to the inhabitants for a time; but when the rumor reached them, it awakened a general dissatisfaction among the colonists; for they were intensely French, and nothing could be more odious to them than Spanish rule. When Spain did take possession of Louisiana, it was in such a way as to exasperate the excited inhabitants, and the policy she pursued, was one not calculated to win their affection. It was years before the machinery of government was fully established and worked with smoothness.
In 1776, the thirteen colonies east of the Alleghanies declared their separation from England, and by a long and hard struggle maintained it. After the establishment of the general government, they ceded their respective claims to territory in the west, to the sovereignty of the United States. This broad expanse of country lying between the Alleghany mountains and the Mississippi river, once a part of Louisiana, was divided up into districts by Congress, which were organized under territorial government, and, in a constitutional way, successively admitted into the Union as states with the names they now bear.
In this great American revolution, which resulted in the independence of the English colonies, Spain employed about the same tactics as in the former war, but with better success. France had repeatedly solicited her to join the cause of the colonies against Britain, but fearing the effects of their independence upon her adjoining possessions, she observed a strict neutrality, hoping to be able to accomplish more by diplomacy than by a resort to arms. She offered herself as a mediator between the belligerent powers, to which France acceded, but England peremptorily refused to acknowledge the independence of her subjects across the ocean, whereupon Spain joined (1779) heartily in the strife, doing much mischief to England by her maritime strength. The colony of Louisiana, rejoicing at the opportunity of revenging her suffering during the last war, raised fourteen thousand men, under the command of Galvez, and took
