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Article Title: An unnamed agent from Florida has visited President Jefferson to state that the residents
would sooner be part of the United States than joined to France or remain subjects of a Spanish king
unwilling to secure their territory.
Author:
Published in: Courier of New Hampshire
Place of Publication: Concord, NH
Publication Date: 4/7/1803
United States. Maryland.
BALTIMORE, MARCH 8.
THE FLORIDAS.
It was rumoured last week at Washington, that an agent from the people of the Floridas, secretly
chose, and vested with full powers for the object of his mission, had waited upon the President of the
U.S. to negotiate for the junction of that country to the Federal Union. It was said that he was further
authorized to declare to the President, that although they felt a strong preference for this Government
to any other, yet, sooner than come under the gallic yoke, or longer remain under a Monarch too
feeble to protect them, they would, should their application to this Government be ineffectual, resort to
a power ready and able to defend them.Whether the important propositions of this missionary formed
any part of the secret proceedings of Congress, or whether any such at all have been made, we
cannot pretend positively to saybut the thing is probable enough ; nor is it impossible for the whole
eastern Missisippi country to be plunged in the issue of such overtures, if made. Its destinies and
those of the Floridas must be the same, let them be under what Government they may. And should
the whole country, from the Alleghany to the Missisippi, and from the Lake of the Woods to the ocean,
disaffected with the late timid policy of administration, or its future pusillanimity in using those
weapons now put at its discretion, determine to separate from the Union, or connect their interests
with those of Britain, where is the power that can prevent it? Spirit of Washington, avert such an
awful event!
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