George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 6, 10th edition.

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At Paris, their envoy, John Milhet, the wealthiest

Chap. XXXVII.} 1768. Oct.

merchant of New Orleans, met with a friend in Bienville, the time-honored founder of New Orleans, and assisted by the gushing tears and the memory of the early services of the venerable octogenarian, he appealed to the heart of Choiseul. ‘It may not be,’ answered Choiseul; ‘France cannot bear the charge of supporting the Colony's precarious existence.’

On the tenth of July 1765, the austere and unamiable¹ Antonio De Ulloa, by a letter from Havana, announced to the Superior Council at New Orleans, that he had received orders to take possession of that city for the Catholic King; but the flag of France was still left flying, and continued to attract Acadian exiles. At last, on the fifth of March 1766, during a violent thunder-gust and rain,² Ulloa landed, with civil officers, three Capucine monks, and eighty soldiers.³ His reception by the turbulent colonists, already allured to republicanism, was cold and gloomy. He brought no orders to redeem the seven millions livres of French paper money, which weighed down a Colony of less than six thousand white men. The French garrison of three hundred refused to enter the Spanish service; the people to give up their nationality. Ulloa could only direct a Spanish Commissary to defray the cost of Government, and was obliged to administer it in New Orleans under the French flag by the old French officers.