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TEXAS 'STATE LIBRARY
in 1700, when there was no Spanish colony thereabouts; the Yattassee and Natchitoches Indians being in possession of the country. Jle ,r:;,, appointed commandant of the ~lississippi, or of Louisiana, in 17lu, and gov. gen. in '18. Early in his command, he sent some men towards the Red River-the report was, they had traversed the country S. W. of ~atchitoche~; without finding a ~panish settlement, and thence to the country west of Red river, where at two leagues west of Rio Bravo or Rio del Norte, they found the mission of St. John Bapiist, com- mamled by captain Haymond. In 1718, Bienville despatched Chateague to take por,scssion of the bay of St Joseph, which was soon after aban- cloucd from want of provisions; and again orcupicd b_y the Spaniards. But in 1717, the French government, to terminate if possible the dis- putes concerning the boundaries of the respective colonies of France and Spain in this question, sent out a commission by .M. de la Harpe to Louisiana, to explore the country by sea and land, and ascertain the limits of the province. La Harpe was not inactiYe. He not only asc·ertaincd the limits, but endeavorccl to secure them, by building a fort at the northwest boundary, in a Natsoo village west of Natch- itoc·hcs, and then obiaining from Bienville the command of an expe- dition to the bay of St Bernard, with orders to build another fort on the southwest limits, wherever most convenient-he coasted 100 leagues west of the l\Iississippi an<l (August 27th, 1721) entered the bay known to the Spaniards as Espiritu Santo, nnd to the French, as St. Joseph; hut his weakened forces and hostility of the savages pre- vented him from forming any pemrnnent establishment. The bay of St Bernard was a common appellatiYe for the coast between the Sabine and pass of Cavallo, rather than the name of a particular, and from the verbal dei,eription of La Harpe in his report, it is evident that he entered Gah·eston bay, lying in latitude 29 deg. 30 min.; and 59 cleg. west longitude from Greenwich or 18 from Washington; and it is also manifest that the bay he entered was that discovered by La Salle. But as this report of La Harpe is that made by the commissioner e;;pecially sent by the French government to ascertain and acljust the boundaries between the North American colonies of France and Spain, and is that relied on in all treaties concerning those colonies, it may be well to notice that it concludes in these words-"rhe extent of Louisiana from west to cast is from the bay discovered in August, 1721, by :\1. de la Harpe, lat. 2D deg. 12m.; long. 282 east from Ferro (18 we,:t from Washington) to the Perdido, between :Mobile and Pensa- cola-hm·ing 160 marine leagues of coast.' Supposing therefore there is any doubt concerning the place first colonized by La Salle in 1685, there can he none concerning that established in 1721 by La Harpe. All the maps_of Louisiana published at the commencement of the 18th centur_v, Spanish as well as French, German as British, are de- lineated nc-c-orcling to the report of La Harpe- as being official a_nd obligatory on France and Spain. Some of those maps still remam; and thouo-h 1hH clo not all com•ur in the northern limits of the prov- i11ce of L~do,·icl'ana or Louisiana, thcv coincide in rlefining the Perdido as the eastC'rn boundary between .the colonies of France and Spain, and the Hio clcl Norte as the southern. Here then is the gist of the mattl:'r: for the extent of the JH'OYince of Louisiana as at this time C'iaimed or occupied hy Franre, was retrocccled by Spain to thnt coun-
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