History of Louisisana | Page 4

Squirrel. Roseate Spoonbill.
Snowy Heron White Ibis. Tobacco Worm. Cock Roach Cat Fish. Gar
Fish. Spoonbill Catfish Indian Buffalo Hunt on Foot Dance of the
Natchez Indians Burial of the Stung Serpent Bringing the Pipe of Peace
Torture of Prisoners. Plan of Fort

{i}
PREFACE
The History of Louisiana, which we here present to the public, was
wrote by a planter of sixteen years experience in that country, who had
likewise the advantage of being overseer or director of the public
plantations, both when they belonged to the company, and afterwards
when they fell to the crown; by which means he had the best
opportunities of knowing the nature of the soil and climate, and what
they produce, or what improvements they are likely to admit of; a thing
in which this nation is, without doubt, highly concerned and interested.
And when our author published this history in 1758, he had likewise
the advantage, not only of the accounts of F. Charlevoix, and others,
but of the Historical Memoirs of Louisiana, published at Paris in 1753,
by Mr. Dumont, an officer who resided two-and-twenty years in the
country, and was personally concerned and acquainted with many of
the transactions in it; from whom we have extracted some passages, to

render this account more complete.
But whatever opportunities our author had of gaining a knowledge of
his subject, it must be owned, that he made his accounts of it very
perplexed. By endeavoring to take in every thing, he descends to many
trifles; and by dwelling too long on a subject, he comes to render it
obscure, by being prolix in things which hardly relate to what he treats
of. He interrupts the thread of his discourse with private anecdotes,
long harangues, and tedious narrations, which have little or no relation
to the subject, and are of much less consequence to the reader. The
want of method and order throughout the whole work is still more
apparent; and that, joined to these digressions, renders his accounts,
however just and interesting, so tedious and irksome to read, and at the
same time so indistinct, that few seem to have reaped the benefit of
them. For these reasons it was necessary to methodize the whole work;
to abridge some parts of it; and to leave out many things that appear to
be trifling. This we have endeavored to do in the translation, by
reducing the whole work to four general heads or books; and {ii} by
bringing the several subjects treated of, the accounts of which lie
scattered up and down in different parts of the original, under these
their proper heads; so that the connection between them, and the
accounts of any one subject, may more easily appear.
This, it is presumed, will appear to be a subject of no small
consequence and importance to this nation, especially at this time. The
countries here treated of, have not only by right always belonged to
Great-Britain, but part of them is now acknowledged to it by the former
usurpers: and it is to be hoped, that the nation may now reap some
advantages from those countries, on which it has expended so many
millions; which there is no more likely way to do, than by making them
better known in the first place, and by learning from the experience of
others, what they do or are likely to produce, that may turn to account
to the nation.
It has been generally suspected, that this nation has suffered much,
from the want of a due knowledge of her dominions in America, which
we should endeavor to prevent for the future. If that may be said of any
part of America, it certainly may of those countries, which have been
called by the French Louisiana. They have not only included under that
name all the western parts of Virginia and Carolina; and thereby

imagined, that they had, from this nominal title, a just right to those
antient dominions of the crown of Britain: but what is of worse
consequence perhaps, they have equally deceived and imposed upon
many, by the extravagant hopes and unreasonable expectations they
had formed to themselves, of the vast advantages they were to reap
from those countries, as soon as they had usurped them; which when
they came to be disappointed in, they ran from one extreme to another,
and condemned the country as good for nothing, because it did not
answer the extravagant hopes they had conceived of it; and we seem to
be misled by their prejudices, and to be drawn into mistakes by their
artifice or folly. Because the Missisippi scheme failed in 1719, every
other reasonable scheme of improving that country, and of reaping any
advantage from it, must do the same. It is to wipe off these