Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/106

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��acre, and making this calculation for the whole of the lands now at the disposal of the government, we shall find that the value will not he less than one thousand millions of dollars. The amount will be still greater hereafter, for in proportion as population and cultivation extend, the lands will acquire greater value, and there will be a greater number of purchasers.

Thus it appears, that the Auglo-Araerican go- vernment, in the acquisition of territory, has for its object not only an extension of the limits of the country, already too great, and the preparing by this means for the dominion of the whole of the New World to which it aspires, but also that of laying up an immense fund of wealth and resources, in lands that are yet wild and uninhabited, the sales of which will be at its disposal. Louisiana was purchased for 60 millions of francs, (12 mil- lions of dollars) and if they should acquire the Floridas in compensation for losses and injuries sustained hy the citizens of the United States, as was stipulated in the late treaty, taking upon them- selves indemnification for the same to the amount of iive millions of dollars, the result will be, that the three provinces mentioned will have cost them no more than a disbursement of 17 millions of dol- lars; — though, in reality, Spain will have derived an advantage of 15 millions from the Floridas, for her debts to the United States amount at the least

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