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.