anish government. Of
these irritating differences, that which related to the Mississippi
was far the most operative, and embarrassing. The imagination,
especially when warmed by discontent, bestows on a good which is
withheld, advantages much greater than the reality will justify; and
the people of the western country were easily persuaded to believe
that the navigation of the Mississippi was a mine of wealth which
would at once enrich them. That jealousy which men so readily
entertain of the views of those with whom they do not associate, had
favoured the efforts made by the enemies of the administration, to
circulate the opinion that an opposition of interests existed between
the eastern and the western people, and that the endeavours of the
executive to open their great river were feeble and insincere. At a
meeting of the Democratic Society in Lexington, in Kentucky, this
sentiment was unanimously avowed in terms of peculiar disrespect to
the government; and a committee was appointed to open a correspondence
with the inhabitants of the whole western country, for the purpose of
uniting them on this all important subject, and of preparing on it a
remonstrance to the President and congress of the United States, to be
expressed "in the bold, decent and determined language, proper to be
used by injured freemen when they address the servants of the people."
They claimed much merit for their moderation in having thus long, out
of regard to their government, and affection for their fellow citizens
on the Atlantic, abstained from the use of those means which they
possessed for the assertion of what they termed a natural and
unalienable right; and seemed to indicate the opinion that this
forbearance could not be long continued. Without regarding the
determination of Spain in the case or the poverty of the means placed
in the hands of the executive for inducing a change in this
determination, they demanded from the government the free use of the
Mississippi, as if only an act of the will was necessary to insure it
to them. Not even the probability that the public and intemperate
expression of these dangerous dispositions would perpetuate the evil,
could moderate them. This restless uneasy temper gave additional
importance to the project of an expedition against Louisiana, which
had been formed by Mr. Genet.

These public causes for apprehending hostilities[12] with Spain, were
strengthened by private communications. The govern