In 1838 a dividend was made, and the sum of $6,000 was paid into the treasury of the municipality, as its portion of the profits. Before the municipality subscribed the $200,000, the Orleans Theatre Company had purchased the (present) site of the Orleans Theatre and had commenced insurance operations.

This suit was brought to annul the subscription made in obedience to the resolution of the Council in 1836, to recover back the bonds issued in conformity thereto and the sum of $16,500 paid as interest on them, on the grounds that the Council in 1836 had no right or authority to pass the resolution directing the subscription to the stock; that the power delegated to the said assembly was transcended and violated, whereby the act or resolution had become void and of no binding force.

It was further alleged that the resolution was of no effect, as the company had abandoned the intention of erecting a new theatre, and had purchased the old one, which it had repaired at a heavy expense.

The defendants in this suit averred that the resolution of the Council authorizing the subscription of $200,000 was legal and binding; that the bonds had been appropriated in the manner authorized by law and were vested in the corporation of which the plaintiffs were members; that contracts with third parties had been based on the faith of them; that the intention of building a new theatre was not abandoned, but was delayed by the institution of the suit; and, further, that plaintiffs had not in any way called on them to build the same, although represented in its board of directors.

By act of March 14, 1816 (B. and C. Digest, p. 101, Sec. 1), the corporation of the City of New Orleans was vested with the power "to permit or to forbid theatres, balls, or other public amusements."

In rendering its decision in favor of the municipality the Court said: "Whatever may be our opinion as to the policy that dictated this measure, we are constrained to say that it is sanctioned by law, and cannot now be repudiated."-The First Municipality of the City of New Orleans vs. The Orleans Theatre Company, 2 Rob'n, p. 209, et seq.

The New Orleans Theatre Company, afterward named the Orleans Theatre Company (the "Compagnie du Téâtre d'Orléans" in the French text, and the "St. Charles Theatre, Arcade and Arcade Baths Company" were incorporated by Act No. 85 of 1836, of the Legislature, approved March 14, 1836, p. 165.

The object is not stated in the act.

By act of the Legislature, approved March 11, 1837, being Act No. 83 of said year, p. 81, Sec. 1, these two companies were invested with all the rights and powers granted to the Merchants' Insurance Company of New Orleans, as far as regards the power granted on marine and fire insurance.

The first Orleans Theatre had been constructed in 1809.

At that time the State and the city often gave their act to corporations formed for the development of the resources of this State or for works of public improvement and utility, such as railroads, banks, canal companies and the like.

NOTES ON GENERAL WILKINSON'S MEMORIAL AND MIRO AND NAVARRO'S

DISPATCH No. 13.

By MR. GILBERT PEMBERTON.

When the American Revolution ended and liberated its armies from the sanguinary task of expelling Great Britain from the colonies, thus allowing its manhood to seek the more peaceful pursuits of constructive labor and trade, Kentucky, then a dependency of Virginia, had to have free access to the Mississippi River, which Spain then controlled, in order to subsist, and emigration into the Spanish colonies of Louisiana and Western Florida was at a standstill and their development retarded by Spanish conservatism, which favored the more Castillian colony of Mexico.

A short time after this, Esteban Miro, the idealist and dreamer, while still under the spell of the brilliant achievements of his impulsive and dashing chief, Don Bernardo de Galvez, whose conquest of Pensacola had inspired his former aide-decamp with the desire of great deeds, became Governor of West

ern Florida and Louisiana. Ably seconded by the shrewd Intendente, Don Martin Navarro, both sought to perfect plans for the development of their provinces, and were thus engaged when there entered upon the scene, in July, 1787, an enterprising genius in the person of Brigadier General James Wilkinson, retired, who, whilst traveling for the ostensible purpose of commerce (he brought several barges laden with Kentucky tobacco to justify his mission), really came down on a political mission as far reaching in its possibilities as any that had as yet been conceived by the men of that time.

The daring brilliancy of Wilkinson's plan, its vastness, the masterly manner in which he presented it, and the irrefutable arguments which he advanced in support of his scheme for an empire, which would have startled the world and changed the destiny of millions of people, bewildered, then dazzled good Don Esteban, and he immediately became one of its staunchest supporters, all for the honor and glory of his God and king. So with Martin Navarro, but for other reasons. Brought up in a different school, he saw in Wilkinson's project untold power and wealth for Spain and urged its accomplishment from the standpoint of a good administrator.

Post-revolutionary conditions made a promoter of Wilkinson, and he was a clever promoter, a plausible one. One with an imagination vivid enough to enable him to go beyond the promotion of world's fairs, banks and railroads or the analogous projects of his day, to the promotion of nothing less than an empire. Brilliant, dashing, of fine address and appearance and remarkably talented, he favorably impressed all those with whom he came in contact. Miro was delighted with him; so was Navarro. The former saw him through the eyes of Don Quixote, and good old Don Martin hastened to arrange loans for Wilkinson with the merchants of New Orleans, so as to enable him to better further the interests of the king and thus lay the foundation for the empire which the three had agreed was indispensable to the security of Spain and the happiness and prosperity of the people of Kentucky, Louisiana and Western Florida, and which, had their plans carried out, would have made New Orleans the greatest city of the North American continent.

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But what was this empire? It was the union of Kentucky, Cumberland, Franklin and other settlements of the Ohio west of the Appalachian Mountains; their separation from the jurisdiction of the United States, and the welding of them to Louisiana and Western Florida, thus grouping in one marvelous whole the richest country under the sun, with the Mississippi and its tributaries reaching out in every direction to afford easy and cheap transportation to the sea. By this simple operation the United States (whose aggressiveness worried Spain considerably) would be confined within the borders of the original colonies; Great Britain, who looked upon all this territory with covetous eyes, would also be kept within the confines of her Canadian boundaries, and Spain would become the controlling power in North as well as South America, with an impregnable barrier to protect the kingdom of Mexico, "whose silver," Wilkinson very aptly says, in his memorial, is an object of universal temptation," against any attempt on the part of Great Britain to invade or disturb the said kingdom. At the same time New Orleans was to become a free port through which all the wealth of the above country was to find an outlet, and altogether the thing had been thought out so that while none of the glitter and glamour would be eliminated, yet, that the whole argument should rest upon sound principles of good politics. The plan itself was practical and based on circumstances as they then existed, i. e., dissatisfaction of the western settlements with the Federal government, who favored the Atlantic coast states against the western people, and economic conditions resulting therefrom, threatening ruin and misery for Kentucky and the aforesaid settlements without any apparent disposition on the part of Congress to pass measures to relieve their distress. The enterprise would have been carried out, except for the dilatory tactics of the Court of Spain and the jealousy of Don Diego de Gardoqui, the then minister of Spain to the United States, for this worthy undoubtedly used his influence to delay action. This is an inference suggested by the correspondence of all the parties, rather than a statement of fact. Further, as Wilkinson's and Miro's carefully laid plans developed, we find a host of rival bidders for the same object which Wilkinson's brain had conceived, and all these did great honor to his talents by imitating but never equalling him.

The said Memorial and Despatch No. 13 have only recently been found in the archives of the Louisiana Historical Society. They were immediately translated and have never been published. They disclose the spirit in which Wilkinson conceived his dream of empire and the reasons and circumstances that prompted the notables of Kentucky to send him to New Orleans to try to enlist Spain in behalf of the neglected settlements of the Ohio. The correspondence which follows is of the same high order. Some of it has been published, and some has just been translated. There are still about four hundred pages in the original Spanish which shed much light upon this episode of our history.

But to go back to Wilkinson: In reviewing, in his Memorial, the political and economic conditions of Kentucky and the western settlements, their discontent with the Federal government, their growing power and the danger that Spain would naturally incur if these settlements would consolidate and accept the advances of Great Britain, which nation, since the close of the Revolution had been constantly intriguing to separate them from the United States, he epitomizes his whole argument in the following "facts and inferences:"

"First: That the American settlements, whose rivers flow into the Mississippi, are powerful and, on account of their nature, irresistible, and should daily increase in strength."

"Second: That the navigation of the Mississippi is the fountain from which they (the Kentuckians) must hope for future relief and comfort, in consequence of which each individual is of himself attentive to this object, and through the powerful incentive of self-preservation will employ any means, no matter how desperate, to attain it.'

"Third. That, in order to promote this much desired end, they are working to separate themselves from the American Union, and that Congress has neither the power nor the inclination to prevent this measure.

"Fourth: That the notables of these new settlements are considering two projects, either one of which they believe can be conducive to the success of this, their favorite object, i. e., an amicable arrangement with Spain, or hostilities with the help of Great Britain."