Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/25

15 power towards its emancipation, the French emissaries and adventurers conspired with the Anglo-Americans for the subversion of these rich and beautiful provinces. Those who were proscribed and banished from the society of other European nations, vagabonds without the means of subsistence, or who were stimulated by the hope of amassing large fortunes in the rebellious provinces of our America, hastened to reinforce the auxiliary bodies that were organized in the United States, to cooperate with the rebels. Associations for this enterprize, were formed in various cities of the Union; incendiary proclamations were published in the gazettes; and the people were exhorted by vehement speeches, and flattering and seductive pictures, to take a part in these armaments and expeditions. Louisiana, wrested from Spain by Napoleon, in 1800, and sold by him to the United States in 1802, facilitated the entrance of these adventurers into the provinces of Mexico, and our little navy left the seas free to them, and a defenceless coast on which they might land. They proved both the one and the other at various times, and the government of the United States seemed secretly to applaud their enterprizes; it received their envoys and agents; encouraged them with flattering promises and hopes; and by means of its emissaries, treated with the chiefs and commanders of the revolted provinces. The minister and the agents