The principal subscribers to the Junta stock at the South, he thought, were land speculators; persons who expected that, by now favouring the movement, they would be able to obtain from the revolutionary government large grants of land in the island as gratuities in reward of their services or at nominal prices, which after annexation would rise rapidly in value; or persons who now owned wild land in the States, and who thought that if Cuba were annexed the African slave-trade would be re-established, either openly or clandestinely, with the States, and their lands be increased in value, by the greater cheapness with which they could then be stocked with labourers.
I find these views confirmed in a published letter from a Louisiana planter, to one of the members of Congress, from that State; and I insert an extract of that letter, as it is evidently from a sensible and far-thinking man, to show on how insecure a basis rests the prosperity of the slave-holding interest in Louisiana. The fact would seem to be, that, if it were not for the tariff on foreign sugars, sugar could not be produced at all by slave-labour; and that a discontinuance of sugar culture would almost desolate the State.
“The question now naturally comes up to you and to me, Do we Louisianians desire the possession of Cuba? It is not what the provision dealers of the West, or the shipowners of the North may wish for, but what the State of Louisiana, as a State, may deem consistent with her best interests. My own opinion on the subject is not a new one. It was long ago expressed to high officers of our Government, neither of whom ever hesitated to acknowledge that it was, in the main, correct. That opinion was and is, that the acquisition of Cuba would prove the ruin of our State. I found this opinion on the following reasons: Cuba has already land enough in cultivation to produce, when directed by American skill, energy, and capital, twenty millions of tons of sugar. In addition to this she has virgin soil, only needing roads to bring it, with a people of the least pretension to enterprise, into active working, sufficient nearly to double this; all of which would be soon brought into productiveness were it our own, with the whole American market free to it. If any man supposes that the culture of sugar in our State can be sustained in the face of this, I have only to say that he can suppose anything. We have very nearly, if not quite, eighty millions invested in the sugar culture. My idea is that three-fourths of this would, so far as the State is concerned, be annihilated at a blow. The planter who is in debt, would find his negroes and machinery sold and despatched to Cuba for him, and he who is independent would go there in self-defence. What will become of the other portion of the capital? It consists of land, on which I maintain there can be produced no other crop but sugar, under present auspices, that will bear the contest with cocoa,[7] and the expense and risk of levees, as it regards the larger part of it, and the difficulty of transportation for the remainder. But supposing that it will be taken up by some other cultivation, that in any case must be a work of time, and in this case a very long time for unacclimated men. It is not unreasonable, then, to suppose that this whole capital will, for purposes of taxation, be withdrawn from Louisiana. From whence, then, is to come the revenue for the support of our State government, for the payment of the interest on our debt, and the eventual redemption of the principal? Perhaps repudiation may be recommended; but you and I, my dear sir, are too old-fashioned to rob in that manner, or in any other. The only resort, then, is double taxation on the cotton planter, which will drive him, without much difficulty, to Texas, to Arkansas, and Mississippi.”
Washington.—The inn, here, when we arrived, was well filled with guests, and my friend and I were told that we must sleep together. In the room containing our bed there were three other beds; and although the outside of the house was pierced with windows, nowhere more than four feet apart, not one of them opened out of our room. A door opened into the hall, another into the dining-room, and at the side of our bed was a window into the dining-room, through which, betimes in the morning, we could, with our heads on our pillows, see the girls setting the breakfast-tables. Both the doors were provided with glass windows, without curtains. Hither, about eleven o’clock, we “retired.” Soon afterwards, hearing something moving under the bed, I asked, “Who’s there?” and was answered by a girl, who was burrowing for eggs; part of the stores of the establishment being kept in boxes, in this convenient locality. Later, I was awakened by a stranger attempting to enter my bed. I expostulated, and he replied that it was his bed, and nobody else had a right to his place in it. Who was I, he asked, angrily, and where was his partner? “Here I am,” answered a voice from another bed; and without another word, he left us. I slept but little, and woke feverish, and with a headache, caused by the want of ventilation.
While at the dinner-table, a man asked, as one might at the North, if the steamer had arrived, if there had been “any fights to-day?” After dinner, while we were sitting on the gallery, loud cursing, and threatening voices were heard in the direction of the bar-room, which, as at Nachitoches, was detached, and at a little distance from the hotel. The company, except myself and the other New-Yorker, immediately ran towards it. After ten minutes, one returned, and said—
“I don’t believe there’ll be any fight; they are both cowards.”
“Are they preparing for a fight?”
“O, yes; they are loading pistols in the coffee-room, and there’s a man outside, in the street, who has a revolver and a knife, and who is challenging another to come out. He swears he’ll wait there till he does come out; but in my opinion he’ll think better of it, when he finds that the other feller’s got pistols, too.”
“What’s the occasion of the quarrel?”