preserved in the Probate Court. They are in thin books of rough paper, the size of legal cap, with curious old watermarks showing through the Spanish text.
The Spaniards renamed many of the streets. St. Joseph survives instead of St. Charles, and St. Emanuel, Conception, Joachim, St. Anthony and St. Michael also superseded French names. On the other hand, St. Francis, St. Louis, Conti, Dauphin and Royal have out-*lasted the Spanish changes. The population remained essentially French. Negro slavery had existed since the importations in the time of John Law, and there were many negroes and mulattoes, themselves owning land and slaves. But the commandant, the keeper of the royal hospital, in what is now Bienville Square, the royal physician, the commissary,—for a long time Don Miguel Eslava,—officers of the garrison and other officials were Spanish, and with their families and the priest made up an important part of the population.
For the first eight or ten years even official papers were often in French; but after the out-break of the great Revolution, everything French fell into disfavor. Proclamations posted on the gate of Fort Charlotte, not far
