56 DOCUMENTS. After this period, in 1685, M. de la Salle, being on his re- turn from France, landed on the west side of the Bio Colo- rado, in the bay of St. Bernard, and planted a considerable colony there, taking possession in due and solemn form, in the name of the French King. Such were the discoveries which gave rise to France the country called Louisiana, from the Rio Grande del Norte, being the next great river to the west of that settlement, along the mountains of Mexico and New Spain west, as the western limits, and California as the eastern boundary. That France, and all other nations in- terested in its boundary, considered it in the same light, is ascertained in various ways, to the conviction of the most incredulous. In consequence of these settlements and discoveries of the French, Louis the XIV granted, by letters patent, in the year 1712, to Anthony Crozat the exclusive commerce of that coun- try, and defines its boundary, declaring that it comprehends all lands, coasts, and islands, situated in the Gulf of Mexico, between Carolina on the east, and Old and New Mexico on the west. The French title to these boundaries is farther estab- lished by the Chevalier de Champigny, who lived in the coun- try, and declares Louisiana to extend to the Rio Grande del Norte, and the mountains of Mexico. This appears to be the opinion of other writers, who, it is presumed, had the most intimate knowledge of the subject, and among them we find that intelligent statesman, the Count de Vergennes, in a work, entitled an Historical and Political Memoir of Louisiana, where, he says, it is bounded by Florida on the east, and by Mexico on the west. The same extent is assigned to it by Don Antonio de Alcedo, an officer of high rank in the service of Spain, entitled "Diccionario Geografico Historico de las Indias Occidentales o America." Don Thomas Lopez, geog- rapher to the king of Spain, in a map published in 1762, is of the same opinion, which is supported by the opinion of De L'Isle. of the Royal Academy of Paris, in the year 1782. Upon the testimony of so many respectable writers, many of whom in the employment of both France and Spain, not
