reasons before taking his seat. For the next eight years, Gayarré traveled in Europe and collected historical material from France and Spain. Some of the historical documents that he used were written by his ancestor, Esteban de Gayarré. In 1844–1845 and in 1856–1857 he was elected again as a Democratic Party member of the state House of Representatives, and from 1845 to 1853 was appointed as Secretary of State of Louisiana. In 1853 he failed to win election to the U.S. Congress as an Independent, but remained active in Louisiana politics as an ally of John Slidell in the "Regular Democratic" movement. Gayarré became a member of the Louisiana Know Nothing Party from 1853-1855. He joined the party despite him being Catholic, and left the party because they were anti-Catholic. In 1854, following extensive research of the Spanish government archives in Madrid, Gayarré exposed US Army general James Wilkinson as having been "Agent 13", a highly paid spy in the service of the Spanish Empire from 1787 until his death in 1825. Gayarre lost his fortune of $400,000 by supporting the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 1863 Gayarré proposed that slaves be emancipated and armed, provided that France and England recognized the Confederacy (no foreign country recognized it). After the war, Gayarré published his 3-volume History of Louisiana (with an introduction by George Bancroft) and a biography of Philip II of Spain, but was never elected to any office. He became a reporter of decisions for the Louisiana Supreme Court, but he lived chiefly by his pen. He had a long-standing association with the Louisiana Historical Society, of which he was unpaid President from 1860 to 1888, thus working with former Confederate President Jefferson Davis after his release from federal custody. Gayarré wrote Histoire de la Louisiane (1847); Romance of the History of Louisiana (1848); Louisiana: its Colonial History and Romance (1851), reprinted in A History of Louisiana; History of Louisiana: the Spanish Domination (1854); Philip II of Spain (1866); and A History of Louisiana (4 volumes, 1866), the last collecting and adding to his earlier works in this field. The whole covered the history of Louisiana from its earliest discovery by Europeans to 1861. He wrote also several dramas and romances, including Fernando de Lemos (1872). Death and legacy Gayarre died in New Orleans on February 11, 1895, survived by his widow, and is buried at St. Louis