Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/91

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ments, with taxes or burthens, municipal or governmental. The Anglo-American is free in the possession and enjoyment of his property: he speculates and does with it what suits his convenience or pleasure, and has nothing to pay but the duties upon the importation of foreign goods or produce. These two advantages will always give a great superiority to the people of the United States, over all others who do not possess them; because they communicate to labour its greatest effect, and to the spirit of industry, and love of country, their greatest latitude, without which no nation can rise to prosperity.[1] We may perceive the importance of these two advantages to the United States in the

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  1. This may be called a precious confession, on the part of his Catholic Majesty's Embassador to the Court of Naples. Don Luis de Onis, loaded as he was with titles of nobility and orders of chivalry, was accused by his countrymen of an overweaning partiality for the free institutions of the United States; and it is evident, from the curious nature of this memoir, that it was written with a view to exonerate himself from this charge in the eyes of the Cortes, and to induce them to regard his treaty as the most advantageous that could be obtained from the United States. The sentiments of the man, are constantly at variance with the policy of the minister; and it may be seen, amidst the petty scandal which he was at so much pains to pick up and retail, that under every important view, he has been more lavish of eulogy to the United States, than almost any other foreign writer, who has spoken of them. T.