These boundaries result from the fact that in former days they were marked on the maps as running from Georgia west by east until they reached the Mississippi, but upon the representations of the inhabitants of Natchez who when they wanted to appeal to higher courts in their legal contentions had to do so in Georgia, His Britanic Majesty declared the said district as forming part of Western Florida and under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Pensacola. The line above described was established as far as the Yazoo, and this Province having been ceded by a right of conquest to His Majesty by Great Britain in the last treaty of peace it is not just that the United States should claim up to the 31st degree even though the same power should have so declared, and this declaration may emanate from an error, for otherwise it would have been necessary to declare His Majesty should deliver to the U. S. the said district of Natchez which he then possessed. The above declaration of his British Majesty in regard to West Florida are only known by public rumor and I have heard it from many Englishmen who were present in Pensacola when it was published. His Majesty's possessions having therefore been established as comprising only the limits above expressed, nothing is claimed in the region of Louisiana in referece to the eastern shore of the Mississippi except the territory as far up as the mouth of the Yazoo and it must be said besides that the United States can not claim as theirs the Indians nations of Chickasaws, Choctaws, Chicachez, Alabamas and Creeks because these (besides always having received presents and protection from Great Britain in the Floridas) renewed a certain dependence on account of the protection that was granted to them in the Congress which I celebrated in Pensacola with the Creeks during the month of May and in Mobile with the other tribes mentioned during the month of June, a treaty of 13 articles having been signed to that effect which I reported to my Captain General the Count of Galvez, and in answer to an inquiry of the Marquis of Sonora I enclosed him a copy of my despatch No. 89 under date of July 2nd 1785. The above mentioned states will reply that they themselves have made treaties with the Chicahas and Choctaws in Hopewell and Seneca in the year 1786, but these treaties are imaginary and null and void. On the part of the Chicahas only one Indian of importance with a few warriors went to Hopewell and to Seneca a few Choctaws chiefs who had not yet delivered to me the English medal and both these parties without being authorized by their respective nations, as was afterwards declared by those Choctaws who subsequently came to deliver the referred to medals and also by the king of Chicahas together with his principal chiefs who disapproved of this action as is recorded extensively in Document No. 3 and the other papers enclosed in my despatch No. 24 to His Excellency Don Antonio Valdez under date of August 28th 1788. It is a great advantage that the above mentioned Indians should remain under the protection of His Majesty so that they might serve as a barrier against the United States and on this account I do not doubt that these (United States) will vigorously oppose themselves to this policy as they always have done, for almost every year they send 'Commissioners to the Indians to separate them from their agreement, though so far they have been unable to carry their point nor maintain to their party but one Chicaha chief with his village, all the others having resisted to the letters written by the Secretary of War Knox, Dr. Franklin, and even those of General Washington himself, the originals of which they brought to me as proof of their fidelity and it does not appear possible that the United States will carry their contention so far as to employ force with the Indians, for it would be manifestly unjust to prevent them from selecting their own protection. It will be a source of great satisfaction to me if the foregoing will help your Excellency to propose to His Majesty a satisfactory manner of adjusting the differences pending with the United States and to develop Louisiana in a manner that will enable it to defend itself without assistance. I also offer myself with the best of good will so that your Excellency may employ me in the manner most useful to the service of His Majesty. I pray God that he may keep your Excellency's life many years. Aranjuez 18 de Marzo 1793. Exmo. Sr. Estevan Miro. MEETING OF NOVEMBER, 1916. The regular monthly meeting of the Louisiana Historical Society was held on Wednesday evening, November 15, at the Cabildo. The President opened the meeting. The minutes of the last meeting were read by the Secretary and approved. Mr. W. O. Hart presented two names for membership: Joseph C. Behre, and John L. Henning of Sulphur, La. They were elected. The following resolution was presented by Mr. Hart: "Resolved, That Section 2 of Article 2 of the Constitution of the Society be amended to read as follows: "The regular monthly meeting of the Society shall be held each month unless otherwise determined by the Executive Committee, on the third Tuesday thereof, at eight o'clock p. m., in the rooms of the Society at the Cabildo. "The annual meeting, shall be held in January, when the officers of the Society shall be elected for the ensuing year.' As according to the by-laws of the Society no action could be taken in regard to the amendment of the Constitution; it was laid over. Miss King introduced a resolution concerning the publication of a quarterly review, decided upon in executive meeting. She proposed the creation of a publication committee to undertake it. Passed as amended by Mr. Hart to refer it to the decision of the Executive Committee at its next meeting. Mr. Henry Gill presented a handsome collection of scrap. books from Mrs. Rochester, compiled by Mr. G. J. J. Rochester, a late member of the Society. He also presented to the Society a collection of water-color sketches of old New Orleans from Dr. H. B. Seebold. Mr. Hart presented an interesting literary record, a chap book published in New Orleans in 1896. A vote of thanks to both donors was passed. The paper of the evening was given by Miss Grace King. It gave an account of the events that led to the baptism of Prince Iturbide in the New Orleans Cathedral in 1824, which comprised also a pleasant retrospect of the Zacharie family, noted in financial and social chronicles of New Orleans since 1800. The connection of our local traditions with those of Mexico was made the subject of the short talk that followed. Miss Zacharie, being present, was asked for some further information about the Memorial medals presented to her father by the ex-Empress of Mexico. She said that she had presented the one that remained in her possession to the State Museum, where it can be seen by all. THE YTURBIDE OF NEW ORLEANS. There has been extracted recently from that old agglomeration of vital documents, the Cathedral records, the following scrap of history that, as scraps do, has evoked the memory of other scraps which it may please the Historical Society to see pieced together. The record reads: "Baptized by the Bishop, 24th of December, 1824, Augustin Come Damien Yturbide; born 14th of this same month from the legitimate marriage of the late Don Augustin Come Damien Yturbide, ex-Emperor of Mexico, and Dame Anne Marie Huart. God-father, Jacques Waters Zacharie; god-mother, Henriette Zacharie. (Signed) L. Guil, Bishop of New Orleans; (Signed) Fr. Antonio de Sedella." The baptismal entry is recorded in the index as Yturbide, Prince of Mexico. The ten-day-old infant thus admitted as "Prince of Mexico" into the membership of the great Catholic kingdom had already suffered the sorrow of the commonest son of humanity. His father, Don Augustin Come Damien Yturbide, ex-Emperor of Mexico, had been expedited to a still greater kingdom on the 24th of July, 1824, when he incurred the penalty of death, inflicted for attempting to enter Mexico after the ban of outlawry had been pronounced against him by the Mexican government. He was shot on the 24th of July in the State of Taumaulipas. He belonged to what we might call the great days of Mexican revolutions the days of Hidalgo and Morelos, who, it should never be forgotten, called at Chipalzinco, in 1813, the National Assembly that first proclaimed Mexican independence. But, as usual in Mexico, a guerrilla warfare kept up military agitation and fomented troubles that culminated in a revolution in 1820. Yturbide, then serving in the royal army as colonel, crushed the disturbance and, hailed as liberator, again proclaimed the independence of Mexico, which was recognized by Spain and established for a brief period in 1821; but, unfortunately for Mexico, Yturbide was no Washington, and he soon changed his title of liberator to that of "hereditary constitutional emperor, and was thus proclaimed by his army and the Mexican populalace. Simultaneously, however, the republican standard of revolt was raised by Santa Anna and a provisional government triumphed over the imperial, and Yturbide, forced to abdicate, was exiled. He withdrew to London but, returning, he cast his life upon the chance and, landing in Mexico, was arrested, tried and summarily shot. He is described in historical accounts as a man of handsome figure and ingratiating manners, whose splendid courage and brilliant military talents made him the idol of his soldiers, but there are also credited against him grave charges of extortion, violence and excessive cruelty. Though amiable in private life, he was ambitious and unscrupulous in his public career, and to his haughty Spanish temper, impatient of resistance or control, is ascribed in part his failure to found a secure imperial dynasty. Of good old Spanish blood, he had selected for wife a woman whom, we are told, was well worthy the destiny he planned for her: the Dame Marie Huart, a Creole of Mexico but also of fine Spanish family, a woman of great beauty, courage and dignity, who survived him. And now to turn to the godfather and god-mother of the little prince. Jacques Waters Zacharie and Henriette Zacharie were the children of Marie Etienne Zacharie, a Frenchman, and of Henriette Waters, an English woman. They came to America after the War of Independence and settled in Baltimore, where Etienne Zacharie engaged in commerce which, following the custom of the day, he transported in his own ships. Having lost some of these in the first maritime clashes that followed the breaking off of relations between France and the United States in 1798, and being threatened thereby with financial ruin, Zacharie bethought him of his friends in his old country and he went to France and, landing at Bordeaux, prepared to go to Paris to call upon Tallerand for assistance in prosecuting a claim for indemnity; but meeting an older friend, Barbe Marbois, in |