An address to the government of the United States on the cession of Louisiana to the French, and on the late breach of treaty by the Spaniards : including the translation of a memorial, on the war of St. Domingo, and cession of the Mississippi to France, drawn up by a French counsellor of state

AN ADDRESS

TO THE

GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

ON THE

CESSION OF LOUISIANA

TO THE FRENCH;

AND ON THE

LATE BREACH OF TREATY BY THE SPANIARDS:

INCLUDING

THE TRANSLATION OF A MEMORIAL, ON THE WAR OF ST. DOMINGO,
AND CESSION OF THE MISSISIPPI TO FRANCE,

DRAWN UP

BY A FRENCH COUNSELLOR OF STATE.

A NEW EDITION
REVISED, CORRECTED AND IMPROVED.

ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS.

PUBLISHED

*Y JOHN CONRAD, & CO. NO. 30, CHESNUT STREET, PHILADEL-
PHIA; M. AND J. CONRAD, & CO. NO. 140, MARKET -STREET,
BALTIMORE; AND RAPIN, CONRAD, & CO. WASHINGTON
CITT.

H. MAXWELL, PRINTER.

1303.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE reception which the first edition of this work has
met with, has induced the publisher to issue a second impres-
sion, in a cheaper and more convenient form. The editor has
retrenched nothing new from the memorial, but the passages
respecting New Holland, which were thought to be no wise
applicable to the present situation of our affairs.

The measures which have lately been taken by the govern-
ment, are widely different from those which the editor, in com-
mon with a large part of the community, ventured to recom-
mend. These measures are, in every point of view, of the
utmost importance, and their true consequences, whether they
be beneficial or not, deserve to be fully investigated and dis-
closed. Reflections on this subject, drawn up by the editor of
this performance, will shortly appear, and it is hoped that they
will not prove altogether unworthy of attention.

The editor withholds his name on this occasion, merely
because no name can give a just title to that audience which
his arguments may fail to obtain. Conscious of no sinister or
factious views, he will cheerfully encounter, if necessary, all
that the adverse zeal or clashing interests of others may sug-
gest against him, and assumes no merit with those who ap-
prove, since he merely repeats what is to be heard in all public
places, and urges considerations already familiar to the best
part of his countrymen.

Feb. 18, 1803.

AN ADDRESS

TO THI

GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

ON THB

CESSION OF LOUISIANA, &c.

IT may be deemed presumptuous, in an obscure
citizen, to address the rulers of his country, on a theme
of such importance as War or Peace ; nor would the com-
piler t>f this address, have ventured to assume the office
of a counsellor, were he not impelled by peculiar circum-
stances. He is not instigated by his own interest, for he
and his affairs are far remote from the scene of action ; and
his prosperity is wholly disentangled from any effect, which
the acquisition of the Missisippi, will produce on private
conditions. He is not impelled by a vain conceit of his
own abilities, for he means to draw his arguments from the
mouth of an enemy, and, instead of relying on his own
abilities, desires to exact attention and regard to nothing
but these arguments themselves. ...In fine, he would not
have thought of addressing his country thus, had he not
just procured an extraordinarv performance, in vvhich the
views of the French, relative to Louisiana, are unfolded,
too plainly for the interest and safety of the United States.
This performance came into his hands by the friend-
ship of a traveller at Paris. A few copies were published,
without a name, while the negociations were pending at
Amiens, and circulated through a few hands. By a few
persons it was well known to be the production of a coun-
sellor of state, who thought, perhaps, that the goodness of
his counsel would atone for his plain dealing; or that tliR

suppression of his name, would screen him from any per-
sonal inconvenience. In this paper are enumerated, all
the disadvantages of the war of St. Domingo, and the
benefits of the cession of Louisiana; and the conduct in-
cumbent on a true friend to the interests and glory of
France, is very forcibly displayed.

What the dictates of this interest and this glory are, it
shall now be my business to explain ; and for this purpose,
I shall, without any further preliminary, but that of in-
treating the patience of the reader, proceed to detail the
substance of this memorial.

The author addresses his reflections to the First Con-
sul, and by skilful flattery, confounds the personal glory of
that fortunate adventurer, with the enlargement of the em-
pire. It is evident that the author is a military enthusiast,
but a passion for arms does not blind hi4n to the peaceable
means of distinction; and his schemes of enlarging power,
by the multiplication of people, and by territories won from
the waste, are not unworthy of praise.

He begins by enlarging on the exploits of tne Consul,
by which France was rescued from intestine misery and
foreign humiliation. He descants, in very glowing terms,
on the grandeur and utility of those projects, which carried
the French arms into Egypt and Syria; by which the most
fertile portion of the globe was to be made a province of
France, and a post of strength and safety from which the
French might put in their claim for conquest and glory in
the east. He artfully extenuates the failure of these pro-
jects, and considers them as merely postponed to a more
convenient season. He insinuates that a small delay will
open a safer and shorter road to the same object; that the
ignorant and tottering councils of Turkey may be easily
persuaded to give up that which they are unable singly to
defend, and which, when the powerful succour of the Eng-
lish is withdrawn, they cannot wrest from the hands of their
own slaves. After a short enumeration to this effect, and
after conducting his readers to the prospect of a general
peace, which was then in view, he proceeds in this manner.

" His warlike labours at an end and the world pacified,
what will remain to occupy the genius of the First Consul?
The object of these labours, hitherto, has been the welfare
of France. Her internal tranquillity and harmony, the
acquisition of rich provinces on the Rhine and Meuse, the
reduction of the happy and hitherto impregnable Flanders.,

which the whole power of the greatest of the French prin-
ces was exerted in vain to acquire in a former ;-ge: the
subjugation of Holland, that opulent republic, which pos-
sesses the trade of the world; of Switzerland, the fand of
good laws and heroic manners, hitherto invincible; of
Italy, the nursery of arts and the paradise of Europe, are
the great things which are now accomplished. The ener-
gies which effected them will not be weakened by the peace.
They will only be strengthened. A few years or industry
and trade will renew those sources. of wealth, whi< h a long
inaction has nearly drained. A few years of 1. gal security
will efface the ravages which foreign and intestine v> ars
have made in the number of the people. The abolition of
the feudal tyranny will give a new spring to the multiply-
ing principle, and all the chasms, occasions d by the revo-
lutionary cruelty, will disappear. The nation will speedily
become the most numerous, enlightened and enterprising
of the western world. The power of the head of the natioji
will experience a pi-oportionable increase, and the mere
impetus of numbers and wealth, skilfully directed, will
carry us forward, in ten years, much further than the last
ten years of military exploits.

" But what direction shall be given to this force, in order
to produce the most beneficial effects? In the general tran-
quillity of nations, what avenues will open by which to
exert this force beyond the circle of our own immediate
territories, and different from the mere extension of trade
and commerce ? There is no necessity of letting entirely
drop the sword, and though our neighbours are no longer
our foes, there may be distant enemies to tame and terri-
tories to acquire.

" To questions like these the answer will be obvious,
and the eye will immediately be turned to St. Domingo.
Alas! what have been the miseries of that devoted colony!
Beneath what an ignoble yoke does it now groan! and how
lost are its inestimable treasures to the parent nation ! And
shall not our first efforts be directed to regain these trea-
sures? to break' the iron sceptre of the negroes; that has
already nearly crushed all the fair fruits of European cul-
ture, and which in a few years, by a series of cruel wars
and revolutions, will convert those beautiful plantations
into an African wilderness?

" 1 he riches of this isfctnd are familiar to every French-
man. Ke is sensible that his dailv and most delicious

food, is procured from it ; that millions are supplied bv it
with wholesome luxuries, and thousands, by the indirect
influence of its trade and commerce, with employment and
subsistence. Shall all these be relinquished without a
struggle ? And to whom relinquished ? To quondam slaves
and naked banditti? Shall the arms of the First Consul,
which have achieved such arduous and signal victories,
against equals in numbers, arms and courage, be baffled
or intimidated by a dastardly and raggamuffin host of
cave-keeping robbers, and barbarian mountaineers?

" And how better can the legions be employed, whom
the general peace will reduce to idleness? Some of them
justice will demand to be dismissed to their homes and
families. Some will return to the loom, the plough and
the anvil, which have not wanted them till now, when the
re-estabiish;nent of trade will set them going; but the
larger number must remain at their post, and some of
these, unnecessary for anv purpose at home, will crave
employment abroad. The honour and interests of France
poinc out the road Which they ought to take, and the la-
bours to which they ought to be devoted. Not all the
glories we have lately acquired would save us from con-
tempt, should we suffer that noble island to remain in the
hands of a servile and barbarous race.

" Against the dictates of such laudable pride will any-
one dare to whisper an objection? But, whatever be our
courage, why should we be blind to unquestionable con-
sequences? Of what advantage are observation and expe-
rience, if they do not apprise us of the obstacles which
will oppose our designs ; and what merit is there in that
courage, which is sure to fail of success?

" Courage and enterprize, unaccompanied by caution
and deliberation, are qualities of brutes, and not the vir-
tues of men. What shall he deserve of his country, who
throws away the lives of his brave soldiers on an imprac-
ticable scheme? Or on a scheme in which justice and
humanity forbid him to engage ? Or on one in which suc-
cess may be gained without a military effort; by means
less hazardous and less destructive to the conquerors and
the conquered than war and blood-shed? Or, lastly,
who expends the blood and treasure of the nation, in a pro-
ject in every respect less beneficial, even though crowned
with success, than a different project?

"The great mind, though formed u for dignity and high,
exploit:" though jealous of its country's honour and riglus,
and prompt to vengeance for insults, will pause in its most
indignant career at the voice of caution and experience*
Methinks this is the momentous pause; and let me there-
fore take advantage of it to place in a true light, the war
of St. Domingo, and to point out a different path, in whi h
the energies of France may be directed to her infinite glory
and advantage.

" Courag:, the French courage, can do all things! and
if courage be inadequate, can it fail when reinforced by
numbers? And are not the numbers of our troops, when
compared with the nature of this- warfare, inexhaustible?

" Alas ! there is something in the nature ot this warfare,
which makes courage and numbers avail nothing. It is
not men with whom alone our troops must contend.
These though numerous, ierocious and zealous, are insig-
nificant, in this comparison. Our troops are destined to
fight against nature; to contend with the elements. The
atmosphere of this island, salutary to a native of the soil,
and to men imported from congenial climates, breathes
pestilence and death, upon the stranger from Europe.
Inactivity, and the repose of the sword will afford to our
unfortunate troops no security from pain and death. De-
structive as the field, contended with such enemies will
certainly be, the carnage will be infinitely greater and
more deplorable in camps and garrisons. Courage will
avail nothing in contention with the malignant operation
of the air and with the pangs of disease. That is an tin*
discriminating evil; falls equally on the head and mem-
bers, the officers and soldiers, the cowardly and brave, the
ignorant and skilful.

" When I think upon the graves, the ignominious graves,
that are now gaping, in the plains of St. Domingo, for the
conquerors of Kgypt and Italy; the inevitable iate, from
the sword of banditti and slaves, or from the hovering pes-
tilence, which awraits those veterans who have vied, in the
usefulness and grandeur of their past exploits, with all
that history or poetry has embalmed, I tremble with com-
passion:....and with fear.. ..(why should I not rather say
with hope?) that when apprized of these impending evils,
they will refuse to go.

" Advantage may, indeed, be taken of their present
ignorance ; glittering and permanent rewards may be pro-

8

mised to their valour; they may be inspired with con-
temptuous notions of the blacks whom thev are going to
subdue ; and it may not be till successive armies, the flower
of the French chivalry, are swallowed up and lost without
advantage, in this insatiable gulf, that the government may
be mortified by murmurs and mutiny. M Heaven shield
us from this mortification" is my hopeless prayer, at one
time, and at another, it is the wish of my heart, that if the
government be deaf to the claims of these brave men, they
may take uj on themselves the assertion of them. ...But how
many evils would be prevented by declining this fruitless
struggle with the elements? how many lives, glorious to
themselves and useful to their country, might be saved by
a wiser policy?

" Perhaps I may be charged with exaggerating the dan-
gers to be dreaded from the climate. Why, it will be
asked, has not this dreadful havock been experienced on
former occasions? The island has always been garrisoned,
and why did not some sagacious counsellor commend die
desertion of it, on account of this hostility between the air
and the soldier? Why dread these evils now which were
never before felt?

u These evils have always been felt. It is well known,
that in all the calculations of the servants of the monarchy,
on colonial supplies, the destruction of two-thirds of the
soldiery, by the climate, in a few months, was regularly
taken into account. The whole number was small, be-
cause no enemy was at hand, and therefore the enormous
waste was less perceptible. But now how different are
our circumstances? Not only there will be no end to our
detachments thither, but the life of ceaseless toil, in moun-
tain marches and midnight skirmishes, with a lurking and
marauding enemy, will give tenfold force to the unwhole-
some elements. Formerly a few hundreds were sufficient
to guard the public peace, but now how many thousands,
think you, will be requisite to dispossess an armed nation,
fighting under a provident and valiant leader, for their soil,
their liberty, their very being?

u Do we not all know what the revolution has done on
both sides of the ocean? It has changed an half a million
of helpless and timorous slaves, the mere tools of the
farmer and die artizan, the sordid cattle of the field, inte
men, and citizens, and soldiers.

9

" What a fond mistake to imagine that these will be less
formidable enemies, than the bands of Russia and Austria.
There is not a circumstance in which they diifer, that is
not in favour of the blacks. The two scenes of war, are
unlike, and in every dissimilar particular the superiority
of danger is on the side of St. Domingo.

" The robust body and strenuous mind was never denied
to the African; and, Frenchmen! will you be so unjust to
your own cause, to that principle which has inspired your
raw peasants, and ennobled your town-rabble ; to the influ-
ence of your arts and discipline; and, above all, of your
libertv, on this robust body and strenuous spirit? Can you
forget their hardy training, their perfect knowledge of the
rocks and valleys Of their country, their simple diet?....
They draw health and vigour from the air, which will be
poison to you. They have your arms and your discipline,
and whatever generous consciousness raised you above the
Austrian and Russian mercenary, will raise the blacks of
St. Domingo above their invaders.

" It is the fashion to revile them by the name of robbers
and banditti*. What more silly, than to call a nation, that
has trampled down all opposition, in a territory three times
as large as Switzerland ; that have numerous garrisons, and
a regular army; treasures and arsenals; laws and trade; a
wise and able prince at their head, by the same name with
the wretched fugitives from servitude, trembling in their
caves by day, and at night prowling for scanty fare round
the cultivated fields. Soon will you detect your mistake,
when landed on that shore. You will there find enemies,
as well disciplined, as numerous, and far more implacable
and obstinate in their defence, than any you have encoun-
tered at your own doors. The most arduous of your wars
is still to come.

" The heart of humanity must bleed at the prospect of
this war. The havock made among the most valuable
children of France, the soldiers to be sent thither, is the
chief, but not the only e\ il, to be deprecated. With their
death, will be completed the destruction of the colony.
Fire will devour all the vestiges of cultivation. The
sword will sweep away the remaining proprietors of town
and country, and the list of exiles will be swelled by those,
whom timely foresight of the danger, shall enable to escape

* Brigands.
B

10

to a land of strangers and poverty. It will soon be found,
that to conquer, it will be necessary to exterminate. Hav-
ing done this, if it can be done, (which I think impossible,)
let us look around us and meditate the spectacle. The
best blood of the nation has flowed. The flower of its
military force has perished. We have completed the doom
of death or of exile, on the last of our countrymen on that
shore. The fields, which we have acquired, are reduced
to a desert, and therefore of no more use to the end, for
which we coveted possession, than the wilds of New Hol-
land, which we may have without fighting for.

u What can equal our folly I we fight for fields which
we value only as we till them. We cannot till them with-
out cattle, and yet, in our rage to get them, we kill the
cattle. We covet not the hills and valleys, but the coffee
and sugar which they are able to afford us. Any other
hills and valleys in the same climate, have the same natu-
ral capacities; but the house, the mill, the labouring hands,
and the various utensils constitute the difference in the
value : but these, half destroyed already, a tedious and ex-
terminating war will annihilate. The golden prize, for
which we face such perils, and inflict such miseries, will
vanish in our grasp.

" In forbearing to molest this island, we gain every
thing. The praise of clemency will be ours. We shall
escape the infamy of resuming the gift of liberty, which
we bestowed; of endeavouring to degrade men and citi-
zens, to the servitude from which we have just raised
them. We shall gain their gratitude, their friendship, and
every benefit which one nation can confer upon another.
The products of the island, the fruits of commerce, the
luxury of millions, and the industry and subsistence of
thousands 6f our countrymen, we shall gain. In the folly
of conquest, and the cruelty of war, all these will be de-
voted. Those who will be most useful to vis as allies,
as friendly consumers of the products of our ingenuity and
labour, will be no more; and their isle, when conquered,
will be just as beneficial to France, as any other desert
and unpeopled land.

" Cannot experience make us wise? Have we heard,
without benefit, the lesson which the English in their
treatment of their colonies have taught us? Is it worthy of
us to afford a new, and even a more flagrant example of
the desperate and execrable folly of that nation ; who

11

drained the vitals of the people to support ridiculous claims
of supremacy over a distant empire; who laboured to
establish their own ruin ; and who were finally compelled
to accept as a voluntary gift from friends, those benefits,
which they had in vain endeavoured to exact, as tribute
from slaves!

" O ! that a vain chimera, a sanguinary dream had less
power over nations than the plainest dictates of wisdom
and policy; that the man whom I now address would rise
as far above the rest of his race, in this, as he has already
done, in other respects. I am jealous ybr him, and would
fain see the glory of my hero as bright as heaven, and as
lasting as the universe. I would fain see him imitate the
divine beneficence, and do good without hoping or expect-
ing a requital. Yet I counsel nothing which involves the
sacrifice of personal glorv, or national advantage. I do not
persuade him to injure himself for the salvation of others.
Pacific measures are equally conducive to his own, and the
nation's glory and prosperity. Hostilities will be equally
destructive to both, and if all considerations must yield to
the honour of vanquishing rebellion, let us yet lay down
our arms, since arms will never vanquish it. What triumph
can we hope for but in exterminating, and he that dies in
opposition is not subdued.

" Forbearance, however, is a hard task. No eloquence
that I can use, may shield from odious imputations the
counsels I have now given. It remains for me, however,
to shew that while I recommend peace and concession to
revolted subjects, I am not the advocate of ignoble ease.
To give up what has once belonged to us, the rabble will
denominate mean, but I abhor the meanness as much as
the rabble who condemns it. To contract our empire is not
the end of my counsels. On the contrary, my heart beats
high with the hope of adding to it, not an island, indeed,
but a world.

" The general who should aim at the acquisition of a
wealthy province, whose boundaries are undefended ; into
the hear,, of which he can march without impediment or op-
position; whose numerous people are prepared to meet
him with joy and gratitude, and which will hasten to
coalesce with its conquerers,is surely no timorous or sordid
counsellor, even though, in order to effect this conquest,he
should dissuade us from consuming innumerable lives and
treasures in the siege of a fortified rock, whose defenders

12

may reasonably upbraid our injustice in attacking them, and
whose last mound will be their dead bodies.

" As little as such an one, do I merit the blame of a
public enemy. The conquests I shall recommend, will
reconcile objects so rarely allied as the power and glory of
the nation, (even as the rabble of statesmen estimate these,)
and the felicity of the whole race.

" I come now to a theme on which I hardly know in
what terms to begin. Its beauties and advantages fill my
mind, in a bright confusion, and how to separate, and dis-
pose my thoughts so as to convey light and conviction to
others, with a force answerable to their truth, and worthy
their importance, I scarcely know. I must begin, however,
though conscious that my feeble powers will degrade, not
enoble the subject....

" In little more than an hundred years ago, North Ame-
rica was a wilderness. It was so thinly peopled as to merit
this name. Such, particularly was the forlorn condition of
that district which occupies the eastern coast, and which
extends through the finest climates. This space corres-
ponds in its favourable situation, and almost in extent,
with Europe. Then it only exhibited a dreary variety of
forest and morass. All its capacities of giving food, shelter
and raiment to the human species, of pouring forth the
boundless happiness of intellectual beings, were inert. It
was the wild range of beasts and savages.

" Let us noxo cast our eyes thither, and meditate the
change that has taken place in so short a period. Morass
and forest, a savage and naked race, have mostly disap-
peared. A christian and European nation has sprung up
in their place. That side of the sea has become a counter-
part to this. Towns and villages, language, institutions,
arts and manners seem as if transferred by magic from one
coast to the other. Distance and a stormy ocean, which
had been for so many ages insuperable obstacles between
them, and screened one region even from the knowledge
of the other, have dwindled into nothing. Extremitieshave
approached each other, have coalesced, have become one,
and the effects which in former times contiguity alone pro-
duced, are now found by no means incompatible with the
utmost distance. A numerous, civilized and powerful
people are spread over this district, which in all respects
will bear an honourable comparison with any nation ol Eu-
rope.

13

" And whence this wonderful change ? From what be-
ginnings has arisen an empire which casts contempt upon
the miracles of fancy, and the metamorphoses of poetry?
In tracing their original we see only poor fugitives from
these shores, whom tyranny has cast out naked and helpless:
who have roamed abroad, nearly unprovided, in search of
new homes; whose quiet settlement was obstructed by the
thousand evils of a pestilential climate, churlish soil, and
faithless neighbours ; whom distance and poverty could
not remove bevond the reach of their former masters,
whose tyrannv as it originally drove them into exile, con-
tinued to vex and harass them ; to counteract all the benefits,
to aggravate all the evils of their new condition ; to check
their increase; to lessen their subsistence ; to deprave their
morals; to disturb their peace. We behold them, at one
time, bending all their strength to maintain their post
against the ancient possessors of the soil; at another en-
gaged in a feeble and ruinous struggle with their European*
ancestors, who having endeavoured in vain to strangle the
infant in his cradle, now poured their whole strength on his
still undisciplined and immature manhood.

" In spite of all these evils, in spite of that fatal policy,
which has cut up a people of the same blood, manners, and
laws, into a score of independent and unequal states, and
thus laid the eternal foundation of wars and feuds. ...has a
nation sprung up in an age, opulent and powerful, as those
whose beginnings are bevond the reach of history.

" These miracles were not wrought by the sword. It
was not wars and victories that have added five millions of
civilized men to the human race, and to the English name.
These may rob millions of their happiness and indepen-
dence ; millions they may easily destroy ; but they cannot
call into existence; thev cannot compel to change their
language, manners, or religion.

" All the solid glorv, all the genuine benefits of extend-
ing their empire and augmenting their numbers, have
been gained, (though without design and without merit)
by the English. If there be any advantage in unity of
power, that advantage thev might still and forever have
enjoyed: Their own unpardonable folly cast it away.

" When an observer of mankind survevs the world from
his closet.... when he notices the worthless ends and the in-
adequate means which engage the ambition and industry
of nations, he seems, in his own opinion, to have fallen

14

among a race of maniacs. The ends they propose are
silly or wicked; the means they adopt counteract their de-
signed purpose. Such, above all, is the lesson which the
history of the English colonies affords ; a series of purposes
iniquitous and abortive : of means puerile aud nugatory.
Tiie greatest good springing up without the wishes and
against the efforts of the actors, and the cause of human
happiness and of national prosperity insensibly advancing
in defiance of human guilt and follv.

" And how happened it that the English rather than the
French had the glory of peopling a new world ? While the
greatest of the French kings had near half a million of
soldiers in his service ; of men fed, clothed, housed and
equipped, for the purpose of extending his empire, a few
English fugitives were building up a mighty nation in
America. Without provision or furniture, in hardships
and poverty, they were busied in securing the rapid popu-
lation of one fourth of the globe.

" All the schemes of the French king were defeated.
His own people were impoverished and famished; his
neighbours overwhelmed with the same evils ; his territo-
ries narrowed and his pride subdued. Had some good
genius inspired him with foresight, and could he have been
persuaded to have begun the race of colonization, as early
as the English, what a glorious privilege would the French
nation have possessed.

" The foliy of the English, for a long time after their
discoveries, left the field open to this competition ; but the
spirit of adventure began to prevail among us when too
late, and being actuated by the same motives, and conduct-
ed by the same principles, and blindly directed to the same
portion of the world, they met the fate they merited.

u The gradual advancement of the English settlements,
begin at length to draw towards them the attention of
Europe. The stupid rage of ambition, could see nothing
desirable, but what our neighbours already possessed. The
illimitable wilds of America Mere open to our enterprises ;
but no! lives without number, and treasures without end,
must be lavished, fruitlessly lavished, to wrest provinces,
already occupied, from their possessors.

M Had the minister Richlieu applied one years subsidy
of Gustavus, or the treasures expended in one siege or one
campaign in Flanders, in founding a settlement on the De-
laware or Chesapeake; had a cheap asylum been provided

15

in the new world for the million of protestants which his
bigotrv condemned to exile, not only all that part 61
world which is now English, would have been French,
but its population and power would have as much exceeded
its present state, as the beginnings thus made, would have
been more ample and effecLaal than the early efforts of the
English.

" The feeble and ill provided emigrations of the sixteenth
century!, have produced the spectacle we now see. Let us
imagine then, that the thousands sent to perish under the
walls of a German fortress, the arms, the amunition, the
tools, the various apparatus provided for such an expedi-
tion, had been sent to America. In fine, had the wisdom
and power of our government been employed to people
deserts with a hundreth part of the zeal and vigour with
which they have been devoted to the annoyance of our
neighbours, the whole of North America would, at this
dav, have been French, and its people three times as nu-
merous as at present.

" What a theme of humiliation and despair is this to the
friend of mankind; to the lover of his country! Such an
opportunity lost! Improved by others without design or
merit ; lost by us through stupid inattention and misguid-
ed ambition. The seed most carelessly thrown, would have
taken root, thrived, and produced innumerable fruits. An
obscure adventurer, embarking from a French port, in the
time of our Francis the first, would have given us the
empire of America. Slothful and proud Spain would have
been excluded from a scene, which she overspread with
devastation and horror, at her first entrance upon it, and
which she has since maintained in poverty and weakness, "
and the great and enlightened genius of the French would
have wrought such wonders on the Plata and Maragnon, as
the English have exhibited on the Chesapeak and Hudson.

u Amidst the painful regrets which these reflections
produce, the mind naturally inquires... .Is it yet too late?
God forbid that it should ever be too late to advance
the cause of national happiness. Why should we dream
that it is too late ? Are the last years of the world at hand?
Is the nation sunk into decrepitude? Its towns dwindled,
its villages depopulated, its rulers become barbarous? Are
all the vacancies upon the globe, supplied with occupants
and owners ? And can no footing be gained on foreign
shores, without encroaching upon formidable neighbours?

16

" It ought to be our pride to say, that none of these things
have happened. Since the discovery of America, the na-
tion has hourly become more compact, numerous, opulent,
and enlightened. It has just emerged from anarchy and
danger. A fortunate and glorious leader has raised it in a
few years, to a dazzling elevation above its neighbours.
It is about to receive all the blessings of peace, from the
same hand that adorned its brows with the palms of victory.
All the impediments, which hampered and repressed its na-
val and commercial enterprises, are soon to have an end.
The art of navigation has been continually improving, and
the ocean may ho, ferried over now with incredibly more
safety, facility, and expedition than in former times. In-
stead, therefore, of an sra, too late for colonization, we
touch the very period when it can be most effectually car-
ried on. The view of the past, instead of sinking us into
despondent inactivity, should fire us with emulation; we
should disdain to incur the same charges from posterity,
which our ancestors incur from us ; charges heavier on us,
and more justlv merited, since our inducements and abili-
ties are so much greater than theirs.

" But, it has been asked, is not the world already appro-
priated? Let us look abroad for an answer.* Letais, once
more, turn our eyes to America, and consider a little more
distinctlv, whether we are totally excluded from this field.

" Bv what can we be excluded? It would be the most fla-
grant folly to consider America as already occupied. Can
that be occupied which has never been visited; which has
never been seen: as to which there is no certainty whether
it be land or sea, mountain or plain? There are vast regions
in the North and the South; regions vaster than Europe or
New-Holland, of which no European nation knows any
thing; to which, therefore, it can urge no claim ; or no
claim, at least, that ought to be admitted ; or which it would
bfedifiicultte set aside by either of the great national engines,
negotiation, money, or arms.

" After all the reasonings of the sage and the patriot, we
must fear that the nearer scene will occupy our chief atten-
tion. America has now grown familiar to our thoughts.
The value of provinces beyond the main, the progress of
population and power in a land newly setded, have been

* The reveries, which follow, concerning New Holland, being of no
immediate importance to Americas readers, are omitted, T.

17

realized only in the western hemisphere. With that only,
will the imaginations of men most easily connect ideas of
future progress.

"It was this foible of human nature which led the French
to make their settlements in the isles of the West-Indies,
and on the eastern coast of America. The English, how-
ever, had pre-occupied the best part of the field. The
French were forced to content shemselves with a barren
region, in the north, and with some feeble attempts at set-
tlement, on the Missisippi. We cherished the vain hope,
that we should be able to wrest from our hereditary rivals,
all their western colonies.

" What a deplorable instance of infatuation was this!
Instead of turning our efforts towards the west, where de-
lightful and immense plains stretched to the southern ocean;
where our advances were obstructed by no enemy, and no
jarring claims; from which the egress was safe and easy,
into the Atlantic, by the Missisippi and St. Laurence, and
into the South Sea by a thousand probable streams, we bent
the whole force of our arms to reduce the English set-
tlers to subjection, to establish over freemen the hated
authoritv of conquerors, and to create a channel for our
blood and treasure to flow uselessly away.

" Happily for us, we had to contend with prejudices
equally strong, and failed in the contest. Superiority of
numbers, and the chance of war, gave to the English the
unprofitable victory. No reasonable Frenchman will re-
gret this consequence, in respect to Canada; but all our
wonder and sorrow must be alive, when we reflect upon
the loss of the Missisippi. What consideration could
prompt such a sacrifice? What equivalent could the worth-
less Spaniards afford, for relinquishing a footing in the
very spot where the continent was most accessible, where
that footing had already been made firm by numerous plan-
tations, a populous town and a thriving trade ?

" Forty years has the genius of the French nation slept.
Under the influence of the old government, all our faculties
were benumbed. St. Domingo, indeed, was permitted to
advance. Our islands prospered under that wretched po-
licy, which converted men into cattle, and grasped at pre-
sent benefits at the hazard of all the evils, by which they
have since been overwhelmed. But to a few Islands, and
to a morass in the torrid" zone, was our genius limited,
while the English name spread itself abroad, with incredi*

c

18

ble rapidity, over all the eastern part of the continent: and
the middle and western regions, were resigned to the torpor
and desolation which are the natural effects of the Spanish
policy.

U It is time to awaken. Should this fatal sleep continue
under the auspices of Buonaparte, fortune will have smiled
in vain on that hero. Should the present opportunity of
repossessing ourselves of the banks of the Missisippi, by a
peaceable bargain with Spain, be suffered to escape, he will
have gained his present pre-eminence in vain. Should he
seize this opportunity, and improve it with diligence, we
will pardon the destruction that impends over St. Domingo.
The torrents of blood that are going to flow in that devoted
colony, and the completion of its ruin will be petty conse-
quences, when compared with the eternal benefits of begin-
ning a fresh career in the continent of North America.

u Let us consider the scene of this career; the situation
of the country; the advantages of which we are already in
possession; those which we shall speedily acquire; the ob-
stacles to be dreaded from the jealousy of England, and the
clashing interest of the United States ; and our future pro-
gress, in defiance of the opposition of these States, of
England, and of Spain. *

" Our nation had the vain honour of conferring a name
on a portion of the globe, not exceeded by any other portion
Of it, in all the advantages of climate and soil. Before the
war of 1757, it was an immense valley, watered by a deep
and beneficent river. This river first acquires importance
in the latitude of forty-five, north. It flows in a devious
course about two thousand miles, and enters the bay of
Mexico, by many mouths, in latitude 29. In these lati-
tudes, is comprised the temperate zone ; which has been
always deemed most favourable to the perfection of the
animal and vegetable nature. This advantage is not mar-
red by the chilling and sterilifying influence of lofty moun-
tains, the pestilential fumes of intractable bogs, or the
dreary uniformity of sandy plains. Through the whole ex-
tent, there is not, probably, a snow-capt hill, a moving sand,
cr a '.olcanic eminence.

" This valley is of different breadths. The ridge which
bounds it on the east, is in some places near a thousand
miles from the great middle stream. From this ridge,
secondary rivers of great extent and magnificence flow to-
wards the centre, and the intermediate regions are an un-
cultivated paradise. On the west, the valley is of similar

19

dimensions, the streams are equally large and useful, and
the condition of the surface equally delightful.

" Beyond the eastern ridge, and as far as the Atlantic,
are the dwellings of the English, and the war which ensued
the mutual approaches of the two nations, terminated in
the expulsion of the French from the eastern slope of this
valley.

" On the west, the country is but little known. The
south sea, which is its natural boundary on that side, is
some thousands of miles distant. The coast of that sea
has been claimed by the Spaniards, since their permanent
settlement in Mexico, but the western limits of Louisiana
were, nevertheless, sufficiently ample. The peace of 1763,
left these limits undisturbed, and the validity of the trans-
fer to Spain, of the western slope of this valley, and of
either bank of the river, near its mouth, has never sinca
been disputed. The English colonists have since become
a sovereign people; but their emigrations have hitherto
scarcely reached the river, and the Spanish dominion of
the opposite bank has been recognized by solemn treaties.
The settlements along the river, have chiefly been previous
to the transfer of Spain; a town of no mean extent was then
founded, and all the regular means of subsistence, to a nu-
merous people, in cultivation and trade, had been regularly
established.

" We must first observe, that in gaining possession of
this territory, we shall not enter on a desert, where the
forest must be first removed, before a shelter can be built;
whither we must carry the corn and the clothes necessary
to present subsistence, and the seed, the tools and the cattle
which are requisite to raise a future provision. We have
no wars to wage nor treaties to form with the aboriginal
possessors. The empire thus restored to us will not be
over English or Spaniards, whose national antipathies
would make them ever restless and refractory, but countiy-
men and friends; the children of France who are impatient
of a foreign yoke, and who are anxious to return to the bosom
of their long estranged ancestors. The ministers of the
nation need not be an army, with their brandished bayo-
nets, since there will be neither foreign foes to intercept
our passage, nor intestine rebels to refuse us admission;
peaceable agents and commissioners will be hailed with
filial joy, and these will be sufficient to establish a wise
code of commercial and internal policy on the ruins ot

20

Spanish tyranny and folly. Under a wise government, the
imagination can scarcely set limits to the progress of a colo-
ny; but the utmost caution may surely proceed as far in,
conjecture, as the experience of the neighbouring English
will justify.

" Population has prodigiously advanced in the United
Staces, since their settlement; but there is no reason to ex-
pect a smaller progress in the French. Our neighbours,
indeed, are, at present, in that state, in which the doubling
of their numbers is the adding of millions to millions, and
a state in which the duplicate ratio will be equally produc-
tive, in Louisiana, is lar distant. The circumstances, how-
ever, which will bring this state nearer, are not few or in-
considerable.

" There cannot, in the first place, be imagined a district
more favourable to settlement. In addition to a genial
climate and soil, there are the utmost facilities of commu-
nication and commerce. The whole district is the sloping
side of a valley, through which run deep and navigable
rivers, Avhich begin their course in the remotest borders,
and which all terminate in the centra^ stream. This stream,
one of the longest and widest in the world, is remarkably
distinguished by its depth and freedom from natural impe-
diments. It flows into a gulf, which contains a great
number of populous islands. Among these islands are
numerous passages into the ocean, which washes the
shores, of Europe. Thus, not only every part of the dis-
trict is easily accessible by means of rivers, but the same
channels, are readv to convey the products of every quarter
to the markets most contiguous and most remote.

a The progress of a nation may be obstructed by bad
laws, and by natural impediments. Men will not plant
and reap for nothing. Thev will not leave their present
'homes without the prospect of bettering their condition.
In the spot that chance may throw them, they wall expend
no labour in raising more than they can consume, unless
they can exchange the surplus for something necessary or
agreeable, the fruits of the labour of others. Subsistence
must always be scanty and mean, and the great spring of
population, must, of consequence, be languid and power-
less, when supplied by our single ingenuity and labour.
Many men must combine their various skill and diligence
to make life a blessing to each, and inspire him witii incli-
nation to give life to others.

21

" A barren soil may deny to our utmost efforts more
than a scanty and precarious subsistence. If the soil be
fertile, yet there may be no method of disposing of its sur-
plus products. There may be no streams, which are the
easiest conveyances to distant markets. The surface may
be broken up into hills and rocks, whose summits and
defiles are impassable, or passable only at such labour and
expense, as are disproportioned to the gain. The rivers,
if there be any, may be impeded by cataracts, or their
mouths be barred against us by some hostile nation that mav
possess them. The interests of rival neighbours may deny
us access to the most eligible marts, or all these obstacles
may be absurdly supplied by an evil government, which
mav prohibit the cultivation or export of those products,
which the condition of the soil or the prudence of the
planter would naturally suggest.

" Which of, these obstacles will have place in this new
colony? Will only one or a few of the means of opulence
be enjoyed by it? The most opulent nations cannot boast
the possession of every blessing. Either the rigours of
the climate and soil are redressed by the wisdom of the
government, as in Switzerland and Holland; or the mis-
chiefs of misgovernment are somewhat compensated by
the bounties of nature, as in Egypt and Sicilv„ But fancy
in her happiest mood can not combine all the felicities of
nature and society in a more absolute degree, than will be
actually combined, when the valley of the Missisippi shall
be placed under the auspices of France. Not one of the
impediments to opulence will be found here. Not one of
the advantages, the least of which have made other regions
the envy and admiration of mankind, will here be want-
ing.

" The Nile flows in a torrid climate through a lo/ig and
narrow valley. The fertility which its annual inundations
produce, extends only two or three leagues on eitlier side
of it. The benefits of this fertility are marred by the neigh-
bourhood of scorching sands, over which the gales carry
intoilerable heat and incurable pestilence, and w/iich har-
bour a race of savages, whose tradte is war an<i pillage.
Does this river bestow riches worthy of the greatest efforts
of the nation to gain them, and shall the greater Nile of
the Western hemisphere be neglected? A Nile whose in-
undations diffuse the fertility of. Egypt twenty leagues from
its shores, which occupies a valley wider than from the

22

Duna to the Rhine, which flows among the most beautiful
dales, and under the benignest seasons, and which is skirt-
ed by a civilized and kindred nation, on one side, and on
the other by extensive regions, over which the tide of
growing population may spread itself without hindrance or
danger ?

" But of what avail will be all these advantages, unless
a market be provided for the produce of the soil? Now
this market is already provided. For all that it can pro-
duce, France alone will supply thirty millions of consumers.
The choicest luxuries of Europe are coffee, sugar, and to-
bacco. The most useful materials of clothing are cotton
and silk. All these are either natives of the Missisippi
valley, or remarkably congenial to it. The cultivation of
these, and the carriage to market, are as obvious and easy
as the most ardent politician can desire. The whole extent
of the river will be our own, and in the lower and most fer-
tile portion of its course, the banks on both sides will be
our indisputable property.

" Let us consider these advantages with a little more
minuteness. Let us reflect on their complexity and ex-
tent. The more deeply we consider them, the more fer-
vently shall we desire the possession of them, and the more
distinctly shall we perceive how much the happiness and
glory of France are concerned in the resolutions of the
present moment.

" Habit has familiarized to us, and reason has endeared
to us the use of sugar. Our islands in the West Indies
have hitherto chiefly supplied us with this article. That
source, it is greatly to be dreaded, is now about to be dried
up. Anarchy and misrule have already nearly ruined them.
The foal seal will be put to their doom, by any hostile at-
tempts to wrest them from the blacks. Their independence,
whether it be the prize of their valour or the gift of our
benevoience or policy, will make them strangers or ene-
mies, aid to trade with them as equals, or with the Eng-
glish, will be an injury to us, inasmuch as it will be a be-
nefit to those who may do us mischief, and as it will exclude
us from Lie greater benefit of trading with our brothers and
children. It must likewise be remembered that the utmost
produce oi" these islands was always a meagre supply; that
what we cannot ourselves consume, may, with great and
manifest advantage to the nation, be distributed to the rest
•f Europe and of the world.

23

*' The friend of the health, longevity and useful pleasure
of the human species, and of the opulence of France, could
not devise a better scheme than one which should enable
every inhabitant of Europe to consume half a pound of
sugar a day, and assign to Frenchmen the growth, the car-
riage and the distribution of thus much.* Now this
scheme is no other than the possession of the American
Nile. But this end may be too magnificent to be deemed
credible. Let us then confine ourselves to the consump-
tion of France ; for this alone will be adequate to the em-
ployment and conducive to the wealth of a vast number of
cultivators.

" A much less beneficial luxury is coffee, but this our
habits have equally endeared to us. We have hitherto
drawn it from the same fountain which has supplied us
with sugar : the trade in it must follow the same destiny,
the same benefits will flow from increasing the supply, and
from drawing this supply from the valley of the Missisippi.

" I shall pass over, without mention, manyother articles,
such as tobacco, indigo, and the like, for which France and
the rest of Europe will supply an unlimited consumption,
and hasten to articles which are of more importance, and
these are cotton and provisions.

" The most beautiful production of nature is cotton. It
was more than the caprice of fashion that went to the ex-
tremities of the east in search of this material, for there is
none capable of a greater number of uses, of so many forms
and such various colours. Its texture may constitute the
lightest and most beautiful of ornaments, or the best de-
fence against the intemperature of the air.

" The nations of the east have used it immemorially,
and from them has it gradually been brought to Europe.
The use of it seems to have been limited by nothing but
the power of procuring it. Like sugar, the use of it has
increased since it has been naturalized to the soil of Ame-
rica. The consumption has, in like manner, been eager to
outrun the supply.

" The American states have of late become sensible of
the value of the commerce in cotton, and their success sup-
plies us with a new example, and a powerful inducement

* 225,000,000 Cwt. the produce of an area, not exceeding that of
Guienne, Normandy and Britanny, and not a twentieth part of the valley
*f the Missisippi.

24

to appropriate, in part, the territory of the Missisippi to
the same culture.

" In this, as in other articles, we have to struggle with
competition, only in relation to foreign markets. 1 he home
market is inexhaustibly abundant, and may be all our own.
All competition may be excluded hence, if not by salutary
regulations, yet by the superior excellence and cheapness
ol the article, and the cotton that shall clothe thirty mil-
lions, will require numerous hands to grow and to manu-
facture it. Who shall count the number of these hands,
or of those which shall be employed in supplying the groxu-
ers of cotton with ail the conveniencies and luxuries of
Europe? What limit shall we fix to the increase of wealth
and numbers, which will thus be accumulated and multi-
plied on both sides of the ocean?

u Sugar, coffee and tobacco are luxuries. Cotton will
admit of an imperfect substitue in the homely productions,
the fiax and hemp, of our own soil, but the inestimable
good which recommends this acquisition, is, that it af-
fords a granary whence all deficiencies of the parent coun-
try can be supplied.

" One of the benefits of extensive empire, consists in
its lessening the danger of famine. This, however, is, in
truth, one of the effects of extensive commerce, by which
any occasional scarcity in one province, is immediately
supplied by the superabundance of another. As the rigours
of season are unequal in extent, this benefit is unequal on
different occasions; but the commercial chain that binds
together Europe and America, has supplied the surest an-
tidote to this evil, which is compatible with the dimensions
of this globe. The causes that modify the seasons and
produce scarcity, may possibly extend from Sweden to
Sicily, from Courlandto Normandy, but theyare not likely
to operate, at the same time, in both hemispheres. The
causes that are thus extensive, will equally affect the whole
globe. This is one of the hitherto unmentioned benefits
of the colonization of America. This benefit will be more
extensively secured by the plantation of the Missisippi.
The advantage of receiving this supply, and of imparting
it will be secured to France, and the calamities of one part
of the empire, will redound to the profit of another part;
instead of enriching, as at present, strangers or enemies.

u I will not pretend to explain, what are so generally
understood, as the causes cf population. The country

25

gives food to the town. The town repays the country in
works of art. The number of townsmen increases with
the surplus product of the country. The series being once
begun, each acts, by turns, as a cause and effect. The town
grows because the country grows. The country increases
because the town increases. It matters not whether the
town and country, connected by this mutual influence, be
near or remote from each other, provided they can easily
communicate. Thus the advancement of cultivation in
America, adds numbers, by finding them employment, to
Birmingham and Liverpool. Thus the Loire and Ga-
ronne will flow among more flourishing farms, numerous
villages and crowded cities, in consequence of new men
springing up, and new harvests waving on the Missisippi
and Missouri. As the American colonies advance, France
itself grows more rich and more populous. The products
of her art and labour will purchase food from her colonists.
The products of colonial tillage, will purchase her art and
her labour. The perfection of navigation will create a
bridge over the sea, and the chain of mutual dependence
will bind them together, faster than a chain of fortresses.

" In evtry civilized nation, there must be a certain pro-
portion of wretchedness and poverty; of men whom the
pressure of distress compels to great and anxious efforts to
improve their condition. To favour these efforts is the
end of all good governments ; to promote equality without
detriment to order is the great political secret. The obvi-
ous and most eligible means for effecting this is not by
agrarian schemes subversive of established property, but
by appropriating new ground, and distributing it among
the needy. Nor ought this distribution to be by the direct
and entire agency of government. To ascertain the limits
of the new province ; to divide it into convenient portions ;
to set, on each portion, a moderate price; to subject the
tenure to easy conditions ; thoroughly to apprize the world
of this price and these conditions; to instruct those, whose
inducements to emigrate are strongest, in the benefits of
emigration; to facilitate their voyage and settlement; to
defend them in their new possessions by wise laws and
prudent treaties; are the onlv duties incumbent on the go-
vernment, and such as are easily performed.

" Let us reflect a moment on the consequence of these
arrangements. The chasm, which emigration produces in a
thriving country, is momentary. The emigration of the

D

26

poor by affording larger room for the remnant, conduces
to the benefit equally of those who go and those who stay.
The chasm indeed immediately closes, as the chasm has
already closed, which the loss of two or three millions in
the late revolution produced; which famine, earthquakes
and pestilence produce ; but the chasm produced by colo-
nization is not by the loss of people, but by the transfer of
them to a space, in which they will become happier in
themselves, and more beneficial to the whole. The reser-
voir is not lessened by what thus flows from it. On the
contrary, the reservoir becomes ultimately fuller as the
streams that flow from it become more numerous and
copious.

" The noblest and most extensive of such reservoirs is
France. What a mighty emigration must that be which
creates here even a momentary chasm? If wars and vio-
lence have swept away upwards of two millions of French-
men in the last ten years, and no vacuity is now visible,
neither would their place have missed them, had they
emigrated to America; and France, could thus, without
detriment have created a nation beyond the Atlantic, as
numerous as that of the American states at the close of their
late war. If a single grain be sown, and twenty years
growth be required to make the product double the seed,
one grain will only produce, in twenty years, two grains ;
but this increase is equally certain, whether the seeds be
few or many- The American states have been nearly two
centuries growing to their present numbers. The careless
spectator wonders at the greatness of the harvest, forgetful
that, had not the seed been originally cast among sands and
rocks ; had the planter been less sparing of his store ; had
he fostered and protected its growth with half the zeal with
which he has blighted and trampled it; the present harvest
would have been greater in a tenfold proportion than it
now is.

" But now comes the fearful and scrupulous head to clash
these charming prospects. Obstacles to these great achieve-
ments multiply in his timorous fancy- He expatiates on
the length of the way; the insalubrity of uncultivated lands;
of a climate to which the constitution and habits of the
colonists are uncongenial: of a soil, part of which, and
that accessible and most valuable, lies under a torrid sun,
and is annually inundated.

27

" Now all these difficulties are imaginary. They arc
real in relation to a first settlement. They ought to be
taken into strict account, if our projects extended to New
Holland or to California. In all real cases, these difficul-
ties have been great by reason of the ayarice, injustice and
folly of the colonizing nation; and the wisest plans could
not totally exclude, though they would greatly lessen and
easily surmount them. But Louisiana is not a nexv settle-
ment. It is one of the oldest in North America. All the
labours of discovering and of setting the first foot on a de-
sert shore, were suffered and accomplished long ago. The
task allotted to us now, is not to kindle the first spark, but
to add fuel to a flame already kindled. The progress that
cultivation has already made, will disarm the climate of the
lower Missisippi of half its rigours to future emigrants,
and the climate itself in the upper regions of the valley, i3
prolific of life and health. It v^es with the finest districts
of France in this respect; and the emigrant instead of
finding strange or unfriendly seasons, will meet with no-
thing but the excellencies of his native air, free from its
defects. To the truth of this picture the inhabitants of the
eastern part of the valley, bear witness. The emigrations
hither from the sea coast, are great and incessant. New
towns and new states are continually forming, and the hu-
man species multiplies beyond all former example.

" As to the length or difficulties of the passage, the art
of navigation has nearly reduced these to nothing. How ma-
ny thousand persons are continually crossing the ocean?
How many thousands with the cumbrous furniture of war,
have been sent to America, and maintained for years while
there, by France and England, during the last century, not
indeed to cultivate the ground and rear children, but to de-
stroy and be destroyed ? Nobody will dare affirm that the
end, either proposed or accomplished by these armed emi-
grations, will as fully justify the trouble and expense laid
out upon them, as the emigration of artizans and husband-
men;....which yet requires not the tenth part of the ex-
pense, nor incurs the hundredth part of the hazard, which
a military expedition of equal numbers requires and incurs.

" But, exclaims the objector, what does all this display
of argument effect, but the destruction of the very end for
which it v/as produced? If such are the benefits tc
from the possession of the Missisippi to France ; if its
wealth and its power are to gain such magnificent acces»

28

sions from this scheme, will the neighbouring nations
passively look on ihe while? Will Spain resign to us a
colony, which though of little value to her, while in her
possession, will be of infinite detriment to her when pos-
sessed by an active and enterprizing people? Will she
thus open the door to her most formidable enemy, and ex-
pose her valuable mines and provinces to easy and una-
voidable invasion ? The Spanish possessions lie on the
west and south. The road to them is easy and direct.
They are wholly defenceless. The frontier has neither
forts, allies nor subjects. To march over them is to con-
quer. A detachment of a few thousands would find faith-
ful guides, practicable roads, and no opposition between
the banks of the Missisippi and the gates of Mexico. The
unhappv race whom Spain has enslaved, are without arms
and without spirit; or their spirit would prompt them to
befriend the invader. They would hail the French as de-
liverers, and persecute the ministers of Spain as tyrants.

" The Spaniards must be thoroughly aware that their
power in Mexico and Peru, exists by the weakness and
division of their vassals, and by the remoteness and com-
petition of their European enemies. Unwise and imbecile
as that nation has generally appeared in latter times, the
admission of the French to a post from whence their do-
minions may be so easily annoyed at present, and from
which their future expulsion is inevitable, is a folly too
egregious even for them to commit, and of which the most
infatuated of their counsels has not hitherto given an ex-
ample.

u If Spain should refuse the cession, there is an end to
our golden views. Our empire in the new world is stran-
gled in its cradle ; or, at least, die prosecution of our scheme
must wait for a more propitious season. But should the
fortune of our great leader continue her smiles ; should
our neighbour be trepanned or intimidated into this con-
cession, there is removed, indeed, one obstacle, of itself
insuperable; but only to give way to another, at least,
equally hard to subdue ; and that is, the opposition of En-
gland.

" That nation justly regards us as the most formidable
enemy to her greatness. Of late, if her pride would con-
fess the truth, she would acknowledge that not her great-
ness only, but her very being was endangered, either by
the influence of our arms or the contagion of our example.

29

She was assailed in her vitals, as the confusions of Ireland
will testify. She was attacked in her extremities, as the
expedition to Egypt, a mere prelude to the conquest of
Hindoostan, will prove. Her efforts to repel both these
attacks, were suitable to their importance, and evince the
magnitude of her fears. The possession of the vantage-
ground enabled her to crush the Irish. Her naval su-
periority and the caprice of the winds enabled her to check
our victorious career in the east. But has she, indeed,
defeated our attempts? No. The seeds of rebellion are
far from being extirpated in Ireland, since they were plant-
ed by the injustice and oppression of the English, and the
issue of the late commotions has rather tightened than
slackened the reins of a tyrannical government, and since
our means of fanning the ilame, will rather be augmented
than diminished by the expected peace. The road to India
is far from being shut against us. Our next attempts will
be more successful as we shall have gathered wisdom from
experience, and shall lay our plans with more caution. The
English will, perhaps, have rescued themselves from pre-
sent destruction, by their naval successes, and have put
their evil day further off by cutting off our succours to
Ireland ; but they have not been able to hinder the exalta-
tion of France. Their enemy is far more powerful, and
themselves more feeble than at the beginning of the
contest. We have given them new reasons for suspicion
and jealousy, and what more likely to exasperate these
passions and raise their resistance, than the project of this
colon) ?

u Will they suffer France to possess herself of the most
effectual means of prosecuting future wars to a different
issue? Their navy and their commerce, are, at present, all
their trust. France may add Italy and Germany to her
dominions with less detriment to England, than would
follow from her acquisition of a navy, and the extension
oi her trade. Whatever gives colonies to France, supplies
her with shipsand sailors; manufacturers and husbandmen.
Victories by land can only give her mutinous subjects;
who, instead of augmenting the national force, by their
riches or numbers, contribute only to disperse and enfeeble
that force ; but the growth of colonies supplies her with
zealous citizens, and the increase of real wealth and effec-
tive numbers is the certain consequence.

30

" What could Germany, Italy, Spain and France, com*
bining their strength, perform against England? They
might assemble in millions on the shores of the channel,
but there would be the limit of their enmity. Without
ships to cany them over ; without experienced mariners to
navigate these ships, England would only deride the
pompous preparation. The moment we leave the shore
her fleets are ready to pounce upon vis ; to disperse and
destroy our ineffectual armaments. There lies their secu-
rity : in their insular situation, and their navy, consists
their impregnable defence. Their navy is in every respect
the offspring of their trade. To rob them of that, therefore,
is to beat down their last wall and fill up their last moat.
To gain it to ourselves, is to enable us to take advantage of
their deserted and defenceless borders, and to complete
the humiliation of our only remaining competitor.

lt The trade which enriches England, lies chiefly in the
products of foreign climates. But her Indian territories
produce nothing which the Missisippi could not as easily
produce. The Ganges fertilizes a valley less extensive.
Its Deltas, as well as those of the Nile, are in the same
latitudes, and these rivers generate the same exuberant
soil, only in smaller space and in less quantities than the
great western Nile: but the Missisippi comprehends, in
its bosom, the regions of the temperate zone as well as the
tropical climates and products. The Arctic circle in
America, will be equally accessible to us and to the
English. Our ancient possessions in Canada, will in due
season return to us of their own accord ; and, meanwhile,
a double portion of anxiety, and double provision of forts
and garrisons, will fall to the lot of the usurping English.
The progress of the French will expose their islands, first
to be excluded from the markets of Europe, and next to
be swallowed up by military power. At present, the
protector and the enemy are at an equal distance, but
then there will only be a narrow frith between the Missi-
sippi and the isles, between the invaders and the objects
they covet, while the defenders would be, as now, afar off;
neither apprized of our designs nor able to defeat them.

" This nation could not bury itself in a more inaccessible
fortress, than this valley. The mouths of this river, as to
all attacks by sea, are better than the bastions of Malta.
All around the entrance is impassable to men and horses^

31

jand the great channel is already barred by forts, easily ex-
tended and improved. A wise policy would teach the
English to divert our attention from this quarter, by the
sacrifice of Valletta or Gibraltar!

" Can we imagine the English, so vigilant, so prudent
in all affairs connected with their maritime empire; so
quick in their suspicions ; so prompt in their precautions,
can be blind to the dangers with which this cession will
menace them? No defeats or humiliations, short of the
conquest of their island, will make them acquiesce in such
arrangements.

" It is contrary to all probability that either Spain or
England will be tractable on this occasion; but if the
danger by being distant is invisible to them ; or if the
present evils, arising to England from continuance of the
war, or to Spain from the resentment of the French
government, should outweigh, in their apprehensions, all
future evils, and prevail on one to grant and on the other
to connive at the grant, by what arguments, by what pro-
mises, by what threats, by what hostile efforts, shall we
extort the consent of the American states ? How shall we
prevail on them to alienate the most valuable portion of
their territory; to admit into their vitals a formidable and
active people, xvhase interests are incompatible, in every
point, -with their own; whose enterprises will inevitably
interfere and jar xvith theirs ; xvhose neighbourhood will
cramp all their movements ; circumscribe their future
progress to narrow and ignominious bounds ; and make
incessant inroads on their harmony and independence?

" Of Spain they have no reason to entertain any fears
or suspicions. She is a harmless and an useful neighbour.
The colony that owns her sway must forever stand stili.
All is imbecility and torpor, where her influence is felt.
The western regions are at present an empty house, of
which the states, whenever it is perfectlv convenient, may
take quiet possession. Meanwhile the rights of the present
crazy old lord are very serviceable to the future claimants,
since they exclude those nations of Europe who are
ardent with youth and ambition ; who would be inclined to
take effectual possession, and would prove restless and
dangerous neighbours.

" The states acquiesce in the title of Spain, only on
those politic principles. They tolerate her claims only as
far as their convenience has dictated. All the eastern part

32

of this great valley they have already taken to themselves*
and are proceeding, with incredible rapidity, to cover it
with farms and villages. Such is the extent of this region,
however, that some years must elapse before it can be
fully appropriated. Meanwhile it is no ones interest to
cross the river. The opposite dales may be resigned for
a time to the reign of nature, to the helpless savages, who
will sell it, when wanted, for blankets and rum, or, what
is better, to the nominal authority of Spain; for this
authority will never stand in their way when they chuse
to pass or descend the river, and will, meanwhile, divert
to other channels, the ambition and the enterprise of
France, England and Holland.

" The tenants of this valley find already the passage of
the river indispensable to their existence. Their surplus
produce cannot be consumed at home, and this is the only
outlet to the ocean, by which it can be sent abroad, and
exchanged for something which they can consume. The
Spaniards are stationed at the mouth, and govern the
passage of the river, but they must not dare to intercept
this passage. They must grant free ingress and egress to
the ships of the states ; and as the vessels that bring down
the produce of the country, are unfit for the broad sea,
they must allow their town of New-Orleans, to be a ware-
house, to which the river-boats may bring and) deposite
their cargo, and whence the sea-boats, from the Atlantic
states, may carry it away at their leisure. And this
communication must be free from all restraints; all impe-
diments ; all customs ; unless a scanty rent for the quays,
at which the vessels unload, may deserve that name.

" On these conditions will they suffer Spain to domi-
neer on this river. Their present wants require no more
than a thorough-fare, to their eastern harbours; to the
islands; and to Europe; but this they must have. When
morels wanted than the privilege of" passing up and down
the stream, Spain must grant more or lose all. For Spain,
in this quarter of the world, is powerless. She exists here
by the sanctity of treaties, and the contempt and conveni-
ency of' her neighbours. Should she dare to obstruct the
r, or to levy tribute on the passengers, her empire
would vanish like smoke.* The hardy zvarriors of the upper

* Ab.s! The event has not conformed to the prophecy; unless it vas
meant that they would obey, with alacrity, the orders of government to
this effect.

33

country would fall doxvn upon her like lightning, and her
feeble garrisons, unsupported by her subjects, {for these
are aliens to Spoilt) would be swept away by the first tor-
rent.

" The American states are fully apprized of all this.
They know the advantage of the neighbour they have,
and can they be unacquainted with the spirit of French-
men? Can they already have forgotten the panic and
dangers which encompassed them, when the entei-prising
genius of France pressed upon them in former times,
from this very quarter and from Canada? Their own force
was unable to defend them. Numerous succours from
England were requisite to drive the invaders beyond the
mountains which separate the Missisippi valley, and the
Atlantic colonies. They are no strangers to the progress
of the French, since that period, in numbers and arts; to
the energy with which the power of the nation is now
wielded by a single hand; to the force with which it will
overflow, when only one outlet is afforded.... And this will
be the only outlet !

" If the benefits to France be such, from colonizing
these regions ; if the access be so easy to the Mexican
provinces, will the states be insensible to these benefits,
which we cannot appropriate to ourselves without be-
reaving them ? Benefits, somewhat problematical, per-
haps, in our case, but most certain and most obvious in
theirs. The foundations of future empire, which we are
to lay, by slow and painful emigrations, they have already
laid. Their colonies have already made considerable
progress in this great valley. Emigration from the coast
to the western waters is constant and vast. Twenty years
ago, there were known to have passed the mountains
twenty thousand emigrants in one year. One of the new
formed states of this valley, could now supply thirty thou-
sand hardy warriors for any great enterprise. Even should
they permit our entrance, can we hold our footing against
such powerful neighbours ? We shall have no option but
to destroy or be destroyed. Either our colonies must be
absorbed in theirs, or we must be engaged in incessant
war. With such inequality of forces and advantages the
issue cannot be adverse to them. Success will be hopeless
to us."....

u These are plausible arguments, and have, I know,
feeen industriously whispered in the ear of him, whose

£

34

wor^l will on this occasion be the law of France, England,
and Spain ; but these arguments are nugatory. Plausible
they are when first heard, but yirhen closely examined, they
disclose their own confutation: for to what purpose do they
tend ? What do they mean who urge them ? To discourage
the attempt ? Spain will not listen, it seems, to such de-
mands. What then ? Their conduct, when the demand is
made, will best decide the question. If they will not
listen, they xv ill not. It is surely worth the trouble of
making the demand, even if their concurrence be extremely
improbable.

" But, in truth, all these difficulties exist only in the
dreams of the timorous. Who, that is not utterly a stranger
to the present state of Spain, does not see that she dare not
say nay to much more important requisitions. If such be
the consular will, Spain will hasten to say...." Let it be
*done"....Woe be to her, should she hesitate I

u But there is no fear of hesitation on her part. Have
we not the reins of peace and war in our own hands ? In
adjusting the terms of the impending treaty, may we not
pay what regard we please to the interests of Spain? And
cannot we proportion this regard to the kindness which she
shews us ? And will she not readily give, what will be a
blessing to her to bestow? Will she not, to oblige her great
ally, yield that which has been only a burden and incum-
brance to her? Great as will be the advantage of this pro-
vince to us, it is only a devouring plague to her. It has
only hitherto defrauded the Spanish treasury of a yearly
.million (?f dollars. All they have hitherto enjoyed is the
trouble and expense of governing. We know the nation.
Their absurd and flagitious policy, which has trampled on
every privilege and happiness of their colonies, which aims,
not at multiplying men and ships, but at the accumulation
of gold aud silver, has ruled only to weaken and destroy.
To import cargoes of the precious metals into Spain is the
end of ail her labours in the new world. Wnatever lessens
this import is an eA'il she is anxious to shake off. By the
destruction of commerce, in this colony ; of that commerce
by which the pecuniary income of the riding state is increas-
ed; by foregoing all tribute from the trade which the Ame-
rican States prosecute before her eyes; by a profuse esta-
blishment, civil and ecclesiastical, this pro\ ince has only
been a source of enormous expense. It is plain that she
cannot lessen this expense by impositions and restrictions

S5

on the American trade. The States would not bear this,
though a natural consequence of territorial properly, and
Spain is too feeble to resist them.

" As to the possible evils to be dreaded for their Peru-
vian and Mexican empires, the)r must place' their trust as'
others do in the sanctity of treaties. And since the exclu-
sion of the French, will only be the admission of the Anglo-
Americans, their safety will not be enhanced by this exclu«
sion. On the contrary, the cession will most probably
prolong the date of their power. The French will have a
different interest from each of their neighbours. The in-
terests and hostilities of the American and European Eng-
lish, will engage part of their attention. If Spanish Ame-
rica must, ultimately, be a prey to its encroaching
neighbours, it will longer escape violence when there are
several assailants, who are jealous of each other's success,
than when there is but one.

" Long ago would the lesser princes of Italy and Ger-
many have disappeared, if Sweden, France, Prussia and:
Austria had not stood ready to snatch the spoil from ea:h
other. Long ago would the Turkish robbers have been
driven back to their native deserts, if any single nation of
Europe had been suffered by the rest to execute that easy
task. ...But the Spaniards know that Spain and America
must one dav fall asunder. Why then should they decline
a present- benefit, in order to pi-eclude one means of an
event, which vet by other means, if not by these, will ine-
vitably happen?

" As to England, all the disadvantages with which this
event is said to menace them, are real. All the conse-
quences just predicted, to her colonies, to her trade, to her
navy, to her ultimate existence, will indisputably follow.
The scheme is eligible to us chiefly on this account, and
these consequences, if they rouse the English to a sturdier
opposition, ought likewise to stimulate the French to more
strenuous perseverance.

" But, in truth, every Frenchman must laugh with scorn
at the thought of British opposition. What would the
Spaniards say were they told by the English.. ..You must
' not give away this colony. Though a great incumbrance
to you, and a great benefit to those whom it is your intere t
and duty to oblige, you must by no means part with it.. .
What patience, either in France or Spain, would to! era; e
an interference thus haughty, from an enemy to both?

36

But when is this opposition to be made? This is not a
subject of debate between the agents of England and
France. It falls not under their discussion. It cannot
therefore be the occasion of their interviews. There is no
room for opposition to what comes not under our notice.
The cession must be made without their knowledge. It
is only to be published by its execution, and when the
French are safely lodged in the Missisippi, thegainsayings
of the English will be too late.

" Will they go to war in order to wrest it from us ?
Against that event be it our future business to provide.
The First Consul will not be wanting to such an exigence.
A fleet and army will find a safe lodgement in the Missi-
sippi, and though it might be possible for England to hinder
the passage of the ocean or the entrance of the river, they
may be securely defied when the ocean is passed, and the
harbour is gained. The vantage-ground will then be ours.
We shall have reached a fortress, which an hostile fleet
cannot starve ; which need not rely for its subsistence on
an open sea, between America and France; which will
enjoy, within itself, and in the neighbouring states the
means of recruiting all its forces and magazine s.

u But great as the evils are which England may dread
from this cession, the vigour of that nation can no longer
supply its resentment with arms. The continuance of the
war, or the speedy renewal of it, are equally beyond their
power. The terms we shall afford them, will be conve-
nient to us, but indispensable to them. They may touch
the sceptre we hold out if they will, provided they allow
Flanders and Holland, Italy and Switzerland, Portugal
and Spain, to bow to our supremacy ; provided we may
purchase South America from its present owners,- pro-
vided they molest us not in prescribing the future destiny
of Greece, Asia and Egypt. ...if they will not accept the
proffered olive upon these conditions, they may take the
consequence, and incur new wounds in the vain endeavour
to avoid death.

" But there is a nearer, and, it must be owned, a more
formidable nation to gain. If there be any truth in the
picture heretofore drawn of the value of this province to
France, it must be, in a still greater proportion, of value to
the American States. If the powers ol this rising nation
were intrusted to the hands of one wise man;... .if the
founder of the nation was stiil its supreme magistrate and

3T

he had no wills to consult but his oxv n, the French most
probably would never be allowed to set their foot on that
shore ; but the truth, the desirable truth, is, that opposition
is the least to be dreaded from those who have most reason
to oppose us. They whose interests are most manifest
maybe most easily deceived; whose danger is most im-
minent may most easily be lulled into security. They
whose vicinity to the scene of action puts it most in their
power to enact their own safety ; whose military force
might be most easily assembled and directed to this end,
we shall have the least trouble, in dividing, intimidating,
and disarming.

" I come now to the last difficultv which the most scru-
pulous objector has discovered ; and this difficulty will be
dissipated with more ease than the rest. Ou what foun-
dation does it repose but the visionary notion, that the con-
duct of nations is governed by enlightened views, to their
own interest ? The rulers of nations have views of their
own, and they are gained by the gratification of these pri-
vate views. The more individuals there are that govern,
and the more various their conditions and their character,
the more dissimilar are their interests and the more repug-
nant these interests to those of each other and the interests
of the whole.

" Was there ever a people who exhibited so motlev a
character; who have vested a more limited and precarious
authority, in their rulers ; who have multiplied so much the
numbers of those that govern ; who have dispersed them-
selves over so wide a space; and have been led by this lo-
cal dispersion, to create so many clashing jurisdictions and
jarring interests, as the States of America?

" They call themselves free, yet a fifth of their number
are slaves. That proportion of the whole people are ground
by a yoke more dreadful and debasing than the predial ser-
vitude of Poland and Russia. They call themselves one,
yet all languages are native to their citizens. All countries
have contributed their outcasts and refuse to make them a
people. Even the race of Africa, a race not above, or only
just above the beasts, are scattered every where among
them, and in some of the districts of their empire are nearly
a moiety of the whole. Already there are near twenty
states, each of which is governed by a law of its own ; which
have formed a common union, on voluntary and mutable
principles; and a general constitution, whose end is to se-

38

cure their utmost efficacy to popular passions, and to prevent
the scattered members from coalescing into one symmetri-
cal and useful body.* They are a people of yesterday.
Their institutions have just received birth. Kente their
characters and views are void of all stability. Their pre-
judices are all discordant. Their government is destitute
of that veneration which an ancient date, and of thatdistinct-
ness and certainty in its operations and departments which
long experience, confers. Their people are the slaves of
hostile interests ; blown in all directions by froward pas-
sions ; divided by inveterate factions, and the dupes and
partizans of all the elder nations by turns.

u Such is the people whom we, it seems, are to fear, be-
cause their true interest would make them our enemies ;
with whom tve are to contend in negociation, or, if need
be, in arms! We, who are as much a proverb for our skill
in diplomatics as in war: who have all the unity in counsels;
the celerity in execution; the harmony of interests; the
wis lorn of' experience; and the force of compactness, of
which this pat.hwork republic is notoriously destitute..
Their numbers 1 That, when the parts are discordant, is only
fuel more easily kindled, and producing a more extensive
and unquenchable flame. Five millions of jarring and fac-
tious citizens are far less formidable than a disciplined and
veteran legion of as many thousands.

" But their opposition, like that of England, -whatever
efficacy it tnight have, when seasonably exerted, will come
too late. This cession will be known to America, as it will
be to Europe, only by its execution. They, whom it would
be easy, perhaps, to exclude, by shutting the door against
them, it will be impossible, when they are once in the house,
to turn out. To gain possession, we must get leave of door-
keeper Spain, and that being obtained, the English on this
side of the ocean, and their spurious progeny beyond it,
may rail and bustle as much as they please.

" Will the states go to war? And have we any reason to
dread their hostilities? Can they not be easily diverted or
intimidated from open violence ? Or should pacifying mea-
sures fail of success, are they not susceptible of deeper
■wounds than they are able to inflict?

" Let us consider the matter a little more distinctly, and
all apprehensions on their account will completely subside.

* A different picture could not be expected from the court of the Fir»t
Consul. T.

39

Let us be just to ourselves, and let us form our judgment
of them, by the unerring test of experience. Let' us pre-
dict their future conduct from their past.

" This is a nation of pedlars and shop-keepers. Money-
engrosses all their passions and pursuits. For this the}' will
brave all the dangers of land and water; they will scour the
remotest seas, and penetrate the rudest nations, 'iheir
ruling passion being money, no sense of personal or national
dignity must stand in the way of its gratification. These
are an easy sacrifice to the lust of gain, and the insults and
oppressions of foreigners are cheerfully borne, pro\
there is a recompense of a pecuniary nature. Insults and in-
juries that affect not the purse, affect no sense ih.it they
possess; and such is the seemingly inconsistent influence of
the mercenary passion, that the pillage of their property,
while it produces infinite discontent and clamour, urges
them to no revenge. The dictates of a generous nature,
which prefers honour to riches, and will hazard property
and life itself, in the assertion of its own or its country's
wrongs, are strangers to their breasts. When the counsel
is war, they prudently reckon the expense, and determine
rather to keep what is left them, than to risk it in endea-
vouring to regain that of which they have been robbed.

" Such is their history since they have grown to sufficient
size to attract historical attention. In a former age, when
attacked at their own doors, by assailants who were ob-
liged to cross the ocean to reach them, they were panic
struck and helpless, and would have fallen an easy prey to
their invaders, had not succour been offered them by the
fleets and armies of England.

u Afterwards, when England sought a revenue from,
them, by way of compensation for past and future expenses,
and ventured, for this purpose, to tax a ridiculous luxury
called tea, the nation instantly flew.. ..fa complaints. Eng-
land proceeded to coercion, and the colonies to summon
their citizens to arms ; but what an ignominious series en-
sued of ineffectual calls ! of unskilful arrangements in the
fiscal and military departments! of successive defeats!
These defeats did not prove fatal to their liberty, merely
because their country was too wide to be garrisoned; be-
cause the adverse generals forbore to push them to their
ruin; but chiefly, because their ancient enemy deigned to
clothe their beggarly troops, to fill their empty magazines,
and to send his veterans to fight their battles. By his aid

40

they extorted from their British masters, the acknowledg-
ment of independence. Since this period they have grown
in wealth and numbers, and have been busily employed;
and how have they been busy? In bringing their disjointed
members into some sort of combination ; in building up and
pulling down their separate constitutions ; in quelling tu-
mults excited by attempts to levy taxes on a liquid poison
called Whiskey ; in supplicating France and England, that
they would be good enough to repay the value of the plun-
der committed by these nations on their commerce, and
Spain, that she would be pleased to let them pass up and
down the ?/iissisippi ; and in the most furious and disgrace-
ful animosities of party, fomented by the two great rivals
in Europe, and convertible at will into more successful en-
gines of conquest than armies and fleets. Instead of pro-
viding for their own defence, against foreign and domestic
foes, by armed ships and disciplined troops, they have re-
lied, on the power of intreaty, and on a rabble of militia.
Instead of asserting their natural claim to the continent
of North America, they have left all their southern dis-
tricts, and the mouth of their most useful river in the hands
of a nation, despicable and defenceless; whose claims are
groundless and ridiculous, asserted by themselves, but for-
midable and fatal when transferred to others.

" What topics, likely to produce conviction, can be urged
by the advocates of hostile measures? The future occupa-
tion of the western world, by a race congenial to them-
selves ; the extension of their name and language over so
large a part of the earth ; the future acquisition of the
wealth of Rlexico; are splendid images which might se-
duce the sage in his closet, or the despotic prince, whose
private will is the law of his people, and whose private
ease would not be impaired by the incidents of war, but
are idle and ineffectual dreams in the view of the farmer,
trader and artizan. These classes must provide immedi-
ate bread for their children, and comfort and respect for
their old age. Chimerical and distant goods would hardly
extort from them a petty contribution to the public ; or
tempt them to march a hundred miles from home with a
musket on their shoulder; or to risque the rotting of the
corn in their granaries for want of a market; the loss of
customers to their shop for want of an assortment ; and
the inaction of their ships for want of freights. The rulers
•f America are either farmers or merchants themselves,

41

or they hold their powers at the caprice of ploughmen and
helmsmen. Among such there is rarely an understanding
to conceive, much less any disposition to deny themselves
their customary pleasures, for the sake of national glory ^
or the benefit of distant generations.

" As for the prospect of future settlements on new lands,
they must have keen optics indeed, who can look beyond
the Missisippi. Ages must pass away before the Miami
and Ohio will acquire equal wealth and population with
the Rhine and Danube. The emigrant tide must flow west-
ward for many propitious years, before their great North-
western territory will be occupied even by such slender
numbers as are at present found on their sea coast.

" We may, as long as Ave please, avoid encroaching on
their borders, or even disturbing them in the pursuit of
their own advantage. They have solemnly acknowledged
the rights of Spain to the western slope of the great valley,
and to the mouths of the river. These rights will be trans-
ferred entire to us. We shall not create unnecessary diffi-
culties by exerting too soon our rights over the passage of
the river. This is all that they have hitherto demanded.
This is all that their convenience will, for some time, de-
mand, and this we shall readily concede to them.

" The prosperity of our colony xvill indeed demand the
exclusive possession of the river. This possession our sta-
tion at the mouth of it, will give us the right and the power
to assume, whenever we please, but a short time may be
allowed to elapse before we claim it. We must first make
sure our footing: and yet it would be strange if ten thousand
veterans in a colony that is still French, did not make sure
this footing, after one day's military occupation of the pro-
vince.

" Should we bar up this passage immediately, or levy
custom on the passengers, what will be the consequence?
They will send ambassadors to France to explain their
rights, to solicit redress for the wrong. Etiquette will make
a diousand delays. The common forms of diplomatic dis-
cussion, will create a thousand more. New terms may be
given to the controversv ; new ambassadors and new pow-
ers will follow the old, and the distance of the parties will
put to as great a distance the appeal to arms;. ...and the
worst that can ensue, will be the necessity of warring with
an undisciplined and faithless rabble.

r

42

** A careless observer may imagine that in a contest be-
tween the American States and France, the disadvantage
must be wholly on our side; but this is a strange opinion;
for in the first place the States are vulnerable in every way
and at every point. They have extensive commerce, which
is undefended by a navy. They have a long line of sea
coast, on which all their great towns are situated, and
which hostile armaments will find every where accessible.
The greater part of their national revenue flows from their
foreign commerce. To molest or despoil that, therefore,
is to aim at the sources of their whole strength. To pil-
lage or destroy their great towns, is to inflict wounds
equal!}' mortal. Their inland frontier is a waste, destitute
of all defence against invasion, and unfitted for the main-
tenance or march of armies into a hostile territory.

" But the great weakness of these States arises from their
form of government, and the condition and habits of the
people. Their form of government, and the state of the
country, is an hot bed for faction and sedition. The utmost
force of all the wisdom they possess, is exerted in keeping
the hostile parts together. These parts are unlike each
other, and each one has the individualizing prejudices of
a separate state; all the puerile jealousies of the greatness
of others ; all the petty animosities which make neighbours
quarrel with each other without cause. How slight an ad-
ditional infusion is requisite to set this heterogeneous mass
into commotion? to make the different parts incline dif-
ferent ways, on ;.he great question of war?

" The master of the Mississippi will be placed so as to
controul, in the most effectual manner, these internal waves.
It is acknowledged that he holds in his hands the bread of
all the settlements, westward of the hills. He may dispense,
or withhold at his pleasure. See we not the mighty influ-
ence that this power will give us over the councils of the'
states?

" Nature has divided this nation, by the hills that turn the
great waters opposite ways. The interests of those who
shall occupy the two slopes of the great valley are the same.
Mountains separate mankind; rivers draw them together.
The maritime and the jSuvial states are combined by acci-
dent. The constant tendency is to part, while the tendency
is no less strong in the states divided by the river, to coa-
lesce. These different tendencies is the easy province of

43

France, in her new colony, to manage so as to make their
enmity or rivalship harmless to us.

" The peculiar colour of their factions is, also, extremely
favourable to the designs of a powerful and artful neigh-
bour. They quarrel about forms of government. These
forms are not subtile threads, and scarcely visible, drawn
from the bowels of their own invention, but are the gross
and clumsy models taken from European examples. The
rivalship between France and England has extended to the
speculations of this people, and by natural consequence, a
prejudice is thus created, which makes, one faction friendly
to France and the other to England.

" One party is extremely sensible to all the encroach-
ments of the English. Here their vigilance is all alive.
They have great facility at discovering harm, when it
comes from this quarter. They are prone to every thing
which may give offence to the nation they bitterly hate.
They rejoice in its distresses. They mourn at its triumphs.
On the contrary, they are governed by a bias equally strong
in favour of France. Their hearts are ours, even when
their heads would disapprove. They conceal or palliate
our crimes; they pity our calamities; they connive at in-
juries and insults from us. Suspicious, vengeful and ir-
rascible to England, their " charity thinks no wrong, en-
dures much, and is easy of entreaty" to Frenchmen.

11 What obvious and convenient tools will these prove
in anv critical affairs ? How easy to enforce this natural
bias, by arguments addressed to their selfish passions, and
personal interests. We have learned to set its true price
on republican virtue and national spirit. The same glaring
illusions that brought Holland, Switzerland, and Genoa
into our snares, will, with as much facility, entrap republics
that will lie more at our mercy, and of which the members
are more dissonant and motley.

" This party, always formidable in its spirit and num-
bers, has la,.elv gotten the mastery. The majority of the
people, and their present rulers, are pliant clay nttcst for
our use. From these we may exact neutrality to all our
schemes. They will take pains to shut their eyes against
future evils. Thei/ will be remarkably quick-aighted to the
•danger of a rupture with vy. Their scruples agaim
violation of treaties and against offensive war, will be zvon*
Jt if idly strong.* They will eagerly swallow the opiai.es

* Predictions already fulfilled. T.

44

that we shall provide for them, and thank us for any potion
that annihilates their own fears or enables them to lull those
of the people.

" And not without strong reason may they deprecate a
quarrel with France, whom its new position on their bor-
ders, will render a useful friend, but a fatal enemv. When
war becomes the topic of discourse, this people will turn
their eyes to the calamities of St. Domingo, and then to
their own provinces, where the same intestine plague ex-
ists in a degree equally formidable, and where their ut-
most care is requisite to prevent the struggling mischief
from bursting its bonds.

" Devoted to the worst miseries, is the nation which
harbours in its bosom a foreign race, brought, by fraud and
rapine, from their native land; a race bereaved of all the
blessings of humanity; whom a cruel servitude inspires
with all the vices of brutes and all the passions of demons;
whose injuries have been so great that the law of self-pre-
servation obliges the state to deny to the citizen the power
of making his slave free; whose indelible distinctions of
form, colour, and perhaps of organization, will forever pre-
vent them from blending with (their tyrants, into one peo-
ple ; who foster an eternal resentment at oppression, and
whose sweetest hour would be that which buried them and
their lords in a common and immeasurable ruin.

" W :th what prudence can this nation attack a neighbour,
who can fan at pleasure, the discontents of this intestine
enemy; who can give union, design, and arms to its de-
structive efforts at revenge? Who can raise, at any mo-
ment, a Spartacus or L'Ouverture to distract the counsels,
and employ the force which might othei~vvise annoy him-
self; whose own sad experience has informed him of the
power of this weapon against the public peace ; whom the
maxims of war will justify in turning this weapon against
his enemy ; and whose local situation enables him to raise
this weapon with most facility, and direct it with most
force ?

" This nation is not insensible to all these dangers. An
example is before their eyes of the consequences of a ser-
vile war. Their country is full of exiles from the scene of
such a warfare. Their travellers, their dailv papers sup-
ply them with the picture, in all its circumstantial horrors.
They are shaken by panics on this very account already,

45

aind no consideration would have a stronger influence on
their conduct than this.

" There is still another rein, however, by which the fury
of the States may be held in at pleasure. ...by an enemy
placed on their western frontiers. The only aliens and
enemies within their borders, are not the blacks. They
indeed are the most inveterate in their enmity ; but the
Indians are, in- many respects, more dangerous inmates.
Their savage ignorance, their undisciplined passions, their
restless and warlike habits, their notions of ancient right,
make them the fittest tools imaginable for disturbing the
states. In the territory adjacent to the Ohio, Missisippi
and Missouri, there are more than thirty thousand men,
whose trade is hunting and whose delight is war. These
men lie at the mercv of any civilized nation who live near
them. Such a neighbour can gain their friendship or pro-
voke their enmity with equal ease. He can make them
inactive, or he canfrouse them to fury: He can direct their
movement in any way he pleases, and make it mischievous
or harmless by supplying their fury with arms and with
leaders, or by withholding that supply.

" The English colonies have been miserably harassed,
in all the stages of their progress, by these savage tribes.
At an early period, they suffered terrible disasters from
that quarter, and were sometimes nearly driven from the
country. As the colonies advanced the Indians declined,
but while the enlargement of the circle of settlements gave
safety to the centre, the borders of the circle were infested
as befdre.

u There was some egregious defect in the colonial poli-
cy, which exposed them, at all times, to these evils: but in
the two American wars, it was no wonder that the sword
and fire of the Indians committed such multiplied mis-
chiefs, as they were guided by the French at one time,
and by the British at another. Since their revolution,
when these powerful agents have been withdrawn, the
hostility of these tribes has cost them much treasure and
a great many lives, and their neutrality is purchased by
large and constant subsidies.

" The pliant and addressful spirit of the French has
always given them an absolute controulover these savages.
The office, which the laziness or the insolence of the Bri-
tish found impracticable, was easily performed by us;....

46

and will be still easier hereafter, since we shall enter oa
the scene with more advantages than formerly.

" We shall detach thither a sufficient force to maintain
possession against all the efforts of the States, should they,
contrary to all their interests, proceed to war with or -with-
out provocation. We shall find, in the Indian tribes, an
army permanently cantoned in the most convenient sta-
tions ; endowed with skill and temper best adapted to the
nature and the scene of war, and armed and impelled with
far less trouble and expense than an equal number of our
own troops. W^e shall find a terrible militia, infinitely
more destructive, while scattered through the hostile set-
tlements, and along an open frontier, than an equal force of
our own. We shall find, in the bowels of the States, a
mischief that only wants the touch of a well-directed spark
to involve in its explosion, the utter ruin of half their na-
tion. Such -will be the powers we shall derive from a mili-
tary station and a groxving colony on the Missisippi.
These will be-certain and immediate effects, whatever dis-
tance or doubt there may be in the remoter benefits to
France, on which I have so warmly expatiated. As a
curb on a nation whose future conduct, in peace and war,
will be of great importance to us, this province will be
cheaply purchased at ten times the cost to which it will
subject us."....

I have now gone through the reveries of this French-
man. I was unwilling to stop, or to omit any of his topics,
though some of them may be thought fanciful, and his
style, notwithstanding my pruning knife, may be charged
with redundancy. It cannot but be useful for us to know
the notions of the French, on a subject which late transac-
tions have rendered of so much moment to us. To be
fully aware of the hopes and views of this restless govern-
ment could not fail to profit us at any time, but now that
an unexpected incident, has put into our hands the means
of preventing every real, as well as possible evil, to be
dreaded from the entrance of the French into America; it
seems in the highest degree desirable to know the full ex-
tent of these real and possible evils.

This writer has given such a portrait of us as was most
suitable to his views. Our national pride will induce us
to deny, perhaps, the truth of the picture; and surely we
are not quite so fluctuating and distracted in our counsels;

47

so irreconcileable in our interests ; so inveterate in our fac-
tions as he thinks proper to paint us. With all our faults,
are we, indeed, incapable of vengeance for unmerited
wrong? Is our country, its rights, its honour, its prosperi-
ty, no dearer to us than any foreign land? Do the people
of the coast regard as aliens and enemies, those beyond
the mountains ?v Do those of the northern states, however
distant in place and dissimilar in manners, regard with
no brotherly emotions, the happiness or misery of their
southern countrymen? Is our government a tottt ring fabric
which the breath of foreign emissaries can blow down at
their pleasure? Has corruption made such strides among
us, that the purse-holders of France can purchase our for-
bearance, when our nearest interests, our most manifest
honour are assailed?

No. The American war supplies us with an eternal
confutation of the slander. It was then evident that the
ploughman and mechanic at either end of the continent,
could recognize a common interest with each other; could
sacrifice their ease, their fortunes, their lives, to secure a
remote and general benefit; that the passion for gain could
not deter us from repelling encroachments on our liberty,
at the cost of every personal advantage; that all the biasses
in favour of the nation we sprung from ; the sense of inter-
nal weakness; the want of forts, armies, and arms of unity
of government and counsels, slackened not the zeal of our
resistance, against a nation that abounded in all that we
wanted. Mutinous slaves in the heart of our country;
hostile garrisons and fortresses on one side ; numerous and
tumultuous savages around us ; the ocean scoured by the
fleets of our enemy ; our sea ports open to their inroads; a
revenue to create out of paper ; the force of an established
government.. ..all these affrighted not the men of that day
from the pursuit of an end most abstracted from personal
ends; from the vulgar objects of gain; an end which only a
generous spirit, a mind that makes the good of posterity
and distant neighbours its own, that prefers liberty and ail
its hardships to servitude, that hugs her chain in pomp;....
could have loved with ardour, and pursued with perseve-
rance.

And what change has twenty years made, that should
make us doubt the display of equal spirit on the same oc-
casion? Has this period added nothing to our numbers
and wealth? Has the enjoyment of independence only

48

weakened our affection for it? Is it easier to fetter the full
grown man, than to keep the child from bursting his bonds?
Kasa national government, and twelve years of its benign in-
fluence, done noth/ngtowRrds the union and coherence of the
stales? Surely the force of the nation; the power of direct-
ing it to common ends; the wisdom and foresight of its
rulers; the jealousy of foreigners are not lessened by the
progress of time; the increase of wealth, numbers and har-
mony, and the contemplation of European scenes. The
French, in possession of the Missisippi, and incroaching
on our rights or our territory, would surely find no irreso-
lute or despicable enemies. Their garrisons could hardly
be so strong, or their settlements so rapid, as to repel the
whole force of the states. The French cannot occupy the
river but to our exclusion. They will not fail to use their
own ground, and to exclude others from the use of it.
This will drive the parties to a war. This consequence is
unavoidable. And what force from Europe can stand in
competition with our force, exerted on our own ground?
The ultimate event of such contentions is too plain to be
missed by the blindest archer. Provocation could not fail
to be given by one party; resentment to be manifested by
the other; and the contest to terminate in the deliverance
of America from every foreign intruder.

But let us not indulge a prejudice as far beyond the
truth as that of the Frenchman falls short of it. Let us
not overrate our own force, or underrate that of France. It
cannotbedeniedthat our intestine disputes, though no more
than are incident to human nature, under popular forms of
government, and though less unruly and ferocious than the
popular commotions of other states, have led to national pre-
ferences, too favourable to the arts of intriguers. It is plain
that our division into numerous states, tends to the production
of hostile sentiments, and promotes the success of those who
wish to conquer by disarming, to resist by dividing us ; the
« blacks are a bane in our vitals, the most deadly that ever
nation was infested with. They are indeed a train of pow-
der, so situated as to.make it not impossible for the French
in Louisiana, to set fire to it. The Indians have ever been
destructive neighbours whom it has been extremely difficult
for us to manage, but by some peculiarity in the formation
<>! Frenchmen, always easily controuled by them. A war
in these? half peopled wilds, even against savages, has always

49

been vexatious and expensive. Our new neighbours will
make a considerable preparation for war, at all times neces*
sary, and an actual war against them, will only be less doubt-
ful in its issue, less tedious in its progress, and less destruc-
tive of life and revenue, than the war of the revolution. It
would be vain to deny these truths.

No man can look upon these evils with indifference.
Yet no wise man will think a renewal of all the devasta-
tions of our last war, too great a price to give for the ex-
pulsion of foreigners from this land; for securing to our
own posterity, the possession of this continent.

■ We have a right to the possesion. The interests of the
human race demand from us the exertion of this right.
These interests demand that the reign of peace and con-
cord should be diffused as widely, and prolonged as much
as possible. By unity of manners, laws and government,
is concord preserved, and this unity will be maintained,
with as little danger of interruption, as the nature of hu-
man affairs will permit, by the gradual extension of our
own settlements, by erecting new communities as fast as
the increase of these settlements requires it, and by shel-
tering them all under the pacific wing of a federal govern-
ment.

To introduce a foreign nation, all on fire to extend their
own power; fresh from pernicious conquests; equipped
with all the engines of war and violence ; measuring their
own success by the ruin of their neighbours ; eager to divert
into channels of their own, the trade and revenue which
have hitherto been ours ; raising an insuperable mound to
our future progress ; spreading among us, with fatal dili-
gence, the seeds of faction and rebellion:. ...What more
terrible evil can befal us ? What more fatal wound to the
future population, happiness and concord of this new. world?
The friend of his country and of mankind, must regard it
with the deepest horror.

It will cost some anxiety, some treasure, some lives,
to drive this formidable neighbour from his post; but such
are the fatal consequences of allowing his possession, that
the whole ,force of the States ought to be instantly directed
to this quarter. Our whole zeal; all our passions ought
to be engaged in its success.. ..For the dullest apprehen-
sion cannot fail to perceive, that every new moment adds
strength to the enemy; and multiplies the evils we have
to fear.,

G

50

But why alt these efforts to inspire courage? The enemy-
is not at hand. The French have not yet entered the river.
We need not put ourselves in warlike array against ten or
fifteen thousand veterans; and bring up ships and cannon
to dislodge them from their strong hold. The coarse of
events is as if modelled by some tutelary angel of America.
Instead of gaining the first knowledge of the design, by
the execution o*f it, the execution is delayed long alter the
design is formed and known. Abundant leisure is afforded
to deliberate and resolve, and the means suddenly and un-
expectedly thrown into our hands of preventing all these
evils, without hazard or expense ; without incurring or
inflicting any of the miseries of war.

The cession of this province to France has never been
formally avowed. This official publication was unnecessa-
rv. For the reasons stated by this memorialist, which are
evidently just reasons, it would have been injurious. It
would only have created cavils and obstacles on both sides
of the ocean. Such an important event, however, could not
fail to be suspected, and all difficulties were to be precluded
by its rapid execution. Measures for this end were taken
with that dispatch which distinguishes all the conduct of
the present ruler of France.

Our good genius, however, seems to have been active
in befriending _us on this occasion, and made of no avail
the wisdom of his counsellers. The pride of a conqueror
would not brook a partnership with the negro chief of St.
Domingo. Kis vanity could not question, for a moment,
the success of his arms againsi a nation of quondam slaves.
As to the havock of such a war, of all conquerors Bona-
parte has been the most prodigal of human life, and the
general peace has made the murder of half his soldiers, not
at all to be regretted: Nay, it has been no undesirable con-
sequence. As to the danger of delays, he has said....u My
d ssigns on the Missisippi will never be officially announced,
till they are executed. Meanwhile the world if it pleases,
may fear and suspect, but nobody will be wise enough to
go to war to prevent them. I shall trust to the foil) of
England and America, to let me go my own way in my
own time."*

Events have happened which/pride would not foresee.
Ail the preparations of the French were immediately

* Words said to have been repeated by Talleyrand, as those of Bona-
parte.

51

engrossed by their island war. Instead of a prompt sub-
mission from the blacks, a delay of a few days to settle
the government, and a speedv prosecution of the vovage
to Louisiana, an arduous conflict commenced, and, agree a-
blv to the prediction of the memorialist, the flower of the
Italian and Egyptian armies has fallen before the sword
and the pestilence. The island is further from conquest
than ever, but such are the illusions of vulgar glory, that
their resolution to conquer it is only strengthened by past
misfortunes. Extermination is now the word, and the
point of honour will not allow them to recede.

Meanwhile the fate of the Missisippi is suspended.
The co'ouists look forward with despair to the threatened
invasion. They are weary cf the intolerable yoke of
Sp^in. Their birth on the soil, and the long separation of
their government from France, have annihilated all the
ties which once connected them with their parent country.
They remember when that parent country made them
over as a worthless chattel to their present rulers. They
recal the bloody acts with which the new tyranny com-
menced. They feel that their birth and situation have
made them interests of their own, separate from those cf
European powers ; and uniting them with the neighbour-
ing states, whose mild and equitable policy seeks to make,
not slaves, but citizens ; not to impose a foreign and
military yoke, and the burcjen of maintaining a numerous
array, but to raise them to the dignity of ruling themselves
and to secure to them the benefits of union and p
This picture their forboding fancy contrasts with the new
restrictions, the arbitrary levies on their property and
persons, and the insolence of foreign troops which will
i ,■■ vitably ensue the arrival of the French agents. Many of
them, though Spaniards by name, are emigrants from these
States, or from the British islands. To such, an alliance with
us is the subject of their passionate longings: the appr
of the myrmidons of Bonaparte, the object of their deepest
dread.

But their only portion, till lately, has been despair.
They have looked in vain towards the states for any
movement in their favour. These states have implicitly
acknowledged the rights of Spain. They have exact d
no hing but the freedom of the river; and as long as Spam
faithfully performs this condition, the States are bound,

52

by their solemn stipulations, to refrain from new encroach-
ments.

The transfer to France, indeed, is a virtual infraction of
the treaty. It is now wholly at an end. The new possessors
will hold themselves free from all former obligations. The
States will be placed in a new relation. There is no compact
between America and France relative to this river. To
transfer the country, without our leave or knowledge, to
another, when our dearest interests forbid this transfer, is
a manifest breach of his engagements in the present lord.
To drive him out. therefore, without delay, is a just pro-
ceeding. At least, to forbid the transfer, and to prevent
its execution, by forcible means, if need be, is indisputably
just.

But this, alas! (exclaimsthe colonist,) though unspeakably
desirable to us, whose interests, surely, are of greatest mo-
ment in the question, if reason, and not prejudice, were
umpire in the fray ;... .though essential to the interests of
the States, who will thereby escape a thousand calamities,
and secure to themselves and their posterity, a million of
benefits, will never occur to their governors. Timorous
and pacific is their policy, and they will never be aroused
to arms, till the new possessors reject all their overtures
to friendship; till they cut off the subsistence of the west-
ern people, by shutting up the river. Then the magnitude
of .the evil may drive them reluctantly to arms, and they
will fight under the infinite disadvantages from which
seasonable and precautionarv measures would be free.

Such is the melancholy strain which the conduct of the
States has hitherto but too well justified. We have look-
ed on with stupid apathy, while European powers toss
about among themselves the property which God and
Nature have made ours.

Far be it from me to sanctify the claim of conquest.
America is ours, not only as the interest of the greater
number and of future generations, is the paramount and
present interest; and therefore Louisiana is ours, even if
to make it so, we should be obliged to treat its present
inhabitants as vassals : but it is ours, because the interests
of that people and of ourselves are common : not only be-
cause the peace and happiness of these States assign it to
us, but because their welfare claims our alliance and
protection.

53

To these pleas, however, our rulers have been hitherto
deaf; and fortune, as if to put our discretion to the hardest
test, as if to take away from our conduct, every possible ex-
cuse, has, at last, thrown the golden apple at our feet. It
now lies before us, and we need only to stoop to take it up.

I need not dwell minutely on recent events. We all
know the terms of our treaty with Spain. We know that
they were plain and unequivocal; that not only the river
was to be free to us, but that a ware-house was to be pro-
vided on the river, where the inland and foreign trade

might conveniently meet and exchange their cargoes

Each of these conditions have been broken. New-Orleans
is shut against us. No other depository is provided
for us. A disgraceful and exorbitant tribute is levied on the
commerce of the river.

Shall we try to explain this conduct in the intendant of
the province? Is he not a native of the soil? Has he not
large possessions in the country? Has he not the Creole
jealousy of Spain; the national antipathy to France? Does
he not call the province his country; and does he not desire
the promotion of his own importance, andhis country's true
interests, by the only measure likely to rouse the States into
action? Were the heads of our government endowed with
the French subtlety, we should incline to suspect a concert
on this great occasion between them andN the Spanish
officers. ...Or is this breach of treaty committed in pursu-
ance of the mandate of Bonaparte, who disdains to take
the gift, clogged with any troublesome or disagreeable con-
ditions? Or is it the blunder of a well-meaning man,
dressed in a little brief authority, who interprets the treaty
in this manner ?

None of these suppositions are improbable, except the
last. But the true clue to the riddle is undoubtedly this.
Spain, however loath, could not refuse this province when
imperiously demanded by France ; but her cunning suggest-
ed an expedient, by which the French might be prevented
from obtaining possession, without exposing herself to
any blame. Secret orders, orders not to be avowed, were
dispatched, that, on the arrival of official information of a
general peace, the treaty between Spain and the States
should be broken by the shutting up of the port. They
ho^ed that this flagrant provocation would instantly rouse
the States to arms; that their troops would, without delay,
fall down the river, and the province be thus transferred

54

to a nation, whose pacific policy and fidelity to their en-
gagements make them far more eligible neighbours to new
and old Mexico, than the restless, ambitious and warlike
French. No one that reflects upon this event, can fail to
explain it in this manner; for all resistance to an army
from the States is chimerical. No one in Louisiana dreams
that resisance will be made, or is intended. The conquest
will not cost a single drop of blood.

No matter, however, for the cause. We are only con-
cerned for the event, and its effects. By whomsoever it
was performed, it was undoubtedly dictated by the good
genius of America, since by this means only could our true
interests be made manifest to every eye. By this means only
could every heart be engaged in the cause. By this means
only could an effectual impulse be given to the people of
the Western country. This impulse is noxv given. The
nature of this injury is perfectly intelligible to men of
every profession and rank. The merchant, the artizan,
the planter, comprehend with equal clearness, in what
manner, and to what extent the obstruction of the river
will affect their private interest. They are eager to act
in this cause, for the same reasons which would prompt
them to act against the midnight robber. They lay their
hands already on their musquets, and look with one accord,
to the general government for orders to march.

They hesitate, they wait for orders, only because they
are sure that the desired leave will be given. The flimsy
cobweb of law will not restrain them. They profess the
most obsequious readiness to do what the government will
please to enjoin ; but this obsequiousness is built on nothing
but the firm belief that they will be enjoined to do what
they are already resolved to do.

They cannot conceive anv motive in the government for
hesitation. There is no formidable preparation to make ;
no mercenary armv to levy ; no floating batteries to build
and to equip. The boats that carry down the trader
his goods, are ready and willing to carry soldiers. In this
cause, the crews are eager to add muskets to their oars.
There are less than two thousand wretched soldiers dis-
persed throughout the province, in posts fit only to sur-
render to the first shot or the first summons. The incli-
nations of the people are our allies ; and if hindered for a
moment, from affording us active succour, would aid us
by all the means that unarmed citizens possess.

55

The government will not hesitate for fear of France;
for the fear of France must stimulate to expedition.
France is to be dreaded only or chiefly on the Missisippi.
The deadliest blows from that nation must come from that
quarter. To prevent their entrance, therefore, is the most
urgent measure of defence. Assailable we may be, and.
exposed to annoyance from other quarters, but here their
assaults will inflict inexpressibly greater mischiefs than
elsewhere. If they have made no such bargain as we
dread with Spain, or will never carry the sale into effect,
our conduct can neither injure nor provoke them. If the
bargain is made, we are not officially informed of it. We
resent the conduct of Spain. We attack a Spanish pro-
vince. If the French resent the attack as made upon them-
selves, or demand the restitution, let them resent and de-
mand. We shall not, surely, buy their friendship by
putting a poniard in their hand, and opening our bosom to
the stroke. We shall not value their resentment, since it
is incurred by an act of self-defence, and since the admis-
sion of their troops, or the restitution of the province, will
be a deeper injury to us, than their most implacable resent-
ment can inflict.

The government will not hesitate, because pacific means
ought first to be employed. They will not dare to send
their messengers across the ocean, with memorials and
remonstrances under one arm, and books of the law of na-
tions under the other. They will not make the rights of
their country, in this respect, the subject of tedious and
impertinent discussions. With the means of reparation in
their own hands, will they have the execrable folly to for-
bear effectualing their claims, and doing justice to them-
selves ? Will they argue by means of envo) s, with a despot,
three thousand miles off, when assertions and replies must
travel to and fro for months at a time, while the honest citizen
stands ready, at a moment's notice to open the door to li-
berty and commerce, but is not suffered to move a step?
It is for us to redress the wrong by our own power, and
then to give a candid hearing to those whom our conduct
has offended. Ii is lor us to be besieged with petitions and
remonstrances, and give an audience to those who may
properly demand it at our own doors.

The government must not hesitate. The western peo-
ple will not be trifled with. They will not bear that injuries
to their dearest rights should excite no emotion in that qo_
vernment wiiose claim to their regard is founded on the

56

equality and efficacy of its protection. There never was a
time when this government might gain the hearts of that
important portion of its citizens more effectually than now.
To let the opportunity pass unimproved, will be a deadly
wound to its popularity. It will probably be followed by
some immediate act of rebellion. The loss of the affec-
tions of the western states will be, the certain consequence.
And what inexpiable evils will ensue, should the French
be enabled, by this delay, to take possession?

Their warlike bands, far different from the wretched
militia of Spain, in spirit as in numbers, will instantly dis-
perse themselves over the province. Every station favou-
rable to defence, will be marked by their skilful eyes, for-
tified with diligence, supplied with artillety, and magazines,
and manned with their veteran soldiers. Their chief town,
besides a little army in its walls, will be compassed by forts
and bulwarks. The banks of the river will be lined with
trenches and cannon, and the empire of the Missisippi, un-
less regained by some great, sudden, and strenuous effort,
will be lost to us forever.

It is impossible to sav but at this crisis, a single hour may
decide our destiny. Yet not hours only, but weeks and
months have been suffered to pass idly away. Perhaps the
government may not be without excuse for deliberating
hitherto, and a legislative co-operation may have been
thought requisite on so important an occasion. This con-
currence may now be had, since all the branches of the go-
vernment are now assembled. On them, therefore, are the
eyes of every citizen now turned, with impatience and
anxiety.

FROM YOU, assembled Representatives, do we de-
mand that you would seize the happy moment for securing
the possession of America to our posterity: for ensuring
the harmony and union of these States: for removing all
obstacles to the future progress of our settlements : for ex-
cluding from our vitals the most active and dangerous
enemy that ever before threatened us: for gaining the af-
fections of your western citizens by enforcing their rights :
by rescuing their property from ruin. Give us not room to
question your courage in a case where courage is truly a
virtue ; to doubt your wisdom, when the motives to decide
your conduct are so obvious and forcible. The iron is
now hot; command us to rise as one man, and strike!

THE END. .

7

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