Suchergebnisse

Recognition of the independence of Texas. Reports, incidents and accounts on the government of the United States of America. Don Juan de la Granja suggests policies and measures that would defeat the American invaders. p. 1-2 Map of the State of Sonora around the time of the U.S. invasion. p. 3-82 Orders to the government of the State of Mexico for its defense, a request for 3,000 men in Texcoco. p. 83-84. C. Olaguibel, Governor of the State of Mexico, nullifies the commission that was given to Colonel José de la Piedra to recruit people, because the provisions of this order have been rendered ineffective. p. 85-88 Defensive plan presented by Isidro Reyes, to prevent the American invaders from taking over Durango and Zacatecas and proceeding further inland. p. 89-94 The government of San Luis Potosi requests arms and ammunition for the forces organized to defend the State and that permanent forces not withdraw. The government is ordered to reinforce the Northern Army National Guard of the State. p. 95-106 Circular and decree that prevents the federal government from applying some of the revenues of the States based upon a quota of blood, in regards to the U.S. invasion. p. 107-177. The District government requests instructions to be followed by the municipality of the capital before the advance of the invading forces. p. 178. The Minister of War reports that the city has declared a state of siege, and the appointment of General Nicolas Bravo as Army Commander in Chief of both the District and the State of Mexico. ff 179-181. The Minister of War announced the names of individuals who have been given permission to organize guerrillas against the invaders. p. 182-187 For the recognition of the independence of Texas. Reports, incidents and several accounts on the government of the United States of America. p. 188-273. Order to the government in Puebla to provide resources to the Commanding General of the Mexican Army and make them available to the State National Guard. p. 274-287. The ammunitions contractor Zamudio Faustino request transportation resources to ship supplies to Mexican forces fighting against the U.S. forces and criticizes the mayor of Tlaxcala. p. 288-293. General Ignacio Basadre receives instructions from the government to address the Governors of Querétaro, Guanajuato, and Jalisco and organize resources for the defense of the capital. p. 294-309. The Archbishop of Mexico, sends two printed copies of the Pastoral addressed to his parishioners on the event of war with the Americans. p. 310-311. The government of the state of Tamaulipas reports on the current condition of the state. p. 312-317 The federal government orders the governors of the states to enlist troops and reconcentrate them in the capital of the Republic. p. 318-352. The Minister of War, reports that Antonio del Castillo professor of Mineralogy in the mining school, offers his services to the army to fight against the Americans. p. 353-358. The Mexican Embassy in France, reports on the decision of the U.S. Cabinet to open Mexican ports to traffic from neutral nations under the new tariff laws. p. 359-381.

Announcement by Alden Partridge that the Fall term of the Gymnasium and Military Collegiate Institute will open on 20 August 1850. Includes a general description of the system of education and course of study offered at the school as well as information about the school's "Ladies' Department." ; GYMNASIUM AND MILITARY COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE. AT PEMBROKE, N. H. The FALL TERM of this Institution will commence on the 20th of August, under the personal instruction of the Su-perintendent, assisted by Professor BENJAMIN, and such other Assistants as may be necessary. The following branches of Literature, Science, and Practical Instruction, constitute the course of Education at the Institute, viz. The Latin, Greek, French and English Languages ; Arithmetic ; the Construction and Use of Logarithms ; Algebra ; Geometry ; Trigonometry ; Planometry ; Stereometry; Mensuration of Heights and Distances ; Practical Geometry, in-cluding particularly Surveying and Levelling ; Civil Engineering ; Conic Sections ; the Use of the Barometer, with its ap-plication to measuring the altitudes of Mountains and other Eminences ; Natural Philosophy ; Astronomy; the Elements of Chemistry and Electricity ; Optics ; Navigation ; Geography, with the Use of Maps and Globes ; Composition and Decla-mation ; Logic ; History; Moral Philosophy ; Natural and Political Law ; the Law of Nations ; Military Law ; the Con-stitution of the United States, and the Science of Civil Government generally ; Metaphysics ; Political Economy ; Agricul-ture ; Permanent and Field Fortification, both Ancient and Modern ; Field Engineering ; the Construction of Marine Bat-teries ; Artillery Duty ; the Principles of Gunnery ; a complete Course of Military Tactics; the Attack and Defence of Fortified Places, both in Ancient and Modern Times ; Castrametation ; Military and Topographical Drawing ; Architec-ture ; Book-Keeping ; Fencing and Drawing. The Military Exercises will be attended to at such hours of the day as not to interfere with the studies and recitations ; they will conduce equally to health and improvement. The charge for Tuition, including the Lectures, per quarter of Eleven Weeks, is as follows, viz.- Academical Department, $5,00. Department of Civil Engineering, $7,00. Collegiate Department, $8,00. French, Drawing and Fencing, are extra branches, for the two former of which there is an additional charge of One Dollar per quarter each ; for Fencing, not to exceed Two Dollars. Board, including Washing, the use of Stu

Broadside describing the course of study offered at Alden Partridge's Military-Collegiate Institution in Norwich, Vermont, with a fall term to open 13 September 1848. ; CAPT. PARTRIDGE'S MILITARY-COLLEGIATE INSTITUTION, AT NORWICH, VERMONT. THE FALL TERM, at this Institution, will commence on WEDNESDAY, the 13th of SEPTEMBER. The departments of In-struction are as follows, viz.: 1. DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND MILITARY ENGINEERING. This department embraces all those branches of theoretical and practical Mathematics, Topography, Military Science, and such other branches as are necessary to form a good Scientific and practical Civil and Military Engineer. The practical use of the Barometer, in calculating the Heights of Mountains, and which is highly useful in all practical Scientific Operations, and which is not taught at any other Institution in the United States, will be particularly attended to. The charge (for tui-tion) for carrying a student through the full course, in this department, including the use of Instruments, will be forty dollars. The time necessary for a diligent student to complete a full course, will be from four to five Quarters, of eleven weeks each. Should a longer time be necessary, no addition will be made to the charge. Each Student will be allowed to complete the course as soon as he can. 2. THE FULL ENGLISH COLLEGIATE COURSE. The full course in this department will embrace all of the preceding, with the addition of the Laws of Nations; Natural and Political Law; Logic; Rhetoric ; Moral Science; Mental Philosophy; History; Geography; Natural Philosophy and Astronomy; Belles Lettres, &c., &c. Composition, Declamation, and a correct Grammatical knowledge of the English Lan-guage will be required of all. The time necessary for a diligent student to complete the course in this department, will be from eight to ten Quarters, and the charge for tuition eighty dollais. Should a longer time be necessary, no additional charge will be made. Blackstone's Commentaries will be added for those who wish to attend to them. 3. The Latin and Greek Languages will be taught to those who may wish to attend to them, and to such extent as they may require; and the charge on this account will be in proportion to the increase of time. 4. Those students who prefer to pay a Quarterly tuition to accepting of the terms proposed in the 1st and 2d articles, will be charged as follows, viz.: Tuition per Quarter, of eleven weeks, - $8,00 Incidental expenses, " " 1,00 Board, in respectable private families, from one dollar fifty, to one dollar seventy-five cents per week. Private study-rooms from one dollar fifty to two dollars per Quarter. Washing not to exceed twenty cents per week Fuel from $1,50 to $1,75 per cord. 5. Capt. P. will receive, not to exceed twenty, Students as Boarders in his family, for forty dollars per Quarter, or one hun-dred and sixty dollars for the Collegiate year of forty-four weeks, which will include Board, Tuition, Room-rent, Washing, Lights, Fuel, and the usual Incidentals. 6. Capt. P. will receive a Class, not to exceed fifteen, to be instructed in all the branches necessary to teach a Select English School, including Practical Surveying, and the use of the Barometer. Tuition $6,00 per Quarter. 7. THE NORWICH INSTITUTE. This Institution, formerly so flourishing under the Instruction of Messrs. Shedd, Ilurlbutt, &c., will be re-opened, under the superintendence of Capt. P., on the 13th of September. The Instruction will include all the branches necessary to prepare a student to enter on the higher branches in the Collegiate department, or to teach a good District School. The charge for tui-tion will be four dollars per Quarter, or five dollars, if the Languages are included. The student in this, and all the other departments will have the privilege of attending Capt. P.'s lectures, and the Military Exercises without additional charge. 8. LECTURES. Capt. P. delivers an annual Course of Lectures on the Science of Government, the Constitution of the United States, Po-litical Economy, the several branches of Military Science, and other branches of useful knowledge, which are open to all the students. 9- Students are admitted at any time, and charged tuition from the time of joining. 10. The Commencement will be on Monday, the 4th of September. Also, the celebration of the 28th Anniversary, since the establishment of the Institution at Norwich, under the name of the A. L. S. M. Academy. Several interesting addresses will be delivered. The public generally, and all of Capt, P.'s former pupils, particularly, are urgently invited to attend. 11. A Literary Convention will meet at Norwich on the 4th of September, for the purpose of adopting measures to establish on a permanent basis, at Norwich, or some other convenient place, in New England, a Literary, Scientific and Military Institu-tion, of a high order. Addresses may be expected from Joseph C. Wright, Esq., of New York, and Major Simeon Wheeler of Virginia,"former Graduates under Capt. P. All the friends of a truly American System of Education, are urgently invited to attend. Norwich, Vermont, June 12, 1848. NOTE. Those who wish a more extended Literary and Scientific course than the foregoing, can be carried forward to any extent they really require. Payments for board and tuition to be made quarterly or half-yearly in advance.

Broadside describing the course of study offered at the Pennsylvania Literary, Scientific, and Military Institute in Bristol, Pennsylvania, signed by Alden Partridge in Norwich, Vermont, on 27 June 1842. Also includes information about tuition, qualifications for admission, lectures, dress, and rules and regulations. ; Printed in Norwich, Vermont? Alden Partridge established the Pennsylvania Literary, Scientific and Military Institute in Bristol, PA, in 1842. The school closed in 1846 and moved to Harrisburg, PA, in 1847. ; THE PENNSYLVANIA Literary, Scientific, and Military Institute, At Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Institution is located on the banks of the Delaware river, two miles from Bristol and seventeen from Philadelphia, with which city there is a daily communication by steamboat and railroad. The situation is one of the most healthy and pleasant in the United States, easy of access from every section of the Union, and surrounded by a rich and beautiful agricultural country. The sons of those parents who may have conscientious scruples relative to bearing arms, will be excused from attending the military duties, if their parents specially request it Captain Partridge would respectfully inform the public that the above mentioned institution will be opened for the reception of students under his direction and superintendence, on Monday the 5th of September, 1842, in the spacious edifice known by the name of Bristol College, near Bristol, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. The course of education will be extensive, and well calculated to prepare young men for the correct and efficient discharge of the various duties of life, whether occupying public or private, civil or military stations. The following branches of literature, science and instruction will be embraced in the course of education, viz:—The Latin, Greek, French, Spanish and English languages, Arithmetic, construction and use of Logarithms, Algebra, Geometry, Planometry, Stereometry, Trigonometry, Conic Sections, Surveying, both Theoretical and Practical, Mensuration of Heights and Distances, Civil and Military Engineering, Topographical Drawing, Mechanics, Hydrostactics, Hydraulics, Pneumatics, Optics, Electricity, Magnetism, Elements of Chemistry, Astronomy, Geography, History, Ethics, Rheto-ric, Logic, Laws of Nations, Natural and Political Law, Mental Philosophy, Permanent and Field Fortifications, Artillery, the attack and defence of fortified places, Castrametation, Tactics, both Ancient and Modern, Practical and Military Instruction, embracing the Schools of the Soldier, Company and Battalion,—also, the turning off, mounting and relieving Guards and Sentinels—the Constitution of the United States, and the Science of Government generally; Political Economy, the use of the Barometer, with its application to measuring the Altitudes of Mountains and other Eminences, Ornamental Penmanship, Music and Fencing. The Military Exercises will be attended to at those hours of the day which are usually passed by students in idleness, or useless amusements, for which they will constitute a healthful and pleasing substitute. They do not interfere in the least with regular study, but on the contrary, by inducing habits of order and regularity, and promoting vigorous health, they aid essentially mental improvement. The regular expenses for the Academic year, of forty-eight (48) weeks, will be as follows, viz: For tuition in any or all of the regular branches of instruction, and board, $154 00 For fuel, lights, use of arms, and accoutrements, 6 00 Amount per annum, $160 00 Washing is not included in the above, as many parents and guardians may wish to regulate it themselves. Arrangements, however, will be made to have the washing done either at or in the vicinity of the institution, on the most reasonable terms, for all those who may wish to have it so done. Arrangements will also be made for furnishing, on reasonable terms, at the institution, books, stationery, uniform clothing, and all other necessary articles, to all those students whose parents and guardians may wish to have them thus furnished. Each student will be required to be furnished on joining the institution, with a single mattrass and pillow, with the necessary bedding, two chairs, a medium sized table, with drawer, or a writing desk, with a small book case at the back, four napkins, a pitcher and two tumblers, &c.; sleeping berths will be provided at the institution at a very moderate price, they will cost but little. All the furniture to be simple and cheap- Tables or desks made of pine and varnished, will answer every purpose. QUALIFICATIONS FOR ADMISSION. Candidates for admission must be of unexceptionable moral character,—be able to read and spell the English language correctly— write a fair legible hand—understand well the ground rules of arithmetic, and also the elements of English grammar. As a general rule none will be admitted under eleven years of age. TERMS OF PAYMENT. The Quarterly bills for the regular expenses (amounting to forty dollars for 12 weeks,) must be paid in advance. The bills for articles furnished at the institution, may be paid in advance, or at the expiration of the quarter, at the option of the parent or guardian; the bills of all banks current, at par, in Philadelphia, and also drafts on Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Boston, will be received in payment of all bills. VACATIONS. There will be one annual vacation, which will commence on the first Monday of September, and continue 4 weeks, SCIENTIFIC AND MILITARY LECTURES. Capt. Partridge will deliver an annual course of Lectures at the Institution, on the several branches of Military Science, on Political Economy, the Constitution of the United States, the Science of Government, &c., &c., which will be free for all the members of the Institution. To those who are not members, but may wish to attend the course, the following charges will be made, viz: To each General and Field Officer of Volunteers and Militia, combined with practical instruction, (if desired,) $'4 00 To each Company Officer, do do, 3 00 To each non-commissioned Officer and Private, 2 00 To gentlemen, not connected with the Military, 5 00 EXTRA BRANCHES. The French and Spanish Languages, Music, Fencing, and Ornamental Penmanship, will be considered extra branches, for which those who attend to them, will be charged for each branch to which he attends, four dollars for thirty-six lessons. EXAMINATIONS. There will be two public examinations each year. The last to be during the week preceding vacation. TIMES OF ADMISSION. The best time for joining the Institution, will be at the expiration of the vacation. Stu-dents will, however, be admitted at any time of the year. DRESS. The students will be required to wear a neat, but plain uniform dress—the same that was formerly worn at Middletown, and is now worn at the Norwich University. The price of the coat will vary from ten to fourteen dollars, according to quality. Blue vests and pantaloons for winter, and white for summer. The whole dress is less expensive than that worn by students generally. PROMISCUOUS REGULATIONS. 1st. The students will be styled Cadets. 2d. Each Cadet who does not wish to complete the full course of instruction, can attend to such branches only as will best qualify him for any particular occupation or profession he may intend to pursue. 3d. Each Cadet will be allowed to progress in his studies as rapidly as possible, consistent with a thorough understanding of the same. By this a good student will be enabled to save much time and expense in the acquirement of any given amount of knowledge. 4th. The discipline will be strict, but correct—in principle, military—in practice, pa-rental. 5th. Good morals, a strict regard for the great principles of religion, and a patriotic attachment to our free institutions, will be strongly and constantly inculcated into the minds of all the Cadets. 6th. The Instruction in every department, will be thorough and practical. The Cadets will be frequently taken out on practical scientific, as well as Military excursions, which will conduce equally to health and improvement. 7th, Habits of industry and economy will be strongly urged and enforced upon all. No unnecessary expenditures will be permitted. 8th. The Institution will be conducted on broad and liberal principles, and all the members, from whatever section they may come, will enjoy equal advantages and equal privileges. A. PARTRIDGE. Norwich, Vt., June 27th, 1842. At a meeting of Citizens and Military, held at Reading on the 20th of May, it was among other things resolved, that it is expedient to establish Independent Military and Literary Academies, on the principles of those of Norwich, Vt., and Norfolk, Va., in Pennsylvania. The following gentlemen were appointed a Committee to assist in carrying out the views of the meeting: Gen. John Davis, of Bucks co.; Gen. C. Schimer, of Northampton co.; Adj. Gen. Diller, Philadelphia; Gen. W. High, Reading; Col. Purdy, Bucks; Col. R. M. Lee, Philadelphia; Col. Kenderton Smith, Philadelphia; Col. W. P. Smith, Philadelphia; Col. Jas. Page, Philadelphia; Col. George Wynekoop, Pottsville; Maj. W. H. Keim, Reading; Capt. J. Archambault, Philadelphia; Capt. Z. Mathews, Norristown; Capt. Boas, Allentown; Lieut. R. K. Scott, Philadelphia; J. 8. Hober, Montgomery; J. S. Bryan, Bucks; W. T. Rogers, Bucks; Daniel Fuller, Esq. No. 92 Arch street, Philadelphia.

Announcement by Alden Partridge of the opening of the Pennsylvania Scientific and Military Collegiate Institute, at Reading, Pennsylvania. Includes a general description of the system of education and course of study offered at the school. A note about the possibility of opening a female seminary at this location is also included. ; Printed at Norwich, Vermont? ; THE PENNSYLVANIA SCIENTIFIC AND MILITARY COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE AT READING, PENNSYLVANIA. CA.PT. A. PARTRIDGE would inform the public that the above Institution will be opened under his superinten-dence, assisted by able and faithful Instructors, on the FIRST MONDAY IN APRIL, 1850. The following branches of Literature, Science and practical Instruction will constitute the course of Education, at this Institution, viz : The Latin, Greek, aud English Languages; Arithmetic ; the Construction and Use of Logarithms ; Algebra: Geometry; Trigonometry; Planometry ; Stereometry; Mensuration of Heights and Distances; Practical Geo-metry, includiug particularly Surveying and Levelling; Civil Engineering; Conic Sections ; The Use of the Ba-rometer, with its application to measuring the altitudes of Mountains and other Eminences; Natural Philosophy ; Astronomy ; the Elements of Chemistry and Electricity ; Optics; Navigation ; Geography, with the use of Maps ^nd Globes; Composition and Declamation; Logic; History; Moral Philosophy; Natural and Political Law; the Law of Nations ; Military Law ; the Constitution of the United States, and the Science of Government gene-rally ; Metaphysics; Political Economy; Agriculture ; Permanent and Field Fortification, both Ancient and Mod-ern ; Field Engineering; the Construction of Marine Batteries ; Artillery Duty; the Principles of Gunnery; a complete Course of Military Tactics; the Attack and Defence of Fortified Places, both in ancient and modern times; Castrametation ; Military and Topographical Drawing; Architecture; Book Keeping. The Military Exercises will be attended to at such hours of the day as not to interfere with the studies and rec-itations ; they will conduce equally to health and improvement. The charge for Tuition, per quarter of eleven weeks, will be as follows, viz; For the Latin and Greek Languages, $10,00 For the English Course, - 8,00 Students between the ages of ten and fourteen years, will be charged per quarter, for Tuition, as follows, viz ; For the Latin and Greek Languages, $7,00 For the English Branches, 6,00 No deduction will be made for absence in term time. A Primary Department will be established, should there be sufficient encouragement, in which will be taught all the elementary branches necessary to prepare the students to enter on the higher branches of study in the Institute. The Tuition will be four dollars per quarter. Youths under eleven years of age will be admitted into this Department. The tuition in all of the departments must be paid quarterly in advance. Board will be furnished on reasonable terms. Students, whose parents reside at such distance that they cannot attend to the pecuniary affairs of their sons, can be furnished with Board, Tuition, the use of study rooms and furniture, with washing, lights, and fuel, for one hundred and seventy five dollars for the Collegiate year of forty four weeks—one half to be paid to the Superintendent, at the time of joining, and the oth-er half at the expiration of twenty two weeks. Capt, P. will take charge of the funds of all such students, and see that they are appropriated for necessary purposes only. No extra charge will be made for this duty. Capt. P. has engaged Professors Rehrer and Batehelder, as his assistants in the Institute. These gentlemen are well ac-quainted with the system of Education, (having been educated under it,) and are in every respect well qualified for their respective stations. Students who may not wish to complete the full course of studies, can attend to such branches as they, or their parents or guardians may designate. The full course will prepare a young man for any of the learned professions, for Civil and Military Engineers, for practical Science, and all the practical business of life; in fine it will make good scholars, good citizens, and good soldiers. Capt. P. will deliver an annual course of Lectures on Military Science, Political Economy, Philosophy, Astronomy, Geography, &c., which will be free to all the members of the Institute. For further information, prior to the first of April, application can be made to Capt. P. at Pembroke, New Hampshire, also to Gen. WM. H. KEIM, the Hon. J. P. JONES, and Judge BANKS, at Reading. NORWICH, VERMONT, NOVEMBER 8, 1849. NOTE. A Seminary for Young Ladies will be opened at Reading, under the patronage of the Institute, as soon as sufficient encouragement shall be given. The course of Instruction will be of as high an order as at the best Female Seminaries in the country.

Broadside with a message from Vermont Governor William A. Palmer after he was elected in 1831; mentions the militia and the subject of a national bank. ; GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE, Gentlemen of the Council, and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: Being again called to the office of Chief Magistrate of the State, by a majority oi the suffrages of the General Assembly, I accept the trust confided to me, and will use ray best endeavors to discharge the duties incumbent on me, for the good of the State, and the interests of the people, The Constitution enjoins upon the Governor and Council to take care that the laws be faithfully administered, and to carry into execution such measures as may be resolved upon by the General Assembly. Very few of the Executive powers of our Government are entrusted solely, to the Chief Magistrate; but, on the contrary, are entrusted to certain officers, who, from their appointment, and the nature of their duties, appear to be exempted from executive direction or censure. In the financial department, a vigilance in the executive over subordinate officers, who may be in any way, employed in receiving and paying over public monies, seems more important. The necessity of any particular attention to this, by the Executive, is however superceded by the laws already in force, by which it is made the duty of all subordinate officers, connected in any way with the collection of the revenue, to make annual settlements with the head of the treasury department. An annual settlement is also to be made with the treasury department, with a full and fair statement of the accounts, together with the balances due, to be laid before the General Assembly at their October session. By the foregoing provision in the law, any call of the Executive on the Treasury department, for the information of the General Assembly is rendered unnecessary. Some attention to this subject* by the Legislature may be attended with beneficial results. Our duty as Legislators is to provide wholesome laws for the promotion of virtue, happiness and prosperity among the people, upon whom the laws are to operate. One of the important ends of all government, is> to teach each individual of the community the necessity of self-government. When we reflect on the vast influence of the laws in moulding and fom^g the manners, habits and virtues of a people, and that this influence, in our own case, is to exert itself on IiLile leGs than three hundred thousand individuals, the business entrusted o us assumes an importance demanding our highest efforts to render such influence salutary in its operation. That such has not been the case in all countries, has arisen from the irresponsibility with which the powers of government have been exercised by their rulers—an irresponsibility growing out of the mistaken and anti-republican doctrine that those powers were exersised by men in der such circumstances is it to be wondered at that the laws, instead of being calculated to promote the general welfare, should be wrested to the purposes cf individual aggrandizement ? Our government is happily so organized that the duty and interests of the lawgiver are necessarily identified with the rights and interests of the community, and under such circumstances of responsibility, as to compel him to feel less sympathy for the ruler than the ruled. From these considerations it would seem that nothing but a great degree of ignorance or depravity could induce those who are employed in making and executing the laws, to be forgetful of the rights and interests of their constituents, and it behoves us, in the prosecution of our important duties, to keep these great principles of republican freedom constantly in view, and not to flatter ourselves that the people have become, cither so ignorant or disregarded of their just rights as to sanction or submit to any attempt to impose upon their ignorance or credulity. The sentiments, in regard to public worship, religion, and morality, interwoven with our constitution, as far as our limited knowledge can extend, have had great influence on the people! These circumstances, under our established form of government, excluding as it does all persecution and intolerance in matters of religion and modes ot worship, give to our state an I honorab 1 e station in the view of the enlightened part of the world. The principles and precepts of the gospel, if improved for religious and moral purposes only, will always make good men, and by consequence, good j citizens. Upon the religious and literary institutions of the State, our happiness as a people, essentially depends. While therefore, that freedom of opinion, and those rights of conscience, which are recognized in our constitution, are sacredly maintained, the Legislature will not fail to give every suitable, encouragement to their support. Permit me again to call your attention to the subject of the Militia. Unprepared to enter into details, my observations must be general. However some may esteem it, the Militia is the great depository of our liberty and independence-—it is the first and last hope of our country. Let the Militia become and remain inefficient and our transition to despotism will be gradual perhaps, but inevitable. Previous to the Revolution, the greatest care was taken to keep the militia in an unorganized and inefficient state. In most of the then British Provinces, patriotic exertions were made, but with little effect, to counteract this slavish policy; the Provincial Governors, generally opposed to the interests of the people, iheir own right, and not in the right appointed the Militia officers subser- and for the good of th® people, Un- || vient to their own view?. When? how ever, war with the mother country became inevitable, one of the first and most important measures adopted, was the reorganization of the whole body of the militia, and since that period most of the States have paid a marked and laudable attention to the subject. The result has, in many instances done honor to the Government ; the measures adopted have excised a martial spirit which merits every attention and encouragement. The materials composing the militia are independent and aspiring citizens, whose fearless spirit never was, and, with confidence it may be said never will be subdued by foreign domination. They will sooner, by far, nobly perish on the field of battle-, than surrender their beloved country—the birthright of themselves and those most dear to them, to an inexorable and haughty invader. Such materials for soldiers are not exceeded in any other country, and is j it proper or expedient to let them remain unimproved, when they are so vitally important to our existence as a free people? And is it sound policy to continue to neglect the discipline of the militia—suffer the military ardor heretofore existing among the yeomanry, which has given us a name aaiong the nations, to languish and expire ? Or shall an effort be made to secure a proper organization of the militia and foster a military spirit among the people ? 1 therefore earnestly recommend the subject to your careful consideration and control, but hope that the present session will not pass without the adoption of some measure calculated to promote the object in view. During the past year there has been much agitation on the subject of the United States Bank, and the measures of the national executive in relation to it. The questions of principle involved in the controversy are of vast importance to the interests of the nation, and require to be discussed and decided with reference both to the present convenience and necessities of the people, and also to their influence upon the future destinies of the country. An institution, like that of the Bank of the United States, necessarily possess powers, which, if exercised for good, as they ever should be, are most beneficent in their ope- railons, and, if exerted for evil, are of a nature the most pernicious. If such an institution, therefore, be demanded to meet the wants of the community, the utmost caution should be observed in framing the provisions of its charter—the most effectual checks placed upon its power—and the most waichful vigilance exercised with regard to its conduct. That a National Bank, with proper powers and restrictions, is both necessary and constitutional, 1 do not doubt. I deem, however, the charter o^'he present Bank exceptionable in several of its provisions, and am opposed to its renewal in its present form. Its conduct, in some respeGts, I consider justly liable to censure ; yet, I cannot regard that, as furnishing any justification of the executive proceedings in relation to it, some of which I deem pernicious in their consequences and altogether unwarrantable. The public mind has been much agitated in relation to certain abuses and assumptions of power on the part of the national executive. It will be sufficient for me to say, in connexion with this subject, that too much vigilance cannot be exercised, either on the part of the people or the state legislatures, with respect to his patronage and power. A manifestation by him of the least, disposition, either to overstep the bounds of the constitution and laws, or to exercise those powers which he legitimately and constitutionally possesses, for purposes not within the scope of his duties, should be met and resisted, on the threshhold, as the beginning of tyranny. At the last session of the General Assembly a resolution wras passed, requesting me to renew the correspondence with the Governor General of the Brinsh Provinces, upon the ^subject of obstructions at the outlet of the waters of Lake Champlain, and to solicit, that a commissioner or commissioners be appointed, on the part of that government, to act in conjunction with commissioners appointed on the part of this State, to ascertain, if practicable, the true cause, or causes, of the overflowing of the lands in this State, on the margin of Lake Champlain and its tributary streams, and the extent of the evils complained of. In pursuance of the request expressed in that resolution, in February last, I addressed a letter to the Governor General of the British Provinces in North America, on that subject, requesting the appointment of commissioners on the part of the government of Lower Canada, to meet such as were appointed on the part of this State, for the purpose of carrying the object referred to into effect, but have received no answer from the Governor, or any of the authorities of that government. At a period of uncommon agitation and embarrassment, it is among the important duties required of us to soar above local and partial views—-to cherish and inculcate a disinterested spirit, and to secure, by every possible means, the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. It only remains with me to assure you that I shall, in all things, heartily co-operate with you, in the necessary measures to promote and ensure the general welfare, W. A- PALMER. Montpslier, Oct, IS, 1834

Announcement by Alden Partridge of the opening of the National Scientific and Military College, at Brandywine Springs, Delaware. Includes a general description of the system of education and course of study offered at the school. ; THE NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND MILITARY COLLEGE, At the Brandywine Springs, Delaware. THE public is respectfully informed, that the above Institution was opened for the reception of Students, on the 16th of May, 1853, under the personal superintendence of Capt. ALDEN PARTRIDGE, assisted by an able corps of In-structors. The instruction embraces a complete course of Literary, Scientific and Military Education. The Mathe-matics, both theoretical and practical, Civil and Military Engineering, Physical Philosophy, Astronomy, Geography, History, Mental and Moral Philosophy, the Laws of Nations, the Science of Government, the Constitution of the United States, Political Economy, Agriculture, Rhetoric, Sound Literature, the several branches of Military Science, &c., &c., constitute prominent branches of Instruction. The Military Exercises and Duties are so arranged as not to occupy any of the time that would otherwise be de-voted to study; they will be attended to at those hours of the day which are generally passed by students in idleness, or devoted to useless amusements, for which they are made a pleasing and healthful substitute. Practical scientifical operations will be frequently attended to, which conduce equally to health and improvement. The charge for Board, Tuition, Room-rent, Washing, Lights and Fuel, will be 41 dollars per quarter of 11 weeks; or 164 dollars for the Collegiate year of 44 weeks. The French, Spanish, German, and Italian Languages, and also Music and Fencing, are extra branches; for each of which, those who attend to them will be charged Five Dollars per quarter. Instruction in writing will be charged $1,25 for 14 Lessons. The Latin and Greek Languages will be taught to those who may wish to study them. The qualifications for admission are a good moral character; to write a fair, legible hand; a good knowledge of the ground Rules of Arithmetic; and to read and spell the English Language correctly. It is believed that eleven years is as young as a pupil can enter the Institution advantageously. The Cadets will be furnished with Clothing, Books, and every thing else necessary for their comfort and improvement, at the Institution, at established and reasonable prices. No debts must be contracted without the written permission of the Superinten-dent ; and parents and guardians are required not to pay any bills, unless sanctioned by him. No money must be furnished any Cadet, except by the Superintendent, or his written order. The Superintendent will take charge of all the funds of the Cadets, and see that they are furnished with every thing. Each Cadet is required to have a Permit Book, in which all his expenses must be entered. Each Cadet, whose parents or guardian, reside more than 150 miles from the Institution, will be required to.deposit with the Superintendent 125 dollars ; and an additional 125 dol-lars at the end of 22 weeks. At the end of the Collegiate year, the parent or guardian will be presented with an ac-curate statement of his son's or ward's expenses, and credit for monies received, and the balance, whether in favor or against the Cadet, will be transferred to the following account. Those Cadets, who do not reside more than 150 miles from the Institution, must deposit with the Superintendent when they enter, 75 dollars ; after which, their ac-counts will be made out at the beginning of each quarter, and the balance transferred as above. The Cadets will wear the same uniform as was worn at Middletown. Strict economy will be required, and no unnecessary expendi-tures allowed. Great attention will be given to the manners and morals of the Students, and to the developement of those noble, manly and patriotic sentiments that ought to characterize every American citizen. This system of Edu-cation prepares young men equally well for public or private, civil or military life, and its superiority over every other system has been established by thirty-three years of experience. Those who do not wish to complete the full course, can attend to the branches which will best qualify them for such future pursuits as they contemplate. Each one will be allowed to progress as rapidly as he can in his studies, consistently with a thorough understanding of the same. Candidates for admission are admitted at any time and charged their expenses from the time of joining. The 33d ANNIVERSARY OF THE SYSTEM will be celebrated at the Institution, on the 6th of Sept., 1853, at which all are invited to attend. The LOCATION of the Institution is central from north to south, and is proverbially healthy and pleasant. The climate is mild. It is 32 miles from Philadelphia, 5 from Wilmington, and 65 from Baltimore, and in the vicinity of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Railroad—the Depot at Newport being two miles and a half distant, with a ready con-veyance. Being retired from the vicinity of any city or large village, it is well adapted to study, and the preservation of the morals of the Cadets. The quarters are of stone, in good repair, and will accommodate 250 Cadets. There are all the necessary out buildings, a Medicinal Spring, &c., and 60 acres of land, well adapted to Gardening, Agri-culture, &c. A. PARTRIDGE, Superintendent, BRANDYWINE SPRINGS, JUNE 1, 1853

Article by Morris Arnold on the Arkansas Legal System during the Colonial Period. ; THE ARKANSAS COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM, 1686-1766 Morris S. Arnold* Except for the silence of its final letter, there is nowadays noth­ing very French about Arkansas. Yet before the American takeover in 1804 the great majority of the European inhabitants of the area presently occupied by the state were of French origin. There is s9me visible proof of this in the names, many now mangled beyond e:asy recognition, which eighteenth-century voyageurs and coureurs de bois gave to a good many Arkansas places and streams; 1 and there are, as well, a number of Arkansas townships which bear the names of their early French habitants .2 While these faint traces of a remote European past survive, ab­solutely nothing remains of the laws and customs which the ancient residents of Arkansas observed. This is no accident. It was a favor­ite object of Jefferson to introduce the common law of England into the vast Louisiana Territory as quickly as he could. In the lower territory he waited too late. New Orleans had had a large French population and a somewhat professionalized legal system for some time, and the civilian opposition, given time to congeal, proved to * Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock. B.S.E.E. 1965, LL.B. 1968, University of Arkansas; LL.M. 1969, S.J.D. 1971, Harvard Law School. This article is the first chapter of Professor Arnold's book, UNEQUAL LAWS UNTO A SAVAGE RACE: EUROPEAN LEGAL TRADITIONS IN ARKANSAS, 1686-1836, which will be published later this year. l. See generally Branner, Some Old French Place Names in the State of Arkansas, 19 ARK. HIST. Q. 191 (1960). The etymology of some of these names is difficult and interesting. Who would guess very quickly, for instance, that Smackover in Union County is Chemin Couvert (covered road) in disguise? Id. at 206. Tchemanihaut Creek (pronounced 'Shamanahaw") in Ashley County is a good deal easier: Chemin a haut (high road) must have been its original name. Its initial letter, one local historian has plausibly suggested, is probably attributable to "a misguided attempt to derive the name from the Indian lan­guage." Y. ETHERIDGE, HISTORY OF ASHLEY COUNTY, ARKANSAS 17, 18 (1959). Other names should on sight be instantly intelligible to a modern Parisian, though their current pronunciation might cause him consternation: Examples are the Terre Rouge (red earth) and Terre Noire (black earth) Creeks in Clark County, the L 'Angui!le (eel) River in north­east Arkansas, and La Grue (crane) township in Arkansas county. 2. Vaugine and Bogy Townships in Jefferson County, Darysaw (Desruisseaux) Town­ship in Grant County, and Fourche La Fave (Lefevre) Township in Perry County are good examples. 391 392 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 have sufficient muscle to win a partial victory.3 As a result, as to substantive civil matters the state of Louisiana is today a thoroughly civilian jurisdiction. In the upper territory, however, by a piecemeal process beginning in 1804, the English common law was insinuated into the legal system, until, in 1816, it was at last adopted virtually wholesale by the General Assembly of the Missouri Territory.4 The purpose of this article is to explain why civilian legal institutions proved so weak in Upper Louisiana and especially in Arkansas. It turns out that the smallness and character of the European popula­tion in Arkansas was the main cause for the vulnerability of Euro­pean legal norms there. The reception of the common law in Arkansas was simply one element in a more general exchange of cultures which occurred following the Louisiana Purchase. I At ten o'clock on the morning of March 12, 1682, Robert Cava­lier, sieur de la Salle, having been commissioned four years earlier by Louis XIV of France to explore and take possession of the Mis­sissippi and its tributaries, drew near the Quapaw Village of Kappa. The village was located on the right bank of the Mississippi River about twenty miles north of the mouth of the Arkansas. From the war chants emanating from the Indian town, La Salle judged that he was in for a hostile reception; so he hastily constructed a "fort" on an island opposite the village and awaited developments. Soon, however, the Quapaw chief sent the calumet of peace, and La Salle and his men went to Kappa where they were received with every possible demonstration of affection both public and private. Asked by the Quapaws for help against their enemies, La Salle promised that they could thenceforth look for protection to the greatest prince of the world, in whose behalf he had come to them and to all the other nations who lived along and around the river. In return, La Salle said, the Quapaws had to consent expressly to the erection in their village of a column on which His Majesty's arms were to be painted, symbolizing their recognition that he was the master of their lands. The Indians agreed and Henry de Tonti, La Salle's lieutenant 3. See generally G. DARGO, JEFFERSON'S LOUISIANA: POLITICS AND THE CLASH OF LEGAL TRADITIONS (1975). 4. 1 LAWS OF A PUBLIC AND GENERAL NATURE, OF THE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA, OF THE TERRITORY OF LOUISIANA, OF THE TERRITORY OF MISSOURI, AND OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, UP TO THE YEAR 1824, ch. 154 (1842). 1983) COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 393 and commandant of one of the two brigades in the company, imme­diately caused the column to be fashioned. On it was painted a cross and the arms of France, and it bore these words: Louis the Great, King of France and of Navarre, rules. 13th of March, 1682. Tonti then conducted the column with all the French men-at-arms to the plaza of the village, and, La Salle taking up a position at the head of his brigade and Tonti at the head of his, the Reverend Fa­ther Zeno be Membre sang the hymn 0 crux, ave, spes unica. The company then went three times around the plaza, each time singing the psalm Exaudiat te Dominus and shouting vive le roy to the dis­charge of their muskets. They then planted the column while re­peating the cries of vive le roy, and La Salle, standing near the column and holding the king's commission in his hand, spoke in a loud voice the following words in French: On behalf of the very high, very invincible, and victorious prince Louis the Great, by the grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, the fourteenth of this name, today, the 13th of March, 1682, with the consent of the nation of the Arkansas assembled at the village of Kappa and present at this place, in the name of the king and his allies, I, by virtue of the commission of His Majesty of which I am bearer and which I hold presently in my hand . , have taken possession in the name of His ffi.ajesty, his heirs, and the successors to his crown, of the country of Louisiana and of all the nations, mines, minerals, ports, harbors, seas, straits, and roadsteads, and of everything contained within the same . . . . After more musket-firing and the giving of presents the Indians cele­brated their new alliance throughout the night, pressing their hands to the column and then rubbing their bodies in testimony to the joy which they felt in having made so advantageous a connection. Thus did France gain sovereignty over and ownership of Arkansas. The reason that we know all these details and more about La Salle's activities in Arkansas is that he had requested, and received, from Jacques de la Metairie, the notary who was in his company, a lengthy proces-verbal describing the events at Kappa and officially attesting their occurrence.5 This was Arkansas's first exposure to civilian legal processes. It would be almost 150 years before the influence of the civil law ceased to make itself felt there. 5. 2 P. MARGRY, DECOUVERTES ET ETABLISSEMENT DES FRAN<;:AIS DANS L'0UEST ET DANS LE SUD DE L'AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE, 1614-1754 (1881). 394 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 II Arkansas Post was the first European establishment in the lower Mississippi valley. It was first located about twenty-seven miles by river from the mouth of the Arkansas on the edge of Little Prairie at what is now called the Menard Site. (See Figure 2). Set­tled in 1686 by six tenants of Henry de Tonti to whom La Salle in 1682 had granted the lower Arkansas as a seignory, 6 it was to serve as an Indian trading post and as an intermediate station between the Illinois country and the Gulf of Mexico.7 Tonti's plans for the place had been large indeed. In 1689 he promised the Jesuits to build a house and chapel at the Arkansas and to grant a resident priest a sizeable amount of land; while there, Tonti confidently asserted, the priest could "come and say mass in the French quarter near our fort."8 No priest in fact established himself during Tonti's ownership of the Arkansas and his French quarter and fort never materialized. When in an undated grant of land to Jacques Cardinal, one of his men at the Post, Tonti styled himself seigneur de ville de Tonti (lord of the town of Tonti),9 he was in the grips of an excessive enthusi­asm. There is no evidence that the European population of the place ever exceeded six. In fact, when Joutel arrived there in 1687 there were only two Frenchmen remaining in residence; 10 and the single log house he descpbed is apparently the only structure ever erected at Tonti's Post. Joutel remarked of Tonti's two traders that "if I was joyous to find them, they participated in the joy since we left them the wherewithal to maintain themselves for some time." Indeed, he said, "they were almost as much in need of our help as we of theirs." He ridiculed the whole idea of a post at that location. "The said house," Joutel noted sarcastically, "was to serve as an 6. See Faye, The Arkansas Post ef Louisiana: French Domination, ;26 LA. HIST. Q. 633, 635-36 ( 1943). 7. Such was the view of Father Douay, a Jesuit who described Tonti's post in 1687. See M. THOMAS, THE ARKANSAS POST OF LOUISIANA, 1682-1783 (M.A. Thesis, University of California, 1948). 8. Tonti's grant to the Jesuits is quoted in 1 M. GIRAUD, A HISTORY OF FRENCH LOUI­SIANA 8 (J. Lambert trans., 1974). 9. The grant is translated in THE FRENCH FOUNDATIONS 396 (T. Pease & R. Werner eds., 1934). 10. Faye, supra note 6, at 735. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM Henry de Tonti, lieutenant of La Salle. He founded Arkansas Post in 1686 and in the late seventeenth century styled himself seigneur de ville de Tonti. He was the first European to possess judicial authority in Arkansas. (Courtesy of the Museum of the History of Mobile). 395 396 UALR LAW JOURNAL · [Vol. 6:391 entrepot [way-station] for the French who travelled in these parts, but we were the only ones whom it so served." 11 Short of supplies and virtually inaccessible, the tiny outpost never prospered. The war with the Iroquois closed the route to Ca­nada and made trade to and from Arkansas impossible much of the time until 1693.12 By 1696, Jean Couture, Tonti's lieutenant and commandant at the Post, had deserted to the English, 13 and in 1699 Jesuit missionaries to the Quapaws found no trace of a French set­tlement. 14 By then the French had evidently abandoned the Arkan­sas, though there may have remained behind a "few white savages thereabouts as wild as red savages." 15 However grandiose and ambitious had been the schemes of Tonti, they would soon come to seem tame. In 1717 the Mercure de France, a Paris newspaper, began advertising the riches of Louisi­ana to its readers: Gold and silver could be mined there "with al­most no labor." The mountains situated on the Arkansas River would be explored, and there, one correspondent exuded, "we shall gather, believe me, specimens from silver mines, since others al­ready have gathered such there without trouble." When Cadillac sensibly protested that "the mines of the Arkansas were a dream" he was promptly committed to the Bastille "on suspicion of having spo­ken with scant propriety against the Government of France."16 The man behind the propaganda campaign was John Law, a Scot, who owned a bank in Paris and who had in 1717 succeeded in securing for his Compagnie d'Occident a monopoly on Louisiana trade. Law's company recruited thousands of colonists to settle in Louisiana and the king granted it authority to grant land from the 11. Joutel Remarques sur /'Ouvrage de Tonti Re/at(( a la Louisiane ( 1703), Archives Service Hydrographique (Paris), vol. 115-9, no. 12 (Typescript in Little Rock Public Li­brary). The translation in the text is mine. 12. Faye, supra note 6, at 638. 13. IBERVILLE'S GULF JouRNALS 144 at n.98 (R. McWilliams ed. 1950). 14. 18 COLLECTIONS OF THE WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY 427, at n.37 (1908). 15. Faye, supra note 6, at 646. See also I M. GIRAUD, supra note 8, at 8: "When d'Iberville reached the Mississippi [i.e., in 1699] the post had been abandoned." Some writ­ers are reluctant to say that the Arkansas was completely devoid of Europeans at this time. See, e.g., P. HOLDER, ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIELD RESEARCH ON THE PROBLEM OF THE LOCA­TIONS OF ARKANSAS POST ARKANSAS 4 (1957): "The French occupation of the general area along the lower courses of the Arkansas and White Rivers was virtually continuous from the 1680's onward." The truth is that the sources simply fail to mention any Europeans in Ar­kansas, except Jesuit missionaries, between 1699 and 1721. It is, however, hard to resist believing that a few hunters and trappers ventured from time to time into the area and established temporary camps there. Almost certainly no real settlement existed however. 16. Faye, supra note 6, at 653. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 397 Royal domain. Proprietors of the company's land grants (conces­sionaires) were given considerable latitude in choosing the spots for their settlements, since the interior of Louisiana was not well known; and they therefore exercised much discretion in locating their colonists on arrival. 17 However, the company early on had recognized the Arkansas River as an important spot, since it was thought that it might well be the best route to the Spanish mines of Mexico. Thus the company specifically directed where the Arkansas concession should be located and ordered that it be the first occu­pied. 18 It granted this concession to Law himself. In August of 1721, a group of Law's French engages (perhaps as many as eighty) took possession of land on Little Prairie at or near the site of Tonti's abandoned trading post. 19 (See Figure 2). Although Law was by then bankrupt and had fled France, the news did not reach Louisiana until after Jacques Levens, Law's director in Louisiana, had caused the Arkansas colony to be established under the command of some of his subordinates.20 By December of that year Bertrand Dufresne, sieur du Demaine, replaced Levens as director for Arkansas, and in March of 1722 he took possession of the concession and began an inventory of its effects and papers.21 On his arrival he found only twenty cabins and three arpents (about 2.5 acres) of cleared ground. He reported a total of about fifty men and women resident,22 tristes debris, Father Charlevoix called them,23 of Mr. Law's concession. They had produced only an insig­nificant harvest. Lieutenant la Boulaye was nearby with a military detachment of seventeen men.24 (See Figure 1). Despite the existence of a company store at the Arkansas con­cession, both the colony and the military establishment were in con­siderable difficulty.25 Dufresne therefore immediately released twenty of the engages from service and gave them lots to cultivate in the hopes that a better harvest of corn and wheat would be realized in 1722. In February of the following year there were only forty-one colonists remaining, divided now into two small farming communi- 17. 4 M. GIRAUD, H!STOJRE DE LA LOUISIANE FRANc_;;AISE 198 (1974). 18. Id. 19. Id. 20. Id. at 199. 21. Id. at 271. 22. Id. at 272. 23. 6 P. CHARLEVOIX, JOURNAL D'UN VOYAGE FAIT PAR ORDRE DU Roi DANS L'AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONNALE 164 (1744). 24. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 273. 25. The following paragraph is based on Id. at 273-74. 398 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 ties: Fourteen men and one woman at Law's concession under Dufresne, and sixteen men, some with families, two leagues down the river with the troops. Among this latter group there lived six black slaves. 26 Benard la Harpe, while exploring the river in 1721, had predicted, or at least hoped for, a turn in the fortunes of the struggling colony, but that hope proved false and in 1727 Father Paul du Poisson, the Jesuit missionary to the Arkansas, reported that only about thirty Frenchmen remained behind.27 The military post had been abandoned two years previous. 28 Village des Arcan~as ---N Poste francais commande par le S. la Boulaie 0 - - - -, ·: ·Concession de M. Law I I L. --- ' MISSISSIPPI Figure 1 Sketch of the location of Law's colony by Du­mont de Montigny,Archives Nationales, Paris, 6 JJ-75, Piece 254. All this seemed worth recounting in some detail because for generations historians of Arkansas have believed that a colony of Germans once occupied their river. Law did recruit many Germans for settlement in Louisiana, and they were destined for the Arkan­sas, but as soon as the news of Law's bankruptcy reached the colony 26. Recensement General des Habitans Estab!ys,,.SoteJouy Arkansas et d~s Ouvrier~ ~e la Concession cy devant Apartenant a M. Law, 18 February, 1723. (Transcnpt at Lomsiana History Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans). 27. Du Poisson to Father___, translated in Falconer, Arkansas and the Jesuits in 1727-A Translation, 4 PUBLICATIONS OF THE ARKANSAS HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION 352, at 375 (1917). 28. Faye, supra note 6, at 670. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 399 in June of 1721, the Compagnie des Indies took over the direction of his concession;29 and when the time arrived to transport the German immigrants to Arkansas, the company, in an economy move, de­cided instead to send them to Delaire's grant in Lower Louisiana.30 In short, none of Law's Germans ever reached Arkansas. This is a pity, as the prospect of discussing, or at least imagining, a group of German immigrants living under French law on the Arkansas River was an intriguing one--one of which the facts have now unfortu-nately deprived us. · III Before 1712, the colony of Louisiana, with a population of only a few hundred, had been entirely under military rule and regular civil regulation was altogether lacking. On September 19, 1712, the Crown granted a trade monopoly to Antoine Crozat but he was given no governmental authority: As Henry Dart noted, the charter was "only an operating contract with the duties of government re­tained in the Crown."31 However, the charter did adopt as law for the colony "nos Edits, Ordonnances Et Coutumes Et !es usages de la Prevoste Et Vitf/omte de Paris--our edicts, ordinances, and customs, and the usages of the Provostry and Viscounty of Paris."32 The Cou­tume, despite its name, was actually a small code of some 362 titles first reduced to writing in 1510,33 and treating both substantive and adjective law. It was itself terse, indeed epigrammatic; but the com­mentary on it by the time of its adoption in Louisiana was volumi­nous. 34 Annotated versions of the Coutume were therefore very popular in France and in time they found their way to Louisiana.35 Also in 1712, by a separate instrument, a new and important institution was created for the colony, the Superior Council of Loui­siana. 36 Modelled on the governmental arrangements already in 29. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 216. 30. Id. at 248. 31. Dart, The Legal Institutions of Louisiana, 3 SOUTHERN LAW Q. 247 (1918). This article also appears in 2 LA. HIST. Q. 72 (1919). 32. The charter is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 13, at 17 (1909). 33. For a precis of its provisions, title by title, see Schmidt, History ef the Jurisprudence of Louisiana, l LA. L. J., no. l, l (1841). 34. The most useful eighteenth-century commentary is C. FERRIERE, CoMMENTAIRE SUR LA CouTUME DE LA PREVOTE ET VICOMTE DE p ARIS. It is available in several editions. 35. Dart, The Law Library ef a Louisiana Lawyer in the 18th Century, 25 REPORTS OF THE LOUISIANA BAR ASSOCIATION 12, at 22 et seq. (1924). 36. See Dart, supra note 31, at 249 et seq. See also, for some discussion of the work of this body, Hardy, The Superior Council in Colonial Louisiana, in FRENCHMEN AND FRENCH 400 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 place in other French colonies, the Council had original and exclu­sive jurisdiction to decide disputes arising anywhere in Louisiana. It consisted of the Lieutenant General of New France; the Intendant of the same; the Governor of Louisiana; a first councilor of the king; two other councilors; the attorney general; and a clerk. Judgments in civil cases required the concurrence of at least three members and in criminal cases at least five. The Council was originally created to exist for three years, but on September 7, 1716, it became by virtue of a Royal Edict a permanent institution.37 In 1717 a fundamental change occurred in the government of Louisiana. In that year Crozat, having lost an enormous sum under his operating charter, surrendered it, and John Law's Compagnie d'Occident was given a monopoly over trade in the colony. In addi­tion, unlike Crozat's company, the Compagnie d'Occident was granted extensive governmental authority: It had the power to ap­point the Superior Council, to name governors and military com­mandants, and to appoint and remove all judges. The charter also provided that "Seront tous !es juges Etbalis en tous !es d. Lieux tenus de juger suivant !es Loix Et ordonnances du Royaume Et se Con-former a la Coutume de la prevoste Et Vicomte de Paris. . . ."; that is, that "all the judges established in all the said places shall be bound to judge according to the laws and ordinances of the realm, and [shall also be bound] to conform to the customs of the Prevostry and Viscounty of Paris."38 This portion of the charter obviously provided for the reception of general French legislation and the Custom of Paris. In addition, it has been shown that subsequent French legislation, as soon as it was registered in the colony, and the legislation of the Superior Council itself, formed part of the body of colonial Louisiana law.39 The subsequent French legislation was of three distinct sorts: (a) general legislation; (b) special colonial legis­lation; ( c) colonial legislation passed specifically for Louisiana. 40 Two years later we hear for the first time about inferior courts for outlying portions of the colony. On September 12, 1719, the king noted the need to appoint persons to act as judges "to facilitate w A YS IN THE MISSISSIPPI v ALLEY 87 (J. McDemott ed., 1969); Micelle, From Law Court to Local Government: Metamorphosis of the Superior Council of French Louisiana, 9 LA. HIST. 85 (1968). 37. The edict is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 21-23 (19CS). 38. Id. at 48. 39. Baade, Marriage Contracts in French and Spanish Louisiana: A Study in "Notarial" Jurisprudence, 53 TUL. L. REV. 3, 9 (1978). 40. Id. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 401 the administration of justice in places distant from the place where the Superior Council holds it sessions."41 The "heads or directors" of concessions along with "other of our subjects, capable and of pro­bity" were to "exercise both civil and criminal justice." The edict went on to provide that, even in these inferior courts, "three judges shall sit in civil matters and in criminal matters five judges . " The plan, evidently, was to have a kind of provincial council at each settlement. The king further provided that an appeal from these lo­cal tribunals would lie in all cases to the Superior Council.42 All this was being done, of course, to make ready the way for Law's coloniz­ing schemes. In 1720 or 1721 Louisiana was for the first time divided into districts (or counties). Arkansas was one of the nine districts origi­nally created, and a local commandant and a judge was assigned to each "to put justice with greater ease in reach of the colonists."43 Presumably, and understandably, the plan to establish local councils outside New Orleans was abandoned at this time. The sources sim­ply fail us on the question of whether more than one person was expected to sit on local courts, but it could not have proved worka­ble in remote places like Arkansas to assemble a multi-member ju­dicial body. In May of 1722 the Regent issued an order creating a provincial council for Illinois, the jurisdiction of which supposedly extended from "all places on and above and Arkansas River . . . to the boundaries of the Wabash River." The commandant of the Illinois, Lieutenant de Boisbriant, was to serve as "chief and judge" of this so-called council, which in fact had only one other member.44 It thus seems to have been the plan to abolish the Arkansas district and annex its territory to its nearest northern neighbor; and the Illi­nois provincial council was directed "to hold its sessions at the places where the principal factories of the company shall be estab- 41. The edict is printed in 4 PUBLICATIONS LA. HIST. Soc. 63 (1908). 42. The translation in the text is mine. The entire edict is translated and discussed in Dart, supra note 31, at 261 et seq. Further discussion of this edict can be found in Dart, The Colonial Legal Systems of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, 27 REPORTS OF THE LOUISIANA BAR ASSOCIATION 43 at 52 (1926). 43. Id. at 267. The other districts were New Orleans, Biloxi, Mobile, Alibamous, Natchez, Yazoo, N atchitotches, and the Illinois. 44. Translated extracts from this order appear in 2 J. WHITE, A NEW COLLECTION OF LAWS, CHARTERS, AND LOCAL ORDINANCES OF THE GOVERNMENTS OF GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND SPAIN, RELATING TO THE CONCESSION OF LAND IN THEIR RESPECTIVE COLO­NIES . 439-40 (1837). 402 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 lished."45 This language could have been construed to require the Illinois council to sit at the Arkansas. It is, however, very much to be doubted that such a session was ever held, and certainly it is not believeable that anyone would repair from Arkansas to Illinois to settle a grievance in 1722. It seems probable, then, that whatever judicial functions were exercised at the Arkansas were entrusted to its resident directors even after the supposed creation of the council of the Illinois. The only resident director that the Arkansas ever had was, as we saw, Bertrand Dufresne, sieur du Demaine, who arrived at the Post March 22, 1722, and he was evidently the judge from that point on. Prior to that, Jacques Levens had been director, but as he never took up residence in Arkansas we have to presume that if judicial func­tions were undertaken by anyone, it was by one or more of the three subordinates to whom Levens had entrusted the management of the struggling colony: Jean-Baptiste, Menard, Martin Merrick, and Labro.46 When Dufresne left the Arkansas around 1726 we can hardly guess the means resorted to for the settlement of disputes. Probably Father Paul du Poisson, the Jesuit missionary resident from 1727 to 1729, used his good offices to maintain order among the approximately thirty Frenchmen who had remained behind.47 It seems probable, therefore, that Arkansas's first sustained ex­posure to European legal proceedings and principles occurred in the period during which Law's Company held sway in Louisiana. Tonti's seventeenth-century feudal seignory no doubt carried with it the right to render justice. Though his charter from La Salle has not as yet come to light,48 other conveyances of La Salle's are extant; and in them he gave his grantees judicial power over small cases ("low justice" this is called) while specifically reserving important cases ("high justice") to himself. (Cases of the latter type he di­rected to be heard by the judge "who shall be established at Fort St. 45. Id. at 440. 46. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 272. Menard left the Arkansas in 1722 (jd., 275) and was in New Orleans in 1720. Index to the Records efthe Superior Council of Louisiana, 4 LA. HIST. Q. 349 (1921). 47. Dufresne appears in the Arkansas census of January !, 1726; but on October 21, 1726, he is described as a "settler in Arkansas, but now domiciled with Mr. Traguidy [in New Orleans]." Index to the Records of Superior Council of New Orleans, 3 LA. HIST. Q. 420 (1920). In 1727 there was no director at the Arkansas, as Father Du Poisson tells us that he took up evidence in "the India Company's house, which is also that of the commandants when there are any here . " See Falconer, supra note 27, at 371. 48. For a charter from Tonti to Jacques Cardinal, one of his men at the Arkansas, see THE FRENCH FOUNDATIONS, supra note 9, at 396. 'Fhla is tlae Olll)' grant gf Tgati's eKtastF 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 403 Louis.")49 We do not know whether Tonti's charter contained iden­tical provisions but it certainly would have contained similar ones. But during the fifteen years or so that Tonti held the right to dispose of certain cases arising in his seignory, it hardly seems credible that he or his deputies ever held anything resembling a court, or even executed many instruments or documents.50 IV In 1731 the Compagnie d'Occident surrendered its charter to Louis XV, and for the rest of the period of French dominion Louisi­ana was a Crown Colony. Late that same year a military garrison was re-established in Arkansas; it consisted of twelve men com­manded by First Ensign de Coulange and was located again on the edge of Little Prairie. 51 (See Figure 2). It was apparently during the reorganization of the colony in 1731 that civil and military authority at the outposts of Louisiana were combined in the commandant of the garrison-an arrangement that would survive into the Spanish period and even for a short time during the American regime. Part of a post commandant's civil authority was to act as notary and judge. The exact scope of his judicial jurisdiction during the French period is obscure, there being no document of which I am aware which describes it specifically. Parkman, writing of condi­tions in the Illinois in 1764, says that the "military commandant whose station was at Fort Chartres on the Mississippi, ruled the Col­ony with a sway as absolute as that of the Pasha of Egypt, and judg­ed civil and criminal cases without right of appeal."52 Captain Phillip Pittman, an English engineer and Mississippi explorer who was writing at almost exactly the same time, gives a slightly different version. According to him, the Illinois commandant "was absolute 49. Concession in fee by La Salle to Pierre Prudhomme, in id. at 32. 50. When Tonti petitioned for confirmation of his charter, he was evidently refused. The petition is printed in E. MURPHEY, HENRY DE TONTI, FUR TRADER OF THE MISSISSIPPI 119 (1941). It is possible that La Salle did not have the power to make permanent grants and that may be the reason that Tonti needed confirmation. The Letters Patent of May 12, 1678, giving La Salle the right to explore "the western part of New France" in the king's behalf, gave him the power to build forts wherever he deemed them necessary; and he was "to hold them on the same tern1s and conditions as Fort Frontenac." See T. FALCONER, ON THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI 19 (1844). La Salle said expressly in 1683 that this allowed him to "divide with the French and the Indians both the lands and the commerce of said country until it may please his majesty to command otherwise . " See THE FRENCH FoUNDATio~;upra note 9, at 43. The language is ambiguous, but on one permissible read­ing it indicates a specifically reserved power in the king to revoke grants made by La Salle. 51. Faye, supra note 6, at 673. 52. Quoted in Dart, supra note 31, at 249. 404 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 in authority, except in matters of life and death; capital offences were tried by the council at New Orleans."53 Of course, the Arkan­sas commandant's judicial jurisdiction was not necessarily as exten­sive as that possessed by the commandant of the Illinois. He may very well have been subordinate to the Illinois commandant during most of the French period. Some fitful light is thrown on the judicial authority of the Ar­kansas commandant by an interesting proceeding which took place at the Post in 1743.54 In October of that year, Anne Catherine Chenalenne, the widow of Jean Francois Lepine, petitioned Lieu­tenant Jean-Francois Tisserant de Montcharvaux, whom she styled "Commandant for the King at the Fort of Arkansas," asking him to cause an inventory and appraisal to be made of the community property in her possession. The object in view was to make a distri­bution to the petitioner's son-in-law and daughter who had the pre­vious May lost all their goods when attacked by Chickasaws on the Mississippi not far below the mouth of the Arkansas. They had nar­rowly escaped with their lives.55 Widow Lepine had decided to make a distribution to "her poor children, at least to those who have run so much risk among the savages." She was preparing to marry Charles Lincto, a well-to-do resident of the Post, and she wished to dissolve the old community which by custom had continued after her husband's death in her and their children. The commandant informed Madame Lepine that on 26 Octo­ber, 1743, he would inventory the "real and personal property de­rived from the marital community" and would bring with him two persons to look after the widow's interest and two to represent the children. The idea was that each party in interest should have in­dependent appraisers present to insure the impartiality of the inven­tory and evaluation. De Montcharvaux in the presence of these and other witnesses caused the inventory to be made on the appointed day. The estate was fairly sizeable, being valued at 14,530 /ivres and 10 sols. It contained a great deal of personalty, including four slaves, a number of animals, 1600 pounds of tobacco, and notes and accounts receivable; the realty noted was "an old house" with three small outbuildings. Interestingly, no land was mentioned. There are two possible explanations for the absence of land in S3. P. PITTMAN, THE PRESENT STATE OF THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT ON THE M1ss1s­SIPPI S3 (1770) (Reprinted with intro. by R. Rea 1973). S4. The relevant documents are translated in Core, Arkansas through the Looking Glass ef 1743 Documents, 22 GRAND PRAIRIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 16 (1979). SS. This incident is reported and discussed in Faye, supra note 6, at 677-78. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 405 the inventory. One is that land may not have been actually granted to Arkansas settlers but only given over temporarily to their use. The other possibility is that the land on which the house was built had belonged to Lepine before the marriage and had remained his separate property under his marriage contract or under the general provisions of the Coutume de Paris. The Coutume, which, as we have seen, was in force in French Louisiana, provided that all mov­ables (personalty), belonging to a husband or wife, whenever ac­quired, became part of the community; but only certain immovables (realty) acquired after the marriage were so treated.56 This rule could be altered by contract, but in Louisiana, as in France, the Cou­tume was often specifically incorporated into marriage contracts by future spouses in defining the regime that would rule their prop­erty; 57 and if there was no contract provision creating a property regime, the Coutume of course automatically applied. The inventory is said to have been made "Pardevant nous Jean Francois Tisserant Ecuyer Sieur Demoncharvaus Commandant pour le Roy au Fort des Arkansas." The formulapardevant nous ("before us") is Parisian notarial boiler-plate and indicates that the comman­dant was acting in his surrogate notarial capacity. To an American common lawyer, the notary is not a member of the legal profession, not even a paralegal. But in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France he enjoyed a much more elevated status, as indeed he still does in that country. Originally an official of the medieval Euro­pean ecclesiastical courts, the notary developed into a nonconten­tious secular legal professional in France. In England, partly because the canon and secular laws were not on speaking terms, "the notarial system never took deep root."58 For one thing, an im­portant aspect of the notary's duties, his authority to "authenticate" documents, was of little use to the English. The whole notion of a state-sanctioned authenticator of private acts was entirely foreign to the common law: Whereas in France we see notaries "making" and "passing" contracts, the common law left that to the parties. The state was very much in the background in England, and was called upon only to enforce obligations that arose by force of nature. The other aspect of the French notary's duties, the drafting of instruments, conveyancing, and the giving of legal advice, was per- 56. See Baade, supra note 39, at 7, 8. 57. Id. at 25. 58. l F. POLLOCK & F. MAITLAND, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 218 (2d ed., reissued with intro. by S. Milsom 1968). 406 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 formed by the regular legal profession in England. It is true that there was a scriveners' company organized in London in the six­teenth century which was granted a charter in the reign of James l.59 Members were empowered to draft legal documents, especially obli­gations (or bonds), and they gave a certain amount of low-level le­gal advice particularly in commercial and banking matters. 60 The few secular notaries who practiced in London at that time con­cerned themselves mainly with drafting documents relevant to inter­national trade, and they were members of this company.61 But in the eighteenth century the company lost its effort to keep common­law attorneys from competing, and in 1804 parliament made con­veyancing the monopoly of the regular legal profession.62 In con­trast, the French notary's duties by the eighteenth century had come to include not only the familiar ones of administering oaths, taking acknowledgements, and giving "authenticity" to "acts" of private persons by attesting them officially, but they also ran generally to the drafting of documents, conveyancing, and the giving of practical legal advice.63 It is not surprising, therefore, that notaries would 59. See 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, A HISTORY OF ENGLISH LAW 70 (1938). See generally on the notary in England, Gutteridge, The Origin and Development ef the Profession of Notaries Public in England, in CAMBRIDGE LEGAL ESSAYS 12 (1926). 60. 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at id. 61. 5 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at 115 (3d ed. 1945). 62. 12 w. HOLDSWORTH, supra note 59, at 71-72; T. PLUCKNETT, A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE COMMON LAW 227-28 (5th ed. 1956). 63. As draftman of wills, marriage contracts, and conveyances, Mons. le Notaire has survived in France as a much respected person, especially in the country villages. He is a general non-forensic legal practitioner, his part in the legal scheme "being confined to vol­untary as distinct from contentious jurisdiction." Brown, The office of Notary in France, 2 INT'L & COMP. L. Q. 60, at 64 (1953). Indeed, the French notary is close to the equivalent of the English solicitor, except for the latter's participation in litigation. Thus one modern-day commentator opined that "a solicitor would feel much at home in the etude of the French notary, though he would be surprised, and perhaps disappointed, by the cordiality of the morning post." Id. at 71. Today in Louisiana as well the notary enjoys considerable powers. See Burke & Fox, The Notaire in North America: A Short Study of the Adaptation of a Civil Law Institution, 50 TUL. L. REV. 318, at 328-32 (1975); Brosman, Louisiana-An Accidental Experiment in Fu­srim, 24 TUL. L. REV. 95, 98-99 (1949). The Louisiana notary has the power "to make inventories, appraisements, and petitions; to receive wills, make protests, matrimonial con­tracts, conveyances, and generally, all contracts and instruments of writing; to hold family meetings and meetings of creditors; . to affix the seals upon the effects of deceased per­sons and to raise the same." LA. STAT. ANN.§ 35:2 (1964). When the Louisiana legislature defined the practice of law, and prohibited all but licensed attorneys from engaging in it, it therefore remembered to except acts performed by the notary which were "necessary or incidental to the exercise of the powers and functions of (his] office." LA. STAT. ANN. § 37:212(B) (1974). A walk through modern-day New Orleans will reveal a number of signs proclaiming the existence of "Law and Notarial Offices", a combination having an odd ring in the ears of an American common lawyer. The Louisiana notary is simply "a different and 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 407 make an appearance in eighteenth-century Louisiana. In New Orle­ans, of course, there was much work for them, but there were also provincial notaries operating in Biloxi, Mobile, Natchitoches, Pointe Coupee, and Kaskaskia.64 Since De Montcharvaux acted as notary for the Lepine inven­tory, it is reasonably clear that there was no provincial notary resi­dent at the Arkansas at that time. This comes as no surprise since in 1746 there were at the Post only twelve habitant families, ten slaves, and twenty men in the garrison, 65 hardly a sufficient European pop­ulation to require or attract a law-trained scrivener. When it was time to have their marriage contract made, the widow Chenalenne and her future spouse executed it in New Orleans. No doubt there was available there legal advice on which they might more comfort­ably rely.66 Besides, there was at that time no resident priest at the Post to perform the marriage. v On May 10, 1749, an event occurred that considerably reduced the European population of Arkansas and also made it difficult to attract settlers there for some time. On that day, the Post was at­tacked by a group of about 150 Chicaksaw and Abeka warriors. Their coming was undetected67 and thus they caught the small habi­tant population altogether unaware. They burned the settlement, killed six male settlers, and took eight women and children as slaves.68 The census taken later that year shows, not surprisingly, that the population had decreased since the previous census. Seven more important official person than is the notary public in other jurisdictions of the United States." Brosman, supra at 98. 64. See Baade, supra note 39, at 12. 65. Memoire sur /'Eta! de la Colonie de la Louisiane en 1746. Archives des Colonies, Archives Nationales, Paris [hereinafter cited as ANC], Cl3A, 30:242-281, at 249, (Typescript of original document available at Little Rock Public Library). As the average family size in Arkansas in the middle of the eighteenth century was about four, this would put the number of habitant whites at the Post at about forty-eight. 66. For an abstract of this marriage contract, see Records o.f the Superior Council o.f Louisiana, 13 LA. HlsT. Q. 129 (1944). 67. However, the habitants may have had a warning that something was afoot, for on May l, Francois Sarrazin had written from Arkansas that "two savages have killed a man and a woman and burnt a man in the frame." Records efthe Superior Court o.f Louisiana, 20 LA. HlsT. Q. 505 (1937). This incident may have been connected with the attack nine days later. 68. Vaudreuil to Rouille, September 22, 1749, calendared in THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS 59-60 (B. Barron ed., 1975). See also Faye, supra note 6, at 684 et seq. W. BAIRD, THE QUAPAW INDIANS: A HISTORY OF THE DOWNSTREAM PEOPLE 34 (1980), gives the number taken as slaves as thirteen. 408 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 men, eight women, eight boys, and eight girls remained, a total of only thirty-one white habitants at the Poste des Akansa .69 Nor did all this mark an end to serious trouble. When in June of 1751 First Ensign Louis-Xavier-Martin de Lino de Chalmette, the comman­dant of the Post, went uninvited to New Orleans to consult with the governor, his entire garrison of six men took the opportunity to de­sert. 70 Things were obviously at a critical juncture. When later in 17 51 Lieutenant Paul Augustin le Pelletier de la Houssaye took command at Arkansas he found there a post recently rebuilt by its habitants and _voyagij,tfrs and probably already relo­cated to a spot ten or twelve miles upriver at the edge of the Grand Prairie. (See Figure 2). It is clear that Governor Vaudreuil had determined to hold the Arkansas even if the cost proved high, for he assigned to De La Houssaye a large company of forty-five men.71 The lieutenant was also authorized to build a new fort; government funds being lacking, he undertook the construction at his own ex­pense in return for a five-year Indian trade monopoly.72 This new beginning could, in the nature of things, have given only a slight lift to the prospects for sustained settlement in the Ar­kansas country. Late in 1752 Governor Vaudreuil was informed that the Osages had attempted an attack on Arkansas Post but had failed. 73 While this indicates a stability of sorts for the l?ost, thanks no doubt to the size of the new garrison, still the perceived danger must have been so high as to discourage all but the most intrepid from taking up residence at the Arkansas. Mentions of Arkansas in the legal records tend to emphasize the dangerousness of the place. For instance, a couple from Pointe Coupee, on the verge of leaving for a hunting trip to the White River country, thought it best to deed their property to a relative, with the stipulation that the deed was to be void if they returned.74 It is not surprising, therefore, that even as late as 1766, the last year of French dominion, only eight habitant families, consisting in all of forty white persons, were resident at Arkansas Post.75 69. Arkansas Post Census, 1749, Loudon Papers 200, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. There were also fourteen slaves resident at the post and sixteen voyageurs who had returned after their winter's work. There were five hunters on the White River and four on the St. Francis. Thirty-five hunters had failed to return from the Arkansas River. 70. Faye, supra note 6, at 708. 71. Id. at 211. 72. Id. 73. THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 136. 74. Index to the Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 24 LA. HlsT. Q. 75 (1941). 75. See Din, Arkansas Post in the American Revolution, 40 ARK. HIST. Q. 3, at 4 (1981). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 409 All of these difficulties, and others, made for a place in which it might be regarded as too polite to expect the presence of much which corresponds to a legal system. In addition, political exigen­cies sometimes interfered to such an extent that the application of even-handed legal principle became inexpedient and thus entirely impracticable. For instance, the continued existence of the Arkan­sas settlement depended heavily on the loyalty of the Quapaws and their wishes were therefore relevant to any important decision made there. Their influence could extend even to the operation of the le­gal system as the following incident demonstrates. On 12 September, 1756, a meeting was held in the Government House in New Orleans to hear an extraordinary request from Guedetonguay, the Medal Chief of the Quapaws.76 His tribe had captured four deserters from the Arkansas garrison and had re­turned them; but the chief had come on behalf of his nation to ask Governor Kerlerac to pardon the soldiers. One of those captured, Jean Baptiste Bernard, in addition to having deserted, had killed his corporal Jean Nicolet within the precincts of the fort. The chief, obviously a great orator, said that he had come a long distance to plead for the soldiers' lives despite the heat and the demands of the harvest; and in his peroration he said that his head hung low, hi~ eyes were fixed to the ground, and his heart wept for these men. He knew, he explained, that if he had not come they would have been executed, and this was intolerable to him because he regarded them as his own children. He recited many friendly acts of the Qua paws to prove the fidelity of his people to the French. Among them was the release of six slaves (perhaps Chicaksaws cap­tured by the Quapaws) "who would have been burned" otherwise, and the recent capture of five Choctaws and two trespassing Eng­lishmen. He himself, he noted, had recently lost one son and had had another wounded in the war against the Chickasaws; and he . counted this "a mark of affection for the French." In recompense he asked for the pardon of the soldiers. The chief added that this was the only such pardon his nation had thus far requested, and he promised never to ask again. He did not doubt that Kerlerac, "the great chief of the French father of the red men," charged to govern them on behalf of "the great chief of all the French who lived in the 76. What follows is based on a memorandum entitled "Harangues faites dans /'assemb/ee tenue a /'hotel du gouvernment cejourdhui, 20 Juin 1756," found in ANC, Cl3A, 39:177-180 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The translations are mine. 410 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 great town on the other side of the great lake," would listen and do the just thing. Guedetonguay left his best argument for last. He maintained vigorously that, under his law, any criminal who managed to reach the refuge of the Cabanne de Valeur where the Quapaws practiced their religious rites was regarded as having been absolved of his crime. It was their custom everywhere that the chief of the Cabanne de Valeur "would sooner lose his life than suffer the refugee to un­dergo punishment for his crime." Evidently the soldiers were claim­ing this right; and Ouyayonsas, the chief of the Cabanne de Valeur, was there to back them up. This last argument was an excellent one because it called upon the French to recognize an established Indian usage not dissimilar from the European custom of sanctuary. And the argument carried with it a threat of violent reaction if the cus­tom were not allowed. Kerlerac answered the chief that he was not unmindful of the past services of the Quapaws, nor was he ungrateful for them. "But," he said, "I cannot change the words declared by the great chief of all the French against such crimes, and . . . it would be a great abuse for the future" to pardon the soldiers. So, he continued, "despite all the friendship that the French have for you and your nation, these men deserve death." The great chief stood for a long time with his head down and finally answered ominously that he could not be responsible for the revolutions which the chief of the privileged house might stir up-­revolutions which he said ''would not fail to occur." The argument continued and the governor offered to grant the chief "anything else except these four pardons." But Guedetonguay stubbornly main­tained that "the sole purpose of his journey was to obtain the par­don of the four men." In the end the Governor extracted from the Quapaw chiefs "publicly and formally their word . . . that they would in the future deliver up all deserting soldiers as malefactors or other guilty persons without any restriction or condition whatso­ever, and that . pardons would be accorded at the sole discretion of the French." No immediate decision was reached by the Governor, but later that day some of his advisors, having reflected on what they had heard, reckoned "that a refusal of the obstinate demands of these chiefs . . . the faithful allies of the French would only involve the colony in troublesome upheavals on the part of the said nations who have otherwise up to the present served very faithfully." They con- 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 411 eluded that "saving a better idea by Monsieur le Gouverneur it would be dangerous, under all the present circumstances, not to sat­isfy the Indians with the pardons which they demanded." The governor took the advice but evidently did not write to Berryet, the French Minister of the Marine, for some time to tell him about it. From the comfort of Versailles it was easy for Berryet to pick at Kerlerac's decision.77 In responding to Kerlerac, Berryet first made the point that Bernard's case was different from that of the other captured soldiers since he was accused of homicide in ad­dition to desertion. Then, too, the minister had a lot of questions. Could not the difference in Bernard's case have been urged on the Arkansas chiefs to get them to relent in his case? Where was the record of the legal proceedings which should have been conducted relative to the killing? If this was a wilfull murder the pardon had been conceded too easily. "It would be dangerous," the minister warned, ''to leave such a subject in the colony, not only because he would be an example of impunity but also because of new crimes that he might commit." (The arguments of general and specific de­terrence are not very recent inventions.) Finally, the governor was sternly admonished "not to surrender easily to demands of this sort on the part of the savages . If on the one hand it is necessary, considering all the present circumstances, to humor the savages, it is also necessary to be careful of letting them set a tone that accords neither with the king's authority nor the good of the colony." Nevertheless, the minister talked to the king and he ratified the governor's decision. Writs of pardon were therefore issued under the king's name for each of the Arkansas soldiers. Because the homicide committed by Bernard was not a military crime and was cognizable therefore by the Superior Council of Louisiana, his par­don was directed to the Council. Interestingly, though Berryet ad­mitted knowing nothing of the circumstances surrounding the killing, the pardon recited that a quarrel had arisen between Ber­nard and Nicolet, that they had beaten each other, that Bernard : "had had the misfortune to kill the said Nicolet," and that the death "had occurred without premeditated murder."78 Thus Louis XV pardoned Jean Baptiste Bernard for killing by mischance when there was no evidence adduced as to the facts resulting in Nicolet's 77. What follows is based in Berryet's letter to Kerlerac and Bobe Descloseaux dated July 14, 1769. ANC, B, 109:487-88 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The transla­tion is mine. 78. The pardon (brevet de grtJce) was enclosed in the letter and is ANC, B, 109:489 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). The translation is mine. 412 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 death. The decision was generated simply by a desire to accommo­date an important ally. Faithful adherence to legal principle some­times had to take a back seat to the more compelling demands of politics. VI Father Louis Carette, the Jesuit missionary who came to the Post of Arkansas in 1750, nevertheless attempted to bring some or­der to the legal affairs of the place. As he noted in a procuration (power of attorney) dated at Arkansas in 1753, he was "authorized by the king to make in every post where there is not a Notary Royal all contracts and acts . "79 There is no evidence that he had any formal legal training, but he was a Jesuit, and thus a learned man, one of a handful of such who would make their residence in eight­eenth- century Arkansas. The 1753 procuration is itself of some interest, as it sheds light on how litigants whose cases were technically beyond the jurisdic­tion exercised by the Arkansas commandant (whatever that was) might have had their cases heard if they wanted to resort to regular methods of dispute settlement. As incredible as it seems, it is prob­able that the only court of general jurisdiction in the entire colony was the Superior Council of Louisiana. Now, in 1763 La Harpe said that it was a two-week boat trip from the Arkansas to New Orleans, and six to eight weeks back.80 Obviously, the procuration was an important device for people in remote posts like Arkansas, for it enabled them through their attorneys, in the language of the docu­ment under discussion, "to act . . . as though they were personally present."81 Convoys or individual vessels travelled down the Mis­sissippi frequently enough to make this means of tending to legal affairs more tolerable than it might otherwise have been. In this case, the attorney chosen was Commandant de la Houssaye, and he was deputed to act in a probate matter at Pointe Coupee for Etienne de Vaugine de Nuysement and his wife Antoinette Pelagie Petit de Divilliers. An interesting feature of procurations which increased their utility and flexibility was that they were assignable. This fea­ture came in handy in this instance since De La Houssaye, having 79. Index to the Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 22 LA. H!sT. Q. 255 (1939). 80. La Harpe to Chosseul, August 8, 1763, ANC, Ci3B, 1 (Typescript in Little Rock Public Library). 81. Records, supra note 79, at id. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 413 been detained at the Arkansas due to illness, simply transferred the power of attorney to a member of the Superior Council "to act in my place as myself."82 Perhaps one of the reasons that Carette had acted as notary in this instance was that the only other person in the little community authorized so to act, the commandant, was a party to the instru­ment. But in the French period priests were given general notarial powers and could act even in the absence of circumstances disabling the commandant. For instance, Carette acted as notary, and thus probably draftsman, for a marriage contract in which the comman­dant was not interested. This was the marriage contract of Francois Sarrazin and Francoise Lepine, executed at Arkansas Post on Janu­ary 6, 1752. Marriage contracts have no exact parallel in common-law prac­tice, and it thus seems worthwhile, before discussing the particulars of the Sarrazin-Lepine contract, to devote some time to their expla­nation and description. In a recent seminal study, Professor Hans Baade has outlined the provisions which one typically finds in mar­riage contracts executed in accordance with eighteenth-century Pari­sian notarial practice.83 The first and invariable undertaking by the future spouses was a promise to celebrate their marriage in facie ec­c! esiae. The parties would then choose the regime which would govern their property during the marriage. Next would come a dec­laration that the ante-nuptial debts of the parties were to remain their separate obligations; this was followed by a disclosure of the parties' assets, a requirement for the validity of the previous provi­sion. The dowry brought to the marriage by the wife was next re­cited; and delineating preciput, the right of the spouse to specific property in the event of dissolution of the community, frequently followed. Finally came the donation clause, usually a reciprocal grant of all or part of the predeceasing spouse's estate. In Louisiana, this donation, in order to be valid, had to be registered with the Superior Council in New Orleans. An inspection of the Sarrazin-Lepine marriage contract reveals that it very clearly drew on these French notarial precedents, and it reflects, moreover, an awareness of the practical requirements of the Louisiana registration provisions. It contained a promise to cele­brate the marriage in regular fashion, the creation of a community property regime, a clause stating the amount of the wife's dowry, a 82. Id. 83. What follows is taken from Baade, supra note 39, at 15-18. 414 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 mutual donation to the survivor of all property owned at death, and an undertaking to have the contract registered in New Orleans.84 While there was no clause dealing with ante-nuptial debts and no mention of preciput, it is quite obvious that the good Jesuit knew more than a little about French notarial practice, and may well have had at his disposal a form book on which he could draw. He was, for all practical purposes, for a time the "lawyer" of the post as well as its cure. Before we leave this interesting document there is an aspect of it which bears detailed attention. The property regime chosen by the parties included in the community "all property, movable and immovable"85-as common lawyers would say, all property, both personal and real. In this respect the contract departs from the Cus­tom of Paris which included in the community all movables but only certain immovables (conquets) acquired after marriage. 86 Par­ties were allowed in Louisiana to contract almost any property ar­rangement they wanted, 87 and Sarrazin and Lepine had elected a somewhat unusual variety of community. Curiously, however, the contract reckoned that this regime was "in accordance with the cus­tom received in the colony of Louisiana." A few months after the execution of this contract Commandant de la Houssaye wrote to the governor to say that Monsieur Etienne V augine, a French officer, was of a mind to marry Madame de Gouyon, the commandant's sister-in-law, and he sent along "the proposed conditions for the contract of marriage."88 This was a draft of the contract, as De La Houssaye asked the governor to pass "/'exemplair du contra!" along to the New Orleans notary Chantaloux if the governor decided to give his permission for the marriage. Chantaloux was "to make it as it should be."89 Three weeks later the governor wrote to say that the contract would be sent back soon and that Chantaloux had left it intact except for one rea­sonably minor alteration.90 In 1758 Father Carette, dismayed by the irreligious inclination of his flock, left the Arkansas and no replacement was sent. In 17 64, 84. Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, 25 LA. HlsT. Q. 856-57 (1942). 85. Id. at 856. 86. Baade, supra note 39, at 15. 87. Id. 88. La Houssaye to Vaudreuil, Dec. l, 1752, LO 410, Huntington Library, San Marino, CA. 89. Id. 90. THE v AUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 152. 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 415 Captain Pierre Marie Cabaret Detrepi, commandant at the Arkan­sas, after Madame Sarrazin had found herself widowed, passed a second marriage contract for her which was extremely unsophistica­ted and rudimentary.91 It contained only a promise to marry regu­larly and a mutual donation. Perhaps the good widow had by this time tired of long-winded formalities. Just as likely, the Post was feeling the absence of Carette's drafting skills. VII As tiny, remote, and inconsequential as the Arkansas settle­ment was, then, it is nevertheless clear that at least some of its peo­ple were part of the time adherents to French legal culture. Of course almost everyone who lived at the Post during the period of French domination was either a native of France or French Cana­dian; and by the end of the French period a substantial number of native Louisianans were there. It is most interesting to find the sur­vival of civilian legal form in so remote an outpost of empire. Obvi­ously, not all of Arkansas's residents lapsed into a kind of legal barbarism. There were, however, circumstances at work which would make it impossible for some time to establish a community which could be expected to value the observance of legal niceties very highly. As we have already seen, the Post could not have been very attractive to the more civilized settler owing to its dangerous loca­tion. Arkansas Post, moreover, over the years experienced an ex­treme physical instability since it was necessary to relocate it several times due partly to flooding. (See Figure 2). The Arkansas River was in the eighteenth century "a turbulent, silt-laden stream, subject to frequent floods which were disastrous along its lower course."92 This proved to be a considerable disincentive to settlement. Add to that the enormous expanse occupied by the alluvial plain of the Mississippi and the difficulty becomes plain enough. Almost any site within thirty miles of the mouth of the Arkan­sas carried with it a considerable risk of floods. Law's colony, on the Arkansas twenty-seven miles or so from its mouth, was said in 1721 to be "in a fertile sector but subject to floods."93 The success of the attack by the Chickasaws in 1749, when the Post was at the same 91. Records of the Superior Council of Louisiana, Feb. 11, 1764, Louisiana History Center, Louisiana State Museum, New Orleans. 92. P. HOI.DER, supra note 15, at 152. 93. 4 M. GIRAUD, supra note 17, at 273 (1974). 416 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 location, was made possible by the absence from the neighborhood of the Quapaws: Because of recent floods they had abandoned their old fields for a more promising place upstream.94 This place, called Ecores Rouges (Red Bluffs) by the French, was about thirty-six miles from the mouth of the Arkansas and was at the present loca­tion of the Arkansas Post Memorial.95 After the attack, the Post was moved to join the Indians at Ecores Rouges so as to provide for mutual protection.96 The new spot was free from floods but proved unsatisfactory from a strategic standpoint because of its distance from the Missis­sippi. The location delayed convoys and Governor Vaudreuil ex­pressed the view that "a post on the Mississippi would be more practical."97 Therefore in 1756 the Post was moved back downriver to about ten miles above the mouth. But the inevitable soon oc­curred. In 1758 heavy flooding, graphically described in a letter of Etienne Maurafet Layssard the garde magasin (storekeeper) of the Post, caused heavy damage, almost undoing the work of builders and architects who had been at work for the better part of a year. The houses were saved by virtue of being raised on stakes against such a day as this; but the habitants' fields, everything but Lays­sard's garden for which he had providently provided a levee, were entirely inundated.98 It was in fact a small enough loss. From the beginning, and understandably, the attempt to make a stable agricultural commu­nity of the Arkansas had failed miserably. There is no doubt that the European population of Arkansas during the French period con­sisted almost entirely of hunters and Indian traders. In 1726 the reporter of the Louisiana census remarked of the Arkansas that "all the habitants were poor and lived only from the hunting of the Indi­ans." 99 A 1746 report said of the twelve Arkansas habitant families 94. Faye, supra note 6, at 717-19. 95. See figure 2. 96. For details, see Appendix II to my forthcoming book, UNEQUAL LAWS UNTO A SAV­AGE RACE; EUROPEAN LEGAL TRADlTIONS IN ARKANSAS, 1686-1836. 97. THE VAUDREUIL PAPERS, supra note 68, at 118. 98. Faye, supra note 6, at 718-19. A detailed description of the repairs made in the summer of 1758, evidently necessitated by these floods, is in ANC, CBA, 40:349-50 (Type­script in Little Rock Public Library). In addition to making repairs, the builders constructed a house 26 feet long and 19 wide just outside the fort for the Indians who came there on business. It was of poteaux en terre construction, was covered with shingles, and was en­closed with stakes. The report describing the renovation and construction work of 1758 is signed by Denis Nicol~s Foucault, chief engineer of the Province of Louisiana. 99. ANC, GI, 464 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM • DeWitt ARKANSAS COUNTY • Dumas I I I 0 1. 1686-1699; 1721-1749 N 1 DESHA COUNTY T I I 4 I 8 mi Figure 2 Locations of Arkansas Post, 1686-1983 2. 1749-1756; 1779-1983 3. 1756-1779 JB Based on a map drawn by John Baldwin which appeared in Arnold, The Relocation of Arkansas Post to Ecores Rouges in 1779, 42 ARK. HIST. Q. 317 (1983). Used with permission of the Arkansas Historical Association. 417 418 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 that "their principal occupation is hunting, curing meat, and com­merce in tallow and bear oil." As for cultivating the soil, the same source reported that the habitants grew "some tobacco for their own use and for that of the savages and voyageurs." 100 In 1765 Captain Phillip Pittman, an Englishman, said that there were eight families living outside the fort who had cleared the land about nine hundred yards in depth. But, according to him "on account of the sandiness of the soil, and the lowness of the situation, which makes it subject to be overflowed," their harvest was not enough even to supply them with their necessary provisions. Pittman noted that "when the Mis­sissippi is at its utmost height the Lands are overflow' d upwards of five feet; for this reason all the buildings are rais'd six feet from the ground." Thus the residents of the Arkansas, he said, subsisted mainly by hunting and every season sent to New Orleans "great quantities of bear's oil, tallow, salted buffalo meat, and a few skins." 101 Both Layssard102 and Father Watrin103 hint that the discour­agement produced by the frequent flooding contributed to Father Carette's decision to leave. However that may be, it must be clear that during the period of French dominion the Post did not provide fertile soil for either crops or religion. Would regular bourgeois le­gal procedures have generally been afforded a more cordial accept­ance? Even absent direct evidence, this would in the abstract seem most unlikely. Unsafe, unstable, and uncomfortable, the Arkansas Post of Louisiana during the period of French dominion must surely also have been largely unmindful of bourgeois legal values. It is true, as we have seen, that some of the Post's residents tried to maintain a connection between their remote outpost and Euro­pean legal culture. But the few legal records that chance has al­lowed to come down to us from the French period are remarkable not only for their small number but also for the social and economic characteristics they reveal of the people who figured in them. They were an elite, related by marriage and blood, struggling under the difficult circumstances of their situation to participate in regular le- 100. Memoire, supra note 65 (Transcript at Little Rock Public Library). 101. P. PITTMAN, supra note 53, at xliv, 40-41. 10+. See ANC, Cl3A, 40:357 (Transcript in Little Rock Public Library). Layssard there remarks that the inhabitants at Arkansas were too poor to build a levee, and that "the Father would rather leave than go to such an expense. He is very poor." 103. See J. DELANGLEZ, THE FRENCH JESUITS IN LOWER LOUISIANA 444, where Watrin is quoted as saying that, despite there being little hope for conversion of the Quapaws, Fa­ther Carette "nevertheless followed both the French and the savages in their various changes of place, occasioned by the overflowing of the Mississippi near which the post is situated." 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 419 gal processes. The probate proceeding of 1743 was instituted by one of the most well-to-do residents of Arkansas in the person of Anne Catherine Chenalenne, widow of Jean Francois Lepine. The com­munity property inventoried included four slaves. 104 Her future husband Charles Lincto became the most substantial civilian resi­dent of the Post. The 17 49 census, if one excludes from it for the moment the commandant and his household, reveals that Lincto's household accounted for eight of the twenty-nine white habitants and seven of the eleven slaves at the Arkansas. 105 Etienne de Vau­gine de Nuysement who executed the procuration of 1753 was a member of one of the most distinguished French families of Louisi­ana; 106 and he granted the power to Commandant de la Houssaye who would soon become a Major of New Orleans and a Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis. 107 Vaugine and De la Houssaye married sisters. The marriage contract executed at the Arkansas in 1752 was entered into by the Post's garde magasin and Francoise Lepine, a daughter of Anne Catherine Chenalenne the petitioner in the probate proceeding of 1743; and the bride's dowry had resulted from the dissolution of the community which had been the aim of that proceeding. Finally, Francoise Lepine's second mar­riage contract, passed by Detrepi in 1764, was prelude to her mar­riage to Jean Baptiste Tisserant de Montcharvaux, officer and interpreter at the Post and son of the commandant who executed the 1743 inventory. We are dealing with a propertied and intercon­nected gentry here, a tiny portion of what was anyway a very small population. How the other, the major part of the Arkansas populace regu­lated their lives during the French period will, in the nature of things, be difficult to document. But there is some evidence on this point and it indicates that there was a good deal of lawlessness on the Arkansas. According to Athanase de Mezieres, the Lieutenant Governor at Natchitoches, the Arkansas River above the Post was inhabited largely by outlaws. "Most of those who live there," he claimed, "have either deserted from the troops and ships of the most Christian King and have committed robberies, rape, or homicide, 104. For a translation of this inventory, see Core, supra note 54, at 22. 105. Resancement General des Habitants, Voyageurs, Femmes. En.fans, Esclaves, Clzevaus, Beufs, Vaclzes, Coclzons du Foste des Akansas, 1749. Lo. 200, Huntington Library, San Ma­rino, CA. 106. On the Arkansas Vaugines, see Core, T!ze Vaugine Arkansas Connection, 20 GRAND PRAIRIE HISTORICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 6 (1978). 107. Faye, supra note 6, at 709. 420 UALR LAW JOURNAL [Vol. 6:391 that river being the asylum of the most wicked persons, without doubt, in all the Indies." 108 On another occasion, De Mezieres sin­gled out as a particularly heinous offender an Arkansas denizen nicknamed Brindamur, a man "of gigantic frame and extraordinary strength." Brindamur, De Mezieres complained, "has made himself a petty king over those brigands and highwaymen, who, with con­tempt for law and subordination with equal insult to Christians, and the shame of the very heathen, up to now have maintained them­selves on that river." 109 He had been resident on the Arkansas for a long time, as his name appears in the census of 1749. Interestingly, it is placed at the very head of a considerable list of "the voyageurs who have remained up the rivers despite the orders given them." 110 All persons hunting on the rivers were supposed to return every year as passports were not issued for longer periods. But there were large numbers of hunters who lived for twenty years or more in their camps without ever reporting to the Post. They constituted a large proportion, indeed sometimes a majority, of the European popula­tion in Arkansas during the French period. The 17 49 census, for instance, lists a habitant population of only thirty-one, including the commandant and his wife. But there were forty hunters on the Ar­kansas River whose passports had expired, and nine on the White and St. Francis Rivers. Sixteen hunters were said to be at the Post being outfitted to return to the hunt. Brindamur, the bandit King, was murdered by one of his men after the end of the French period, "though tardily" De Mezieres reckoned, and "by divine justice."111 In the Spanish period an effort was made to rid the river of these malefactors. VII Since no records of litigation initiated at the Arkansas during the French period have survived, if indeed any were ever kept, very little can be said directly on how lawsuits were conducted there. However, in 1747 Francois Jahan initiated a suit in the Superior Council in New Orleans against one Clermont, a resident of Arkan­sas Post, claiming damages for the conversion of a cask of rum at Arkansas. 112 The Superior Council, as we have shown, had jurisdic- 108. 1 ATHANASE DE MEZIERES AND THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS FRONTIER, 1768-1780 166 (H. Bolton ed., 1914). 109. Id. at 168-69. 110. Resancement, supra note 105. 111. t\. BOLTON, supra note 108, at 167. 112. Index lo the Records of the Superior Court of Louisiana, 17 LA. HIST. Q. 569 (1934). 1983] COLONIAL LEGAL SYSTEM 421 tion throughout Louisiana, and this case reveals how it was exer­cised against a defendant in the hinterlands. The summons was served on the Attorney General of Louisiana; thus, as Henry Dart pointed out, "it would seem . . . that a resident of the Post of Ar­kansas could be sued in New Orleans by serving the citation on the Procureur [Attorney] General."113 How the case would have, in the ordinary instance, proceeded from there is difficult to say. Probably the Arkansas commandant would have been asked to act as a master to gather facts and to report to the Superior Council. But it seems that the commandant had already ruled independently on the matter. Commandant de Monbharvaux's statement on this case, which is entered in the record a'few days after the suit was initiated, indicates that he had held a hearing on the matter at the Arkansas, had taken testimony as to the rum, and had "sentenced Clermont to pay for it."114 Apparently he had kept no record of the proceeding, as none was offered: The good lieutenant bore his own record. It is interesting to note, however, that this case was evidently not brought to enforce the commandant's judgment but was an independent action. How did the justice provided by the Post commandant during the French period measure up? In the absence of litigation records, this is the hardest kind of question to answer. We know, however, that whatever jurisdiction was exerciseable by the commandant, he acted alone, without official advisors and without, of course, a jury. To say that rule is autocratic is not to say