1820. Sept. 3

Emancipation Spanish

Summary

Transfer to U.S.

Religion need not be considered /regarded/ as forming any difficulty

In the eyes of your King's former advisers when the determination was taken by them

to transfer the Floridas without putting it to the inhabitants for their consent, it

was no obstacle. In Maryland one of the United States in question the majority of the

population were Catholic: never from their intercourse with Protestants either in

their own or in any other of the States have the Catholics in that state ever

experienced any molestation. If the belief of the inhabitants in the religion they

profess is to such a degree weak, that in their opinion /apprehension/ access to the

/any/ arguments used against it or even the bare sight of the ceremonies belonging to

the exercise of another modifications of that same religion would /might probably/ be

fatal to the only true one, the terms of the Union need not prohibit their

"prohibiting" in the words of Art. 12 the exercise of any other whatsoever. In the

Anglo-American Congress not to speak of any of the other states whether the Members

that came from Maryland are Protestants or Catholics is more than any other of the

Members ever trouble themselves to enquire: nor if they knew would their conduct be

varied by their /the/ information any otherwise than by the repression of any rule

indicative /expressive/ of disapprobation towards that religion as might otherwise be

liable to drop from their lips. From Louisiana I should expect to find upon enquiry

that ere now Catholic Members have ere now been sent to Congress.

Difference of language. From this source difficulties could not but arise. None

however but such as experience has shewn to be not insuperable. In the representative

body of the Netherlands Dutch is not only the language of but the only language

understood in the case of some of the Members, French in that of others. The

Spanish-speaking inhabitants could not be at a loss for English-speaking

representatives whose fidelity and zeal in the support of their interests would not

be less than it would be, if no language but Spanish were intelligible to them, found

them capable of comprehending a syllable.