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.