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4 upon every occasion that has presented since your Excellency's accession to the Government of New Orleans & Louisiana. 2 On 31 October 1778 the Continental Congress approved a recommendation from the Board of War: at Governor Galvez be requested to accept the thanks of Congress for his spirited and disinter- ested conduct towards these States, and be assured that Congress will take every opportunity of evinc- ing the favorable and friendly sentiments they entertain of Governor Galvez, and all the faith- ful subjects of his Catholic Majesty inhabiting the country under his government. 3 Louisiana was to leave a life-long imprint on Bernardo de Gálvez. He liked the place and its inhabitants, who showed him a devotion bordering on adoration. But more impor- tantly, he met and fell madly in love with Felicitas Saint- Maxent. e daughter of a prominent creole family from New Orleans, Felicitas was a charming young widow. A lexander von Humboldt, who met her decades later in Spain, couldn't help remarking that "her beauty is remark- able, and loved by everyone." 4 e problem was that Span- ish officials and military officers were forbidden to marry women from the territories they ruled without special per- mission from the k ing , so the young couple decided to marry secretly under the legal institution of a "marriage in danger of death." e marriage would be later validated by the bishop of Havana, but that could not hide a simple fact that proved either Bernardo was not as seriously sick as he pretended to be, or his wife had exceptional healing powers. Their first child was born exactly nine months after the secret marriage ceremony. WAR AGAINST ENGLAND Spain formally declared war against Great Britain on 8 May 1779. e official entry of Spain into the war not only tipped the balance of the conflict, making the Franco-Spanish naval forces superior in number to the British ones, but also profoundly changed the general strategy of the war. 5 Britain would be forced to abandon a purely American per- spective and adopt a more global view. 6 e French also had to modify their strategy, since the Spanish government suc- cedeed in making the French hostage to Spain's war aims: the regaining of Minorca, Gibraltar, West Florida, and the coast of Honduras. 7 While Spain was an official ally of France, that would not be the case with the United States. Although Spain and the United States fought the same enemy, benefited from each other's victories, and Spain sup- ported the United States with supplies, arms, ammunition, and hard cash (both grants and long-term loans), their rela- tionship would not go further than co-belligerents. Even before news of Spain's declaration of war officially reached Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez departed from New Orleans up the Mississippi towards the British Fort Bute, a relic of the Seven Years War on Bayou Manchac, which he took by surprise on 7 September. Shortly aer, he conquered Baton Rouge, just a few miles to the north. Gálvez's troops were a mixture in every sense: a small portion of professional soldiers, infantrymen of Louisiana, both native Spaniards and creoles; a provincia l mi litia , including the New Orleans Colored Militia Battalion, formed by one company Fig. 2. Suite du éatre de la Guerre dans l'Amérique Septentrionale y Compris le Golphe du Méxique (Paris, 1782), by Louis Brion de la Tour, shows the central impor- tance of Gálvez's stronghold of Louisiana in any military operations along the Gulf Coast—Britain's vulnerable south- ern flank throughout the Revolutionary War. THE CAPITOL DOME

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