CHAPTER XXVII.

ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING.

BATON ROUGE—­FLORIDA PARISHES—­DISSATISFACTION—­WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY—­STORMING A FORT ON HORSEBACK—­ANNEXATION AT THE POINT OF THE POKER—­RAPHIGNAC AND LARRY MOORE—­FIGHTING THE “TIGER”—­CARRYING A PRACTICAL JOKE TOO FAR—­A SILVER TEA-SET.

That portion of Louisiana known as the Florida parishes, and consisting of the parishes east of the Mississippi, was part of West Florida, and was almost entirely settled by Americans when a Spanish province.  Baton Rouge, which takes its name from the flagstaff which stood in the Spanish fort, and which was painted red, (baton meaning stick, and rouge, red, to Anglicize the name would make it red stick,) was the seat of power for that part or portion of the province.  Here was a small Spanish garrison:  on the opposite bank was Louisiana; New Orleans was the natural market and outlet for the productions of these Florida settlements.

When the cession of Louisiana to the United States occurred, these American settlers, desirous of returning to American rule, were restless, and united in their dissatisfaction with Spanish control.  They could devise no plan by which this could be effected.  Their people reached back from the river, along the thirty-first degree of north latitude, far into the interior, and extended thence to the lake border.  On three sides they were encompassed by an American population and an American government.  They had carried with them into this country all their American habits, and all their love for American laws and American freedom; to the east they were separated by an immense stretch of barren pine-woods from any other settlements upon Spanish soil.  Pensacola was the seat of governmental authority, and this was too far away to extend the feeble arm of Spanish rule over these people.  They were pretty much without legal government, save such laws and rule as had been by common consent established.  These were all American in character, and, to all intents, this was an American settlement, almost in the midst of an American government, and yet without the protection of that or any other government.  It was evident that at no distant day the Floridas must fall into the hands of the American Government.  But there was to these people an immediate necessity for their doing so at once.  They could not wait.  But, what could they do?  Among these people were many adventurous and determined men:  they had mostly emigrated from the West—­Tennessee, Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, and Virginia; and some were the descendants of those who had gone to the country from the South, in 1777 and ’8, to avoid the consequences of the Revolutionary War.  This class of men met in council, and secretly determined to revolutionize the country, take possession of the Spanish fort, and ask American protection.