Excerpt from Biographical Sketches of Louisiana's Governors, From D'iberville to McEnery Don Estevan Miro, Colonel of the Royal Army, who had already acted as Governor of the province during a temporary absence of Galvez, succeeded him. The population of Louis iana, at this time, 1784, amounted to twenty-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-nine persons, while that of the city of New Orleans was about five thousand. Within the sixteen years during which Louisiana had belonged to Spain, the number of inhabitants had been more than doubled, and now was still further multiplied by the arrival of many Canadian families. In 1786, Miro published a manifesto, declaring the principles which were to control his administration. In this he strongly advocated a holy observance of Sunday, the closing of all shops and drinking saloons during divine service, condemned severely the idleness and licentiousness so prevalent among free negroes and quadroons, forbade the women from wearing feathers and jewels, ordering a plain handkerchief to be their only head dress. Gaming, carrying of concealed weapons and duelling were strictly forbidden. Inhabitants were prohibited from leaving the colony without a passport, or without giving secu rity for their debts. The manifesto contained, besides these, many other wise regulations, some of which are still in force. On Good Friday of 1788, a fire occurred in New Orleans. Which destroyed nine hundred houses, and a large quantity of merchan dise. The people of St. Domingo immediately aided the suffer ers from this disaster, by sending them a vessel laden with materials for building. Miro availed himself of the misfortune as an excuse to Open trade between New Orleans and the United States. In 1791, the St. Domingo insurrection took place and the population of Louisiana received an accession. From its refugees; among them came a company of French actors, the first which ever appeared in New Orleans. Miro being created Maj or-general in the Spanish army, left Louisiana, to the great regret of its whole community. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.