Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/136

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��have taken into their service general Bernard, one of Buonaparte's most celebrated officers, and are employing him with the greatest zeal in this affair. The acquisition of the Floridas, will not only round off their possessions in the South, but it will enable them to establish one of the best arsenals in the bay of Tampa, and by means of this establishment (which we have eitiier despised or been ignorant of) and the forces which they may keep in it, and in the port of Pensacola, they will be able, in case of war with Great Britain, considerably to obstruct their commerce to the islands in the Bahama chan- nel, and even to take possession of them, for the purpose of going on afterwards in their prepara- tions for the conquest of the Antilles.*

It is not possible that Great Britain can be ig- norant of these manoeuvres; but feeling secure in her immense strength, she has despised this petty power, firmly persuaded that she holds in her bandit the means of destroying them the moment they at- tempt it; and I have no difficulty in believing it to a certain extent, for I saAV that she miglit have ac- complished it in the late war, if she had felt less con- tempt for the Anglo-Americans, and had carried on the war with them, with the same circumspection, she had used against Buonaparte.

��*This is really a brilliant scheme, and one which shows that the United States are not so petty a power, as the author calls them a few lines below. T.

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