4843. LOUISIANA, Mission to France respecting.—[further continued] .
The country, too, which
we wish to purchase, except the portion already
granted, and which must be confirmed
to the private holders, is a barren sand, six
hundred miles from east to west, and from
thirty to forty and fifty miles from north
to south, formed by deposition of the sands
by the Gulf Stream in its circular course
round the Mexican Gulf, and which being
spent after performing a semicircle, has made
from its last depositions the sand bank of
East Florida. In West Florida, indeed, there
are on the borders of the rivers some rich
bottoms, formed by the mud brought from the
upper country. These bottoms are all possessed
by individuals. But the spaces between river
and river are mere banks of sand; and in
East Florida there are neither rivers, nor
consequently any bottoms. We cannot, then,
make anything by a sale of the lands to individuals.
So that it is peace alone which
makes it an object with us, and which ought
to make the cession of it desirable to France.—
To Dupont de Nemours. Washington ed. iv, 458.
Ford ed., viii, 206.
(W.
Feb. 1803)
