man who would accept of it, and it would not be right to turn him out
for one not better. But it is the second cause, above mentioned, which
is deep seated and permanent. The French members of the legislature,
being the majority in both Houses, lately passed an act, declaring
that the civil, or French laws, should be the laws of their land, and
enumerated about fifty folio volumes, in Latin, as the depositories of
these laws. The Governor negatived the act. One of the Houses thereupon
passed a vote for self-dissolution of the legislature as a useless body,
which failed in the other House by a single vote only. They separated,
however, and have disseminated all the discontent they could. I propose
to the members of Congress in conversation, the enlisting thirty
thousand volunteers, Americans by birth, to be carried at the public
expense, and settled immediately on a bounty of one hundred and
sixty acres of land each, on the west side of the Mississippi, on the
condition of giving two years of military service, if that country
should be attacked within seven years. The defence of the country would
thus be placed on the spot, and the additional number would entitle the
territory to become a State, would make the majority American, and make
it an American instead of a French State. This would not sweeten the
pill to the French; but in making that acquisition we had some view to
our own good as well as theirs, and I believe the greatest good of both
will be promoted by whatever will amalgamate us together.

I have tired you, my friend, with a long letter. But your tedium will
end in a few lines more. Mine has yet two years to endure. I am tired
of an office where I can do no more good than many others, who would be
glad to be employed in it. To myself, personally, it brings nothing but
unceasing drudgery, and daily loss of friends. Every office becoming
vacant, every appointment made, _me donne un ingrat, et cent ennemis_.
My only consolation is in the belief, that my fellow-citizens at large