is eagerly recommended, and the development of the mines of copper and lead in the northwest, the existence of which was perfectly well known to the officers of the crown.

years

The administration of Kerlerec, as governor, covered ten years. At the end of that time he was recalled to France, and thrown into the Bastile. He was a captain in the French navy, who had distinguished himself in battle. But in the colony he was constantly quarrelling with Rochemore, the intendant of commerce, and his arrest was caused by charges of mal-appropriation of ten millions of livres in four under the pretence of preparation of war. He held office during the most of the French war of George II.'s reign, and for long periods of that time was left without any direct dispatches from France; for the English cruisers, who never attacked him directly, were successful in cutting off all his communications. Kerlerec's administration began with high hopes of conciliating the Choctaws. But he soon lost confidence in them, and his reports home, regarding the under officers of the crown, and indeed most of the people, with whom he had to do, were anything but flattering. The army itself was recruited from such worthless material as to give Kerlerec quite as much trouble as the savages whom it was to keep in order.

SPANISH FOOTHOLD IN THE UNITED STATES. SUCCESSIVE ACQUISITIONS BY THE UNITED STATES. THE FORTUNES OF FLORIDA. - BORDER WARS WITH CAROLINA AND GEORGIA.-OGLETHORPE'S EXPEDITIONS.-FLORIDA CEDED TO ENGLAND.ITS POPULATION. DISCOVERY OF CALIFORNIA. ORIGIN OF THE NAME. ROMANCE OF ESPLANDIAN. FATHER NICA'S PRETENDED DISCOVERIES. CORONADO'S EXPLORATION IN ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO.- DRAKE IN CALIFORNIA. HIS RECEPTION BY THE INDIANS.-LOCALITIES OF HIS DISCOVERIES.

THE destiny of the United States has passed so far under the empire of institutions which have an English origin, that it is easy to forget how large a portion of her territory has in other times belonged to the Spanish crown. The prevalence of the English language as the language of public procedure in every State and Territory, and the sway, in a very large degree, of English law and the habits of English administration, are enough to keep out of view the fact, that, at one time or another, more than half the present Extent of territory of the United States has been, on the map at least, dominion in subject to the King of Spain. The Spanish claim to Mex- America. ico and the regions north of it, was pressed indefinitely northward. Somewhere on the coast of what we call Oregon, Drake saw the shore in 1579, and he took possession of the country in California for

Spanish

North

the English crown as New Albion. But England scarcely asserted her rights under this discovery for centuries.

The Pacific

At one and another time since she seized the port of Astoria in 1813, she has made one and another claim to this territory, running back to her rights under Drake's discovery. But the decision which gave to the United States, holding under the Spanish claim, the region south of the line of 49° north latitude, states, quite correctly, the average opinion of the older geographers. On the seacoast of the Pacific the Spanish claim resulted from a series of disslope. coveries and explorations, beginning, as will be seen, when Hernando Cortez discovered California in 1536. In the interior the eagerness for silver early established colonies of which Santa Fé in New Mexico was the most important of those far to the northward. It is generally supposed, that the droves of wild horses now found through the whole of Western America, as far north as the climate will permit, were of Spanish origin. So far as the natives received any supplies from the workshops of civilization, it was from Spanish traders; and, to this hour, some fragments of the Spanish language, acquired at a very early period, will be found in their dialect. Eastward of the Rocky Mountains, the Spaniards showed no disposition to extend their dominion, after the expeditions of De Soto and Ponce de Leon had seemed to prove that no treasMountains. ure of gold or silver was to be found there. The Spanish government made no protest when, under Louis XIV., the French claimed a right to the whole valley of the Mississippi, founded upon the discoveries of Joliet, Marquette, and La Salle. On the ground, an irritable commander of a Spanish post in Texas might quarrel with an impetuous French officer in a garrison on the Red River. But at home the policy of Spain was well defined; and if the King of France were willing to keep a line of defence between the English colonies and the Spanish mines, the King of Spain made no objection. It was not until the treaty of Paris, in 1763, that the King of France showed that he was tired of this expensive good-nature. He then gave this immense territory to his well-beloved brother of Spain, who showed himself, indeed, somewhat coy about receiving the magnificent but costly present. Twenty years afterward, the Spanish crown gave it back to France, only to learn, in a few months, that France had sold it to the young Republic of America.

Spanish policy east of the Rocky

Florida, from which so much was hoped in the days of Ponce de Leon, had remained in the possession of Spain, after the cruel mas

1 This claim was reinforced by Gray's discovery of the Columbia River, and Lewis & Clarke's exploration of it. These discoveries gave to the United States precisely the same sort of right as that which La Salle's gave to France, for the valley of the Mississippi.

1819.]

FLORIDA.

555

The Span

Florida.

sacres which have been already described.1 But no discoverer had found gold, or silver, or the fountain of life in Florida. The Spanish posts, therefore, were simply military positions, iards in held to insure the command of the Gulf of Mexico. On the eastern side St. Augustine, without trade, and with but a small civil population, was held by Spain until 1762, when it was ceded to England, to be restored in 1783. By Spain it was ceded to the United States in 1819. On the other side, Pensacola, as has been seen, once and again fell into the hands of the French. Afterwards, with Eastern Florida, it fell to the English. But no settlement of Florida followed from either of these establishments. The territories, nominally Spanish, thus added to those which were colonized under the flag and protection of England, or under titles derived from her, cover rather more than half of the superficial area of the United States, with the exception of the province of Alaska, recently purchased from Russia. Of the several parts of this immense domain, the earliest to come under the dominion of the United States, was the western part of the valley of the Mississippi, which was that which came latest under the Spanish flag. In 1819 the United States acquired Florida from Spain, and all her rights on the western shore of the continent north of 42° north latitude, comprising the State now known as Oregon, and Washington Territory. In 1845, by a joint resolution, the Congress of the United States annexed Texas to the Union, and this decision was confirmed by the arbitration of war. The question whether Texas were a part of Louisiana or not, had always been an open question between France and Spain, but it had practically been yielded by France, and in the treaty of 1819 the United States had acquiesced in that decision. By the treaties with Mexico of 1848 and 1853, the dominion of the United States was extended by the acquisition of California and the region now covered by the territory between that State and Texas. We recur now to the earlier history of the Spanish possession of these regions.

Drake's cap

ture of

Saint

Augustine.

The reader has already been told 2 of the destruction of the oldest town in the United States, St. Augustine, by Sir Francis Events after Drake, on his return from his expedition to the Spanish Main. The Spanish Armada occupied the attention of England too intensely, when Drake returned, for any effort to be made, either to follow up his victory in Florida, or to renew the English establishment at Roanoke. The Spaniards who had fled from his arms in Florida, returned to the ruins of their fort and reëstablished it. The Menendez, who has earned the right to be 1 Vol. i., p. 208. 2 Vol. i., p. 222.

called "great" by his cruelty and falsehood, had died. But the government of St. Augustine was made hereditary in his family 1 until the year 1655. The history of the colony, meanwhile, is scarcely more than that of an insignificant garrison, elevated occasionally to general interest in the events of a general war.2

In 1593 twelve brothers of the order of St. Francis were sent to Missions in Florida, to continue such missions as had been established Florida. among the natives. By their efforts and those of other brethren sent to continue and enlarge their work, many missions were

established in the course of the next hundred years. Of these, the most important was at first at the island of Guale. But the chief of the savages in this neighborhood excited his people against them, in a severe attack which resulted in the murder of five priests, and the cruel injury of another. The Governor avenged them by burning the granaries and dwellings of the Indians. In the years 1612 and 1613, thirty-one missionaries of the same brotherhood were sent to Florida, and the name of St. Helena was given to it as a religious province of that order. Twenty missions were now established, and the brethren 1 In Buckingham Smith's collection of Florida papers is the will of one of the smaller Menendez governors.

2 It has been admirably treated, in its detail, by Mr. Fairbanks in his history. The South Carolina Historical Collections give original authorities on the "wars" with Carolina 3 This name must not be confounded with the name of St. Helena on the shore of South Carolina, though both had the same origin.