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 -1763] fifth period of colonisation. 93 worth, in spite of the large sums that had been sunk in the colony. Under the Crown the colony was freed of all export and import duties, and under these conditions it made progress. It was characteristic of the French scheme that when Louisiana again came under the Crown it remained theoretically part of New France, the Council consisting of the Governor-General of New France, the Governor and Commissary (analo- gous to the intendant) of Louisiana, with the Mayor of New Orleans, the Attorney -general, and six Councillors. The best hope for the colony, as Charlevoix, de la Gallissoniere and de Bougainville saw, was to develop the corn-growing lands of Detroit and Illinois, where La Mothe Cadillac had formed a hopeful settlement in 1702. The chief interest of the Louisiana scheme lay in the immense possibilities that opened before it if the whole Mississippi valley could be brought into a real connection with the Canadian Lakes. The vast and premature schemes of the Company furnished at least this one fertile idea. Raynal describes the bounds of Louisiana as, on the south, the sea, on the east, Florida and Carolina, on the west, New Mexico, on the north, Canada and unknown lands. The mean breadth he put at 200 leagues, the length he found it impossible to determine. But even in his time (1770) the ascent of the Mississippi occupied three and a half months ; and the voyageurs were dependent on the Indian hunters for food. At the height of their development under the French, Upper and Lower Louisiana together numbered only 7000 inhabitants, not counting troops; and this population covered a range of 5000 leagues. Raynal mentions the exports sent to the West Indian islands, chiefly tallow, smoked meat, timber and tar, and to France, indigo, hides and peltry, valued at about two million livres. The public expenses were always abnormally great, the currency difficulty exceptionally oppressive ; and the greedy officials who ruled the forts, with special privileges of trade with the Indians, enjoyed a monopoly more dangerous than that in Canada. The loss of Canada and the abandonment to Great Britain of claims east of the Mississippi determined the fate of Louisiana. The small value placed by the French government on the remnant who crossed to the other bank of the river was proved by the treaty in 1762, which ceded the western half of the colony to Spain. In 1800 the Secret Treaty of San Ildefonso restored Louisiana to France, much to the annoyance of the United States ; but, in 1803, the imminence of war between France and Great Britain induced Napoleon to sell it to the American govern- ment for fifteen million dollars. In Canada the rise and fall of Law's Company were scarcely felt. Unfortunately no hopes for any rapid development of that colony were raised in France, and the governors pressed in vain for the despatch of emigrants. The statements of the amount of Canadian trade vary greatly, but all agree that the expenses of government no longer ate up the whole of the profits. A small balance of about 250,000 livres found its