[27] A monastery and accompanying college, liberally endowed from Europe, was founded at Kaskaskia by Jesuit missionaries in the first quarter of the eighteenth century.--ED.
[28] "The idea," says Adam Smith, "of the possibility of multiplying paper money to almost any extent, was the real foundation of what is called the _Mississippi scheme_, the most extravagant project, both of banking and stock-jobbing, that perhaps the world ever saw."--FLAGG.
_Comment by Ed._ John Law died at Venice, March 21, 1729. Concerning his financial methods, see Émile Levasseur, _Recherches historique sur le system de Law_ (Paris, 1854). Ample and accurate is Andrew M. Davis's _A Historical Study of Law's System_ (Boston, 1887), reprinted from _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (Boston, 1887), i, pp. 289-318, 420-452.
[30] For an account of the early lead-mines, see Flagg's _Far West_, in our volume xxvi, p. 95, note 60.--ED.
[31] For an historical sketch of Ste. Genevieve, see Cuming's _Tour_, in our volume iv, p. 266, note 174.--ED.
[32] The French civil law still prevails in Louisiana.
For a good monograph on the Ordinance of 1787, and the text of the same, see Jay Amos Barrett, _Evolution of the Ordinance of 1787, with an Account of the earlie Plans for the Government of the Northwest Territory_ (New York, 1891).--ED.
"If my readers should at any time remark that I am particularly dull, they may rest assured there is a design under it."--_British Essayist._
"Let not ambition mock their useful toil, Their homely joys, and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple annals of the poor." GRAY'S _Elegy_.
Few things are more difficult, and, consequently, more rarely met, than correct portraiture of character, whether of the individual or of a community. It is easy enough, indeed, to trace out the prominent outlines in the picture; and with a degree of accuracy which shall render it easily recognised, while yet the more delicate shading and lighting is false; just as the artist may have transferred every feature in exact form, size, and proportion to his canvass, while the expression thrown over the whole may be incorrect. This has more than once been the case in descriptions hastily drawn of that singular being, _the French villager of the Mississippi_. One distinguished writer has given an absolute caricature of the race. My own design has been, therefore, merely to throw before the reader those characteristic traits which not even the most careless observer could have failed to detect.