“MY LORD,--In your Lordship’s last letter to me, just before
my leaving Paris, you are pleased to say that any information
which I might have been able to collect of a nature to promote
the mutual and reciprocal interests of Great Britain and the
United States of America would be extremely acceptable to his
Majesty’s government.… Annexed to this letter I have the honor
of transmitting to your Lordship some papers and documents
which I have received from the American ministers. One of them
(No. 5) is a Map of the Continent of North America, in which
the land ceded to them by the late treaty of peace is divided
by parallels of latitude and longitude into fourteen new States.
“The whole project, in its full extent, would take many years
in its execution, and therefore it must be far beyond the
present race of men to say, ‘This shall be so.’ Nevertheless,
_those who have the first care of this New World will probably
give it such directions and inherent influences as may guide
and control its course and revolutions for ages to come_. But
these plans, being beyond the reach of man to predestinate,
are likewise beyond the reach of comment or speculation to
say what may or may not be possible, or to predict what
events may hereafter be produced by time, climates, soils,
adjoining nations, or by the unwieldy magnitude of empire, _and
the future population of millions superadded to millions_.
The sources of the Mississippi may be unknown; the lines
of longitude and latitude may be extended into unexplored
regions; and the plan of this new creation may be sketched out
by a presumptuous compass, if all its intermediate uses and
functions were to be suspended until the final and precise
accomplishment, without failure or deviation, of this unbounded
plan. But this is not the case; the immediate objects in view
are limited and precise; they are of prudent thought, and
within the scope of human power to measure out and to execute.
The principle, indeed, is indefinite, and will be left to the
test of future ages to determine its duration or extent.
“I take the liberty to suggest thus much, lest we should be led
away to suppose that the councils which have produced these
plans have had no wiser or more sedate views than merely the
amusement of drawing meridians of ambition and high thoughts.
There appear to me to be two solid and rational objects in
view: the first is, by the sale of lands nearly contiguous
to the present States, (receiving Congress paper in payment
according to its scale of depreciation,) _to extinguish the
present national debt_, which I understand might be discharged
for about twelve millions sterling.…
“It is a new proposition to be offered to the numerous common
rank of mankind in all the countries of the world, to say that
there are in America fertile soils and temperate climates
in which an acre of land may be purchased for a trifling
consideration, which may be possessed in freedom, together with
all the natural and civil rights of mankind. The Congress have
already proclaimed this, and that no other qualification or
name is necessary but to become settlers, without distinction
of countries or persons. The European peasant, who toils for
his scanty sustenance in penury, wretchedness, and servitude,
will eagerly fly to this asylum for free and industrious labor.
The tide of emigration may set strongly outward from Scotland,
Ireland, and Canada to this new land of promise.
“A very great proportion of men in all the countries of the
world are without property, and generally are subject to
governments of which they have no participation, and over
whom they have no control. The Congress have now opened to
all the world a sale of landed settlements where the liberty
and property of each individual is to be consigned to his own
custody and defence.… These are such propositions of free
establishments as have never yet been offered to mankind, and
cannot fail of producing great effects in the future progress
of things. The Congress have arranged their offers in the most
inviting and artful terms; and lest individual peasants and
laborers should not have the means of removing themselves,
they throw out inducements to moneyed adventurers to purchase
and to undertake the settlement by commission and agency,
without personal residence, by stipulating that the lands of
proprietors being absentees shall not be higher taxed than the
lands of residents. This will quicken the sale of lands, which
is their object.
“For the explanation of these points, I beg leave to refer
your Lordship to the documents annexed, Nos. 5 and 6,--namely,
the Map, and Resolutions of Congress, dated April, 1784.
Another circumstance would confirm that it is the intention
of Congress to invite moneyed adventurers to make purchases
and settlements, which is the precise and mathematical mode
of dividing and marking out for sale the lands in each new
proposed State. These new States are to be divided by parallel
lines running north and south, and by other parallels running
east and west. They are to be divided into hundreds of ten
geographical miles square, and then again into lots of one
square mile. The divisions are laid out as regularly as the
squares upon a chessboard, and all to be formed into a Charter
of Compact.
“They may be purchased by purchasers at any distance, and
the titles may be verified by registers of such or such
numbers, north or south, east or west: all this is explained
by the document annexed, No. 7, namely, _The Ordinance for
ascertaining the mode of locating and disposing of lands in the
Western Territory. This is their plan and means for paying off
their national debt, and they seem very intent upon doing it._
I should observe that their debt consists of two parts, namely,
domestic and foreign. The sale of lands is to be appropriated
to the former.
“The domestic debt may perhaps be nine or ten millions, and
the foreign debt two or three. For payment of the foreign debt
it is proposed to lay a tax of five per cent. upon all imports
until discharged, which, I am informed, has already been agreed
to by most of the States, and probably will soon be confirmed
by the rest. Upon the whole, it appears that this plan is as
prudently conceived and as judiciously arranged, as to the
end proposed, as any experienced cabinet of European ministers
could have devised or planned any similar project.
“The second point which appears to me to be deserving of
attention, respecting the immense cession of territory to
the United States at the late peace, is a point _which will
perhaps in a few years become an unparalleled phenomenon in the
political world_. As soon as the national debt of the United
States shall be discharged by the sale of one portion of those
lands, we shall then see the Confederate Republic in a new
character, as a proprietor of lands either for sale or to let
upon rents. While other nations may be struggling under debts
too enormous to be discharged either by economy or taxation,
and while they may be laboring to raise ordinary and necessary
supplies by burdensome impositions upon their own persons and
properties, _here will be a nation possessed of a new and
unheard-of financial organ of stupendous magnitude, and in
process of time of unmeasured value, thrown into their lap as a
fortuitous superfluity, and almost without being sought for_.
“When such an organ of revenue begins to arise into produce and
exertion, what public uses it may be applicable to, or to what
abuses and perversions it might be rendered subservient, is far
beyond the reach of probable discussion now. Such discussions
would only be visionary speculations. However, thus far it
is obvious, and highly deserving of our attention, that it
cannot fail becoming to the American States a most important
instrument of national power, the progress and operation of
which must hereafter be _a most interesting object of attention
to the British American dominions which are in close vicinity
to the territories of the United States; and I should hope that
these considerations would lead us, inasmuch as we value those
parts of our dominions, to encourage conciliatory and amicable
correspondence between them and their neighbors_.”
This private communication, now for the first time seeing the light, is
full of prophecy, or of that remarkable discernment and forecast which
mark the prophetic spirit, whether in announcing “the future population
of millions superadded to millions,” or in the high estimate of the
National Territory, destined to become in a few years “an unparalleled
phenomenon in the political world,” “a new and unheard-of _financial
organ_ of stupendous magnitude.” How few at home saw the Public Lands
with as clear a vision as Hartley!