But one more fact will be mentioned as showing the germs and beginnings of the incidental forces that have contributed to the development of the Republic, and that have marked off the eras of growth in different sections. In the very primeval and pre-organic days of Oregon, when the civil state was "without form and void," certain men formed the "Wolf Association," out of which came the first forms of civil government there.. They also founded a circulating library for the education of the people, and still later the same gentlemen constituted the Oregon Printing Association. On the fifth of February, 1846, this association published, at Oregon City, the first newspaper ever issued on the Pacific Coast. The printing press had arrived six years before, and had been doing good work. It does not seem possible, when we consider the daily and weekly and quarterly publications of Oregon and California, and the scholarly and massive volumes written and published on the western coast, as Bancroft's "Native Races of the Pacific States," five volumes octavo, that it is only thirty-eight years since the first newspaper was issued west of the Rocky Mountains. The marvel grows on us as we group the first three newspapers the first between the Alleghanies and the Rocky Mountains in 1786; the first in New Mexico and our vast New West in 1835; the first beyond the Rocky Mountains in 1846. In 1880 Oregon had seventyfour periodicals, of which seven were dailies, fifty-nine were weeklies, and six were monthlies, with two unclassed. Only the three wheat grains of Cortez can afford an ample illustration of the growths from those three printing presses. His slave had found three kernels in the imported rice, and planted them. As the increase we have the thirty thousand wheat acres of Dalrymple, the 1,440,000 bushels as the product of the Dr. Glen farm in California in one year, the mill power of Minnesota to manufacture into flour 56,000,000 of bushels of wheat a year, the mill power of Minneapolis alone to produce 16,000 barrels of flour a day. These germs of the nation and this planting season of the Republic, still continued and with increasing activity, furnish a fascinating field for study for the intelligent American.

READING, MASS.

H. Barrows

ZAMBA'S PLOT

A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF NEW ORLEANS

The years 1729 and 1730 were exciting periods in the history of the colony of Louisiana. The massacre of the French at Fort Rosalie by the Natchez Indians already had thrown the colonists into confusion, and in 1730 an additional source of alarm arose in the little city of New Orleans by the discovery of a plot among the slaves, which had for its purpose, as was shown by developments, the destruction of the French settlers and the occupation of their lands. At the head of this plot was a native African, who appears to have possessed more than the ordinary intelligence of his race, and to have figured in his own country as a leader and warrior of considerable repute. His name was Zamba, and he performed the duties of first commandeur, or overseer, at the habitation du roi or King's Plantation, formerly called the Company's Plantation, situated opposite New Orleans, where is now the town of Algiers. Zamba was, moreover, one in whom the manager of the plantation, M. Le Page du Pratz (from whose "Histoire de la Louisiane" the facts of this narrative are drawn) reposed great confidence.

A lull had occurred in the warfare against the Natchez Indians undertaken by M. Périer, the colonial governor, in consequence of the massacre at Fort Rosalie, and the authorities of the colony were awaiting the arrival from France of the reinforcements in troops which had been solicited by the India Company's agents in Louisiana. It was in this interval that Zamba conceived the idea of his plot, the discovery and frustration of which were simple enough in comparison with the perils involved. The active agent, the amateur detective, as it were, in this discovery, was M. Le Page himself.

Among the laborers in the brick-yard connected with the plantation was a negro woman. A soldier of the garrison in New Orleans having repeatedly endeavored to induce this woman to bring him fire wood, offering to remunerate her for her trouble, she as persistently refused. Finally becoming exasperated at her refusals, the soldier one day slapped her. Smarting under the blow, the woman exclaimed in her anger, speaking in the patois of her class—a patois which may still be heard every day in the streets of New Orleans-" Hé, soldat! To frappé mouin asteire! Eh bien! Francais la-yé pas bat' neg'e long-temps non! To tendé mouin, n'est

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ce-pas?" (Hey, soldier! You strike me now! But you Frenchmen won't beat the negroes long-no. You hear me, don't you?)

This speech was overheard by several bystanders and led to the woman's The Governor, before whom she was taken, ordered her to be put in prison. She was visited there by the Criminal-Lieutenant, who questioned her, but without gaining any satisfactory replies to his interrogatories.

M. Le Page having been informed of the arrest, sought the Governor, who said to him that, no information having been obtained from the woman except that she uttered the objectionable words in anger, without any ulterior motive, nothing could be done with her.

"I am of the opinion, Monsieur le Gouverneur," replied M. Le Page philosophically, "that a man in his cups and an angry woman are more ikely to tell the truth than a falsehood. I apprehend, therefore, that a plot is on foot, and that it cannot be carried out without some of the people on the King's Plantation being concerned in it." He then proposed to charge himself with the task of discovering it and nipping it in the bud, without causing any excitement in the city, already troubled by the agitation growing out of the Natchez war. The Governor and his advisers approved of the idea, and M. Le Page began that very night to put his plan into execution.

At an hour when he had reason to believe the plantation hands asleep, he sought their quarters, accompanied by a lad, one of his servants. They went quietly from cabin to cabin until they reached one in which a fire was burning. In this cabin was Zamba, with two companions, one of whom was the second overseer. The occupants of the cabin were conversing over the details of their projected enterprise, and were cautioning each other not to make their plans known to the other hands until within two or three days of the day of the contemplated rising.

Peering through the crevices of the door, M. Le Page inspected the conspirators as they sat in the light cast by the flickering flames of a pineknot fire. The first remark he heard came from Zamba.

"Many of our people," he said, "like Mr. Le Page and these would not fail to betray us. I have spoken already to so-and-so "—naming two of the plantation hands-" on whom we can count with safety."

M. Le Page was astonished to hear his confidential overseer thus discourse; but he controlled his feelings in order to hear what his second overseer, whose name was Guey, and who had begun to speak, had to say.

"I spoke to such-a-one," said Guey, "and I am sure of him. He told me that we must be careful about speaking too soon to the others."

Before the conference broke up M. Le Page had heard enough to know that eight of his men, including the three in the cabin, already were in the secret, and that they had determined to say nothing to the others until certain of the hands who were then up the river in the Illinois country, and who, it was thought could influence a great many of their friends to join in the plot, should return to the plantation. Of the eight engaged in the affair M. Le Page so far knew the names of only six.

When the plotters separated they bade each other good-night, with the promise to meet at the same place at the same hour on the next night.

The next morning M. Le Page wrote to M. Périer, informing him of his discovery and suggesting that the eight men be arrested promptly, and on the same day, so as to prevent the further spread of the agitation. The Governor replied to his note, saying that as soon as he should request assistance a detachment of soldiers would be sent to the plantation with such officers as M. Le Page might name.

The same night, about 10 o'clock, the watchful M. Le Page was again at his post. On this occasion the little cabin was quite crowded, as the entire eight were gathered there. The result of the meeting was that the plotters decided to limit the number of those admitted to a knowledge of what was in prospect to their own circle until the harvest season should be over, at which time they could obtain hundreds of recruits.

That night, before going to bed, M. Le Page arranged with his French overseer for the arrest, separately, on the next day, of the eight culprits. He instructed him to distribute the plantation hands in six different localities about the place, assigning to each detachment one of the plotters, whose name was given to the overseer, together with the gang to which he was to be assigned.

At daybreak he wrote to Governor Périer, informing him that he knew the names of the eight men concerned in the plot, and that he had taken steps to cause the arrest of each one of them without the knowledge of the others. "I do not need," he wrote further, "either troops or officers, but I should like to have the co-operation of the captain of the port, in whom we both have confidence. I beg you, in addition, to order the officer of the guard to be careful to station four strong and active soldiers in front of the prison, with instructions to make a pretense of wrestling and throwing each other about as if in play. As soon as these soldiers shall perceive the captain of the port pass by them, they are to seize, as if in sport, Zamba, who will be following this officer, and push him into the prison. After dark I will have the other prisoners brought over the river." the receipt of this letter the Governor gave orders to the captain of the port,

a gentleman named Livandais, and to the officer of the guard, to carry out the requests of M. Le Page.

When M. Le Page's canoe had left the plantation for New Orleans with his letter to the Governor, he sent word to the blacksmith of the plantation, who already had prepared the manacles intended for the men whom it was intended to arrest, to meet him at the landing. When the blacksmith came in response to the summons, M. Le Page directed him to conceal himself in a store-house near the landing, wherein were kept axes, picks, and other implements of labor. He then despatched his young servant to where one of the gangs of laborers was at work, with orders to the plotter, who was with that special gang, to report at once at the landing. When the man came in obedience to the order, M. Le Page told him to go to the store-house and bring him an ax. As the man entered the building, the blacksmith, who knew what he had to do, stopped him, and at the same moment M. Le Page, appearing at the threshold of the door, with pistol in hand, ordered the blacksmith to put the manacles on his wrists. He was then taken to a retired spot.

The five other plotters were secured and ironed as the first one had been, and so quietly had all the proceedings been conducted that none of their companions was able to solve the mystery of their sudden disappearance. By ten o'clock all the preliminaries had been completed, and at eleven M. Livandais arrived from the city and joined M. Le Page at the plantation landing.

"What means the Governor?" asked M. Livandais as he greeted M. Le Page. "He has informed me that you purpose, with my assistance alone, to arrest eight men whom you suspect of being engaged in a plot to massacre and pillage."

"The Governor has told you the truth," replied M. Le Page. "We shall have no trouble in getting the plotters to prison. Six of them are secured already. The seventh I will attend to myself. I will only ask you to see to the arrest of Zamba, my first overseer and the ring-leader in the plot."

M. Le Page then proceeded to lay before M. Livandais the details of a plan that he had devised to secure Zamba's arrest without exciting any suspicion or raising an alarm. This plan was, in brief, that M. Livandais should return to New Orleans at four o'clock that afternoon, having Zamba in his canoe with him. On reaching New Orleans, and making a landing at the foot of the Rue du Gouvernement, M. Livandais was to manage so as to pass in front of the prison, followed by Zamba, whom the soldiers stationed there should playfully seize and hurry into the prison. The plan, as thus outlined, was carried out to the letter. Zamba was made a