For instance, in 1787, the
French Minister to the United States forwarded to his Government a
document presented to him, evidently by a native of France residing
in America, which described the extent of the Mississippi valley and
the dissatisfaction of its inhabitants. The paper asserted that the
people beyond the mountains
"seek for a new support and offer to the power which will welcome them
advantages which will before long effect those which America, as it now
is, could promise.... It requires a protector; the first who will stretch
out his arms to it will have made the greatest acquisition that could be
desired in this new world. Fortunate my country if she does not let this
moment escape, one of those not presented twice."
A year or two later, the British consul at Philadelphia was suggesting
to his Government the use of the western settlements of the United
States in an expedition to be made against Spanish New Orleans. These
frontiersmen would co-operate, he thought, in any measure that might
tend to secure them a free trade which the uninterrupted passage of
the Mississippi would effectually establish.
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