Athanase De Mézières [Lieutenant Governor of Natchitoches and French trader-ambassador in the service of Spain], wrote that he had a team of mules for Bouligny, but he could not send them at the time on account of the unseasonal floods. When he returned from Bexar [San Antonio] in July, he would personally bring the animals to Pointe Coupée, whence they could be easily transported to where Bouligny happened to be at the time. He had recently received letters of instruction from the Baron de Ripperda [Governor of Texas], and he was prepared to continue his journey on the 15th. News was good from the recently pacified tribes, [the Nations of the North whose allegiance to Spain De Mézières had secured a few months earlier]. He added that he found greater satisfaction among ''these barbarian people'' than among the residents of Nachitoches, who fiercely resisted all authority, and whose insults and abuses he and his entire family had had to endure. [Although this letter is not among those published in H.E. Bolton's Athanase De Mézières, background material for understanding the references in the letter is found in Volume I, 93-97.]
