ent territory. 13. Those made by the Americans. 14. What parts of the country were the Spanish opening up? 15. The Americans? Supplementary Reading. The Yankee Man-of-War (Paul Jones' Ranger), old ballad, in Library American Literature, V. 461. Ethan Allen's Description of the Taking of Ticonderoga, in Library American Literature, III. 252. C. C. Coffin, The Boys of '76. United States Histories, as before. James Fenimore Cooper, The Pilot, and The Spy. J. P. Kennedy, HorseShoe Robinson. Theodore Winthrop, Edwin Brothertoft. Hawthorne, Septimius Felton. The Yankee Man-of-War, Library American Literature, V. 461. GROUP V. RECORDS OF THE GROWTH OF LAND AND STATE: 1783-1850. 1. THE TROUBLES OF THE CONFEDERATION. 1783-1789. This is the time of their political probation. ... For, according to the system of policy the States shall adopt at this moment they will stand or fall; and by their confirmation or lapse it is yet to be decided whether the revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse; a blessing or a curse not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn millions be involved.—WASHINGTON, in Circular Letter to the Governors of all the States.182 The Debts of the Confederation. After the war, the confederation of the United States was deeply in debt to the soldiers of the Revolution, to France and Holland, to their own merchants who had lent them money. But it began to look as though neither the soldiers, nor the merchants, nor France and Holland, would ever get their pay. A Massachusetts citizen writes in 1784: Since you are now happily restored to peace and plenty,. methinks. you would never forget the noble... exertions of those who... bravely took the field... ; nor would one imagine you could ever deal ungratefully or unjustly with those of your brethren, who... in the day of your distress, delivered up their property to your service . . . in full confidence that you would perform your solemn promises, made by the mouth of Congress . . . and repay the sums so lent.... For my own part, I had no doubt of it,. and delivered up a very considerable portion of my substance to your service. . . . I depended upon it in a good measure for ... support, and therefore can by no means consent to lose it. Your creditors . . . have now waited a long time, to see you perform your promises.... But alas! how are they disappointed and confounded, to find you have not, as yet, made any provision for the payment of these their dues. ... Permit me, my countrymen, to tell you that such behaviour is not in favour of your character. They (the Tories) always said . . . that ye are not fit to govern, and that if Britain left you to yourselves, anarchy and confusion would ensue. But O... my friends! If you have any spirit . . . now is the time to show it... 183 ! Franklin wrote from France: When the States have not faith in a Congress of their own choosing to trust it with money for the payment of their common debt, how can they expect that Congress should meet with credit when it wants to borrow more money for their use from strangers.184 But in spite of all complaints, as late as 1787 James Madison wrote from Virginia: ... No money is paid into the treasury; not a single state complies with the requisitions -some pass them over in silence, some absolutely reject them. It is quite impossible that a government so weakened can much longer hold together.185 The Mississippi Question. — In 1786, the Spaniards were anxious to make a treaty with the United States, by which they alone could use the Mississippi, in exchange for allowing American ships to carry goods free of duty into all Spanish ports. The New Englanders wanted this treaty; the men of the South and West did not. Said the New Englanders: Suppose that a treaty could be formed between the Spaniard and the United States . . . so that . . . the citizens of the latter might introduce into the . . . dominions of the former all sorts of goods |