Page:Reflections, on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States.pdf/5

 every good citizen of the United States: for independent of the considerations already hinted, arising from the contiguity of Louisiana to the western states, the free navigation of the Mississippi, the right to which had been solemnly recognised and established by our treaty with Spain, might have been rendered extremely precarious when the territory on both sides of that river towards its mouth became the property of a military republic; and the conduct of the intendant at New Orleans at once manifested how much it was in the power of the owners of that spot to annoy the interests of our western brethren, and to involve the whole confederacy in a war with one of the most powerful nations in Europe. Nor did the preparations in France and Holland for the immediate establishment of a military colony in Louisiana leave any room in the breast of many to doubt that the intendant acted according to instruction, and that the first fruits of these proceedings on the part of France would be a rupture with the United States.

Happily these preparations for the establishment of such a colony in Louisiana had not been carried into effect, when the alarm excited by the unauthorised conduct of the intendant at New-Orleans prompted the present administration, instead of listening to the suggestions of ardent and intemperate politicians, to commence a negociation for the purchase of this important territory. In this attempt they have (most happily for America!) succeeded even beyond expectation: For I can scarcely believe that even the advisers of the measure ventured to cherish expectations of so speedy and prosperous an issue; the cession being not only as extensive and compleat as it was in the power of France to make, but the terms extremely advantageous to the United States. It is not my intention, however, to enquire to what combination of circumstances, or to whose diplomatic skill this successful negociation is to be attributed. It is