Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v3.djvu/360

344 Mr. HENRY then arose, and requested that the honorable gentleman (Mr. Monroe) would discover the rest of the project, and what Spain was to do, on her part, as an equivalent for the cession of the Mississippi.

Mr. MONROE. Mr. Chairman, I do not thoroughly recollect every circumstance relative to this project. But there was to be a commercial intercourse between the United States and Spain. We are to be allowed to carry our produce to the ports of Spain, and the Spaniards to have an equal right of trading hither. It was stipulated that there should be a reciprocity of commercial intercourse and benefits between the subjects of Spain and the citizens of the United States. The manufactures of Spain were to be freely imported and vended in this country, and our manufactures to be carried to Spain, &c., without obstruction, and both parties were to have mutual privileges in point of commercial intercourse and connection. This, sir, is the amount of the project of Spain, which was looked upon as advantageous to us. I thought myself that it was not. I considered Spain as being without manufactures—as the most slow in the progress of arts, and the most unwise with respect to commerce, of all nations under the sun, (in which respect I thought Great Britain the wisest.) Their gentlemen and nobles look on commerce with contempt. No man of character among them will undertake it. They make little discrimination with any nation. Their character is to shut out all nations, and exclude every intercourse with them; and this would be the case with respect to us. Nothing is given to us, by this project, but what is given to all other nations. It is bad policy, and unjustifiable, on such terms to yield that valuable right. Their merchants have great stocks in trade. It is not so with our merchants. Our people require encouragement. Mariners must be encouraged. On a review of these circumstances, I thought the project unwise and impolitic.

Mr. MADISON. Mr. Chairman, it is extremely disagreeable to me to enter into this discussion, as it is foreign to the object of our deliberations here, and may, in the opinion of some, tend to sully the reputation of our public councils. As far as my memory will enable me, I will develop the subject. We shall not differ from one another with respect to facts: perhaps we may differ with respect to