confines of Florida, and the country of the Creek Indians. They fixed a very moderate price, payable in fourteen years, and the grant of congress was a liberal present disguised under the form of a sale. The lands were well selected; the gift was worthy of being offered by a free people to courageous, though misled, men. But the grantees, habituated to military activity or to the leisure of a camp, novices in agriculture and in the art of clearing new land, soon abandoned their undertaking. Several of them retroceded their portions, and dispersed. Others, while they removed from Alabama, persisted in the design of forming an agricultural settlement. It was towards Texas that their expectations were turned. Generals Lallemand and Rigaud conducted thither a small body of soldiers and labourers. The hope of finding in this country another France offered to them an attraction which those who never have been banished cannot appreciate. They had advanced ten miles within the territory, and acknowledged Lallemand for their commander. He supposed that he could subject to agricultural labour men who knew no other activity than that of war. There were in the country a great many wild bulls, cows, and horses. Game and fish abounded, but the clearing of the ground is laborious, and requires so long a time that it can never be followed by a harvest within the year. Even on the best soil one must expect to be opposed by the climate, and an extraordinary drought interrupted their labour and suspended all vegetation. They were not, however, discouraged, and, while they waited for the season to become more favourable, they lived on the provisions they had brought with them, and on what they obtained from hunting and fishing. The natives had received them kindly, and a petty traffic had been established with them. Lallemand had given the name of Champ d'Asile to the post that he had chosen. He was beginning to fortify it, to prescribe regulations, and to invite other emigrants, when his feeble progress was arrested by obstacles which he had not foreseen. The Spaniards directed him to discontinue the clearing of the land and his other labours, or acknowledge the sovereignty of the catholic king. They even marched in arms against Champ d'Asile. The little colony was in no state of defence, and did not undertake to make a useless resistance. These unfortunate men, fugitives from their own country, were expelled from a territory where the aborigines had received them with hospitality, and which ought to have belonged only to those who were the first to occupy it beneficially. This little community no longer exists; its chiefs have perished, or their fate is unknown. Texas is one of the finest countries in the world; and yet the Europeans, eager as they have been to make conquests in America, have seemed almost to the present day ignorant of its existence. The new inhabitants, notwithstanding their weakness, supposed that they might take advantage of the troubles which agitated Mexico, and in 1826 declared their independence. The emigrants, who fly from the old world in search of happiness in the new, expect to obtain it without effort. They will not be disappointed in finding liberty there, and they will become proprietors at little expense. But unless they are laborious, persevering, and economical they will be deceived in their hopes of fortune. Those who have preceded them have smoothed for them a great many difficulties. The country is now known, the Indians are either dispersed or little to be feared. Lands of an excellent quality are sold there at the most moderate price. Congress would not be averse to give them gratuitously to any one in a condition to cultivate them, and this liberality would more certainly contribute to render the state powerful and rich than the price at which they are ceded. Property gives diligence to the most idle, and perhaps this is the characteristic which most distinguishes American from European communities. In the latter, families emerged from servitude, six centuries ago, form at this day the class of day labourers, justly so called, because they only labour and exist, as it were, by the day's work. As they have no other property than the hoe and spade, they make no meliorations: they experience frequent privations, and are yet so improvident of the future that they give themselves up to repose and sloth whenever the provisions of primary necessity are at a low price. In America, on the contrary, the new-comers can want neither work nor wages. They have the example of an active, enterprising people, instructed in all the useful arts. The emigrant is always kindly received, and has nothing to fear but his own faults. A good 400 THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA. carpenter, an industrious mason, a clever mechanic see only the laws above them. No where else do we find so much ease and contentment, the fruits of industry, of discreet conduct, and good morals. In all the countries, whose occupation followed the treaty of cession, settlements are formed, and are rapidly extending. The federal government watches over them till the time comes for constituting them states of the Union. The protection which they receive renders them safe from every aggression, and they will, in their turn, add to the strength of the confederacy. Thus it has need neither of war nor conquests to become powerful and formidable. By religiously maintaining their wise institutions, constantly observing the laws of their adoption, never losing sight of the rules of justice, but making all their interests subordinate to them, the United States will more effectually secure their prosperity and promote their glory than by battles or victories. Respected abroad, happy at home, fearing nothing as a nation, having little to desire as a people, they will then enjoy all the blessings that were the object of the revolution. |