ahead; but the prime minister would take no action. On the other hand, the
white population of Louisiana was ridiculously small, and their trade
nothing worth mentioning; but when Anthony Crozar resigned the charter he
had received for the district, it was taken up by the famous John Law, the
English goldsmith's son, who had become chief financial adviser of the
Regent of France; and immediately the face of things underwent a change
like the magic transformations of a pantomime.

The Regent inherited from Louis XIV. a debt which there was not money
enough in all France to pay. Law had a plan to pay it by the issue of
paper. Louisiana offered itself as just the thing for purposes of
investment, and a pretext for the issue of unlimited "shares." Not to
speak of the gold and silver, there was unlimited wealth in the unknown
country, and Law assumed that it could be produced at once. Companies were
formed, and thousands of settlers rushed to the promised paradise. But we
have to do with the Mississippi Bubble only as it affected America. The
Bubble burst, but the settlers remained, and were able to prosper, in
moderation, like other settlers in a fertile country. A great area of land
was occupied. Local tribes of Indians joined in a massacre of the
colonists in 1729. They in turn were nearly exterminated by the French
forces during the next two years, but the war aroused a new hostility
among the red tribes against the French, which redounded to the English
advantage. In 1740, Bienville was more than willing to make a peace, which
left to France no more than nominal control of the tract of country
drained by the southern twelve hundred miles of the Mississippi. The
population, after all the expense and efforts of half a century, numbered
about five thousand white persons, with upward of two thousand slaves. The
horse is his who rides it. The French had not proved themselves as good
horsemen as the English. The English colonies had at the same time a
population of about half a million; their import and export trade