This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

SPAIN IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY, 1705-1794
incite the latter to strip such vagabonds as they may find without passports, in order to clean these provinces of them, especially on the rivers of Mobile, Alabama (of the Alibamones), and Pearl. This you can easily do by making the Choctaws understand that in a short time the Americans will be owners of their lands, and of all the game which they will destroy if they are allowed to spread with impunity in every direction without opposition.
You will send to the commandant of the post of Tombecbe the same secret orders, which must be observed and put in execution with the greatest caution.
You will order that the artillery troops and some soldiers of the regular regiment which garrisons that fort be drilled in cannon practice, and you will direct that the artillery be placed immediately in a state for use so that everything will be ready to sustain a siege if it should be necessary. With this object you will inform me of any fault that you may find in the idea of garrisoning Mobile with 250 men.
May God guard Your Lordship many years.
New Orleans, March 22,1792.
Baron de Carondelet (Rubric)
P. S. The letters for Pensacola have gone directly.
Senor Don Vicente Folch.
Cortes to Carondelet March 22, 1792 13
I am at present in this town with a commission from the Senor Commandant General of the Interior Provinces of the East of this New Spain, Colonel Don Ramon de Castro, to look into various important matters for the royal service. One of these, which gives great anxiety to my superior, is to prevent altogether the illicit trade with the Indians who commit hostilities upon the provinces in his charge. I am under the unavoidable obligation of bringing to Your Lordship?s attention how much I need your assistance for the success of the plans to which the wise measures of my chief are directed, and for the complete fulfillment of that which he has been good enough to entrust to me.
Both objects, Senor Commandant General, will be accomplished without doubt only if in strict justice Your Lordship will take steps to prevent individuals of your jurisdiction from bringing in guns, powder, and ball through Opelousas and Attakapas to the nations of the Arkokisas, Bidais, Cocos, Attakapas and others. Although they are not declared enemies of these provinces, they support and
?BL.
PROBLEMS OF FRONTIER DEFENSE, 1792-1794
19
??maintain in their country the Lipan Apaches, and furnish them, in | exchange for the horses and mules which they have stolen from us, the same ammunition which they themselves receive from the traders \ of the district of Louisiana. This is the only reason why the Lipan S; make the continuous and bloody war on us experienced by the prov--? inces of Coahuila, Kingdom of Leon, Colony of Santander, and this i province of Texas. Their inhabitants, crushed by the weight of the repeated attacks which they receive from such furious and well-armed 'p enemies, are in the sad state of being compelled to abandon the little property and houses which the enemy has left them, in order to save -I their lives and not fall victims to those barbarians, who are treacher-?j-i' ously trying to annihilate all the subjects whom the King has in these ^ frontier territories; for the troops, kept in constant movement, cannot prevent all the injuries experienced by the unhappy inhabitants, fr Therefore, Senor Commandant General, so that the desires of these f' inhuman beings may not be accomplished, and so that those of my chief may be brought about, I beg Your Lordship to be pleased to adopt a serious measure to cut off at its source the clandestine com-merce which so greatly injures the subjects of our sovereign, so that there may be experienced by it the good results which have been pro-duced by the well-devised measures of Your Lordship for the benefit of the Interior Provinces of the East of New Spain. Then my general Jfc may have the satisfaction of informing His Majesty and His Ex-4?: cellency the Viceroy, who now rules, how much Your Lordship has J, contributed to the peace and quiet of the four provinces which my worthy chief has in his charge, which, with sad lamentation, groan V? in their grief for the loss of their property, fathers, sons, and rela-tives, dead at the hands of these bloody enemies of God, of the King, and of the country.
1* May our Lord preserve the valued life of Your Lordship many ?'? happy years.
vi- Town or Nacogdoches, March 22, 1792.
-ff	Juan Cortes (Rubric)
Senor Commandant General Baron de Carondelet.
People of Cole?s Creek to Carondelet March 2Jh 1792 14
>? To His Excellency the Governor and Captain General in and over ' the Province of Louisiana and West Florida &c. &c. &c. . . .
We fondly hope Your Excellency will have the goodness to pardon us the presumption of expressing to you our fervent wishes that as a mark of distinction the town now erecting in our particular district
** BL, (English). A Pinart transcript.