JB_172_406.xml

Title: [1822 April 15 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 April 15

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquism. mode

' 5. Case V. Subjection uncontested

Buyers foreigners

No over extension of U.S. dominion

Columbian view must suffice for obliging them to separate.

As to what regards their interest, only from what has been their

practise in so far as the reason /grounds/ of it are intelligible to me can I judge.

To a transaction of this sort considered in a general point of view they have no

repugnance: witness Louisiana and the Floridas. Nor yet, in a transaction of this

sort is there any repugnance or any want of utility even to give [ ...?] witness again Louisiana.

Not that on return I own advantage in any shape from any thing in that quarter equal

to that which in their view they have obtained in these other quarters. But in their

view of the matter some of advantage it is to them to have settlements in the

Pacific: for such they have formed already: witness the Columbian river. Whatsoever

have been the inducements for the formation for that settlement the same inducement

will suffice for the extension of their dominion of their beneficient and inexpensive

dominion as far as upon that coast it can continue now /so preponderant/ be made to

go. In this case the purchase may well be the only expence: for upon the terms in

which they exercise dominion the dominion pays its own expence. The inhabitants who

have been in use to pay the expence of functionaries sent by your rulers at the

distance of a [...?] voyage will assuredly have no objection to an expence to an

amount fixt by themselves for the paying of a set of rulers placed and displaceable

by themselves: and as to defence against foreign aggression, the bare name of the

Anglo-American United States will suffice for it. By sea they are nearer to their

territories than any other power that would have to send by sea the means of

aggression and defence.

JB_172_412.xml

Title: [1822 Apr. 17 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 Apr. 17

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquisht. Plan

' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontested

2. Buyers inhabitants.

All democratic forms notwithstanding from all the accounts that have

reached this country - and public and private together I have seen numbers - numbers

more than you can have seen, in the least badly governed of those several states

every thing that in the Anglo-American United States or even in this country is

presented to the mind by the words good government is still in prospect only, at best

in hope, not in experience. By Solomon the sluggard was sent to the anvil to learn

industry: by every well-wisher every one of those

effects from the over-grown polype need /should/ be recommended to betake themselves

to those Anglo-American neighbours, and under them bind themselves as apprentices for

a few years to learn self-government.

Under these circumstances I see nothing in any degree extravagant

/romantic/ or considerably wide in practice in the idea that Well then suppose that

in pursuance of an invitation from your rulers, your as yet unemancipated kinsmen

between the Mississippi and the Pacific were to come to an agreement with the

Anglo-American Union, and for the present become members of it on terms the same in

principle with those other States which from the dominion of your rulers have been

added to it. In any such tripartite agreement what is there that can justly be

charged with extravagance? what is there of which it can ever be said that it would

stand considerably wide from /in/ practice.

In this at present I see such an opportunity as if not now embraced

never can so long as this orb turns round present itself anew /again/ a second time.

As to whether under existing /their/ circumstances the people in question would be

content to give any thing, and if any thing what on this head it would be altogether

useless for a man in mine to set himself to conjecture.

JB_172_411.xml

Title: [1822 April 17 Rid Yourselves]

Description: 1822 April 17

Rid Yourselves

Lett. 18. Relinquish t. Plan

' 6. Case V. Subjection uncontes.

2. Buyers foreigners

As to Presidents, true it is that no President of that or any other

union would if he could help it divide his patronage with those other Presidents.

When for a minute diminution of the sufferings of the people by delay the supreme

Judiciary of Scotland was divided into two branches such was the chagrin of the

[...?] at the head of it /the functionary at the head of it such was his chagrin/

that rather than become the more than half of what he had been became nothing. But

that functionary was so he had thought so for life: the President of the

Anglo-American United States is so for no more than four years If during his

continuance in office as President were to see less than fourth of his patronage

lopped off from it, he would feel the sensation of a loss: but suppose the separation

deferred till the expiration of his Presidency, by no subsequent President would any

such sensation be felt: for to each such succeeding President his patronage with the

rest of his power would howsoever less than what had been in the hands of former

Presidents be all gain.

In the Anglo-American United States, among the influential few for this long time,

tan separation, /[...?]/ in the character of an operation the demand for which sooner

or later can not but have place can not but have been an object of consideration. But

for a plan of this sort never would the sort of possession have been taken that has

been taken of the territory contiguous to the river that empties itself into the

Pacific. Of those of your kinsmen who on that side of America have already taken

themselves into their own hands, were the example followed by those whose condition

remains as yet unknown to us in this Island, it is possible /not impossible

absolutely impossible/ that the governments formed by them there would be wisdom

enough to keep them in a state of amity with their new neighbours. But in comparison

of the state of things which would have place supposing them in a state of union with

the experienced and established wisdom of the Anglo-American United States, the

probability of a good government well administered - of a government well adapted to

the purpose of preservation of the relation of peace and amity with its neighbours,

is (I much fear) faint indeed.