of evacuation, from the diary of Aubry and from various other sources, with these words:

       St. Ange was cordially welcomed at St. Louis; he organized the little settlement as a military post, but refused to assume civil authority for fully three months, as the scanty instructions creating the detail in no way provided for the unexpected events which occurred, and the general orders of the evacuation carrying out the stipulation of the Treaty of Paris would have forbidden, had such an act been thought possible. St. Ange hesitated, but after seeing the perplexed state of uncertainty prevailing, with the unanimous call of the inhabitants, proclaimed himself acting governor. Not doubting the wisdom of this act, but wishing to avoid any appearance of rebellion he at once reported to Aubry. If not by commission, at least by written communication, St. Ange 's acts were approved, and authority was granted by Ulloa to continue the civil government he bad formed on Spanish soil under the banner of France. In 1768 Ulloa made provision for the maintenance and pay of the troops and St. Louis was relieved of this burden.

      It was the conviction of Mr. Chouteau that the civil government of St. Louis, previous to the coming of the first Spanish governor in 1770, was republican in spirit, if crude in form. The records of the period, as Mr. Chouteau read them, conveyed the impression that while reports were made by the St. Ange government to Aubry at New Orleans, St. Louis was left to manage its own affairs with little or no exercise of authority from New Orleans.

      Judge Douglas, on the contrary, believed that St. Ange moved from Fort Chartres bringing with him the officers of the government there and continued to exercise in St. Louis the same functions with the same authority that he did east of the Mississippi previous to the delivery of Fort Chartres to the British. He thought that Louis Houck, in his "History of Missouri," had "reached the only tenable conclusion, which is that the story of St. Ange's election to the governorship had its origin in somebody's imagination and is the baseless fabric of a vision." Judge Douglas said that "a very thorough search has revealed no earlier statement of St. Ange's election by the people than that made in the Missouri Republican on the 10th of January, 1854. Though this newspaper statement cites no authority, and, although no authority has ever been found to support what is there said, the story has been followed with qualification or elaboration by nearly every writer on Missouri history since its publication."

      Mr. Houck sums up his estimate of Laclede's character and reviews his activities in these words:

       That he was a man of enterprise, of courage, of resolution and tenacity of purpose is certain; that be was far seeing and not devoid of imagination is shown in the selection he made of the site where is now located his great city, and whose glory and magnificence he could even then see in the dim future. The fact alone that he, of all the Frenchmen locating trading posts at that early day in the Mississippi Valley, did select, not by chance but evidently upon mature consideration, location for a great city, which has been ratified by all men since as eminently wise, impresses upon us his great intellectual forethought. That be was full of energy is shown by his frequent journeys to New Orleans; for it was then no easy task for travelers to go a thousand miles up and down a great lonely river, enduring every privation, beset by every danger. That he also traveled through the interior of our state; that the paddles of his canoe dipped the waters of the Missouri, the Osage, the Gasconade, and even the Platte, we feel certain. That be was a man of liberal spirit is shown by the fact that, without hesitation, he invited his countrymen to his own trading post, when they became agitated about the cession east of the Mississippi to England, thus bringing competitors to his own door. That when an emergency arose he was capable of decided original action, is shown by the fact that, although his firm only had a concession to trade with the Indians, and no land grant, he nevertheless assigned to all new immigrants landed locations, exercising a power not delegated or granted, and at that period, both under French and Spanish rule, requiring more than ordinary self-reliance. That he was wise is shown by the fact that he induced St. Ange to remove the seat of his government from Fort de Chartres to his trading poet rather than to Ste. Genevieve, the nearest, oldest and most important settlement on the west side of the river, and then caused St. Ange to expressly grant the lots assigned by him to the first settlers, opening a record of land grants, and in this way placing upon a firm basis his work. All these characteristic we can infer from what he did, but no more.

      The chain of events, the official record, can be given in brief but complete form.

      On the 30th of January, 1764, D'Abbadie, the representative of France in Louisiana, forwarded orders to Neyon de Villiers, commandant of the Illinois, to evacuate the posts and the territory and to report at New Orleans with his troops and with as many of the settlers as chose to come with him. The order was comprehensive. It applied to the west side as well as to the east side of the Mississippi. While concentrating the troops from the several posts on both sides of the river, and as far as Vincennes, Neyon received a second order telling him to leave a garrison of forty men under St. Ange at Fort Chartres to remain until the arrival of the English garrison. The second order was sent at the request of Robert Farmer, British commandant, to whom the French had shortly before turned over Mobile under the treaty of cession to England.

      Farmer had intended to have British garrisons take possession of the posts in the Illinois as Neyon de Villiers evacuated them. He started Major Loftus with an expedition up the Mississippi in 1764. The British were fired on by the Tunica Indians in ambush not far above New Orleans and returned down the river. To Farmer was brought the disquieting news that Pontiac was organizing the Indian tribes to prevent British occupation of the posts in the Illinois country. Then it was that Farmer asked that a detail be left at Fort Chartres to hold the place until the British could get there. To this the representative of France assented. The order to Neyon to leave St. Ange with a garrison of forty men was forwarded. St. Ange became temporary commandant of Fort Chartres. Neyon de Villiers completed his arrangements and sailed from Fort Chartres for New Orleans June 15th, 1764.

      The second British movement to occupy Fort Chartres was from Canada. Again an expedition turned back. Pontiac's force was deemed too strong to venture hostilities. The third attempt to send troops to Fort Chartres was made by way of Pittsburg and the Ohio river. A force of Highlanders, one hundred strong, reached the fort. St. Ange made delivery on October 10th, 1765. He had remained fifteen months after the departure of Neyon de Villiers. In the meantime the death of D'Abbadie had occurred. Aubry, next in command, was the French representative at New Orleans. He was waiting only to receive the Spanish and to put Spain formally in possession of the isle of Orleans and of the territory west of the Mississippi. France had ceded; Spain had accepted the territory, but had not occupied it. Aubry kept a journal. He recorded in minute detail the progress of events in the chaotic period between the receipt of the letter directing that Spain be put in possession of Louisiana and the consummation of the delivery — a period of five years, from 1764 to 1769. The tenor of Aubry 's journal seems to show