the region referred to. The upper Mississippi, or western States, export to foreign countries chiefly breadstuffs, provisions, and the like. The annual average of the last exports specified for the last ten years, from all the States, is less than $27,000,000. Most of all these varied products are carried to foreign countries by American vessels, owned in the middle and eastern States, and manned by American seamen from the same section. The return cargoes, purchased with the proceeds of such products, are chiefly obtained through the agency of the intelligent merchants of the Atlantic cities, who thus protect the agriculturist from the unjust exactions of a foreign trader, unrestrained by a responsibility that can be enforced by our judicial tribunals, and without the stimulants to fair dealing springing from the ties of interest and feeling created by national brotherhood.

How cheering is the confidence these things inspire in every truly American heart, that the bands of union between the United States cannot be rent asunder by the efforts of foreign foes. They show that the infinite and varied resources of these States render them independent of, and impregnable to, any efforts from abroad to injure our commercial or other industrial pursuits, by illiberal exactions, impositions, restrictions, or prohibitions. They show that we have within ourselves the means and ability to meet and counteract any and all illiberality; and they also show that the preservation of our mutual interests, and the prosperity of our common country, depend, under Providence, upon ourselves alone; and that the cultivation of fraternal feelings and good will, the strict and faithful observance of the stipulations of our constitutional compact, and the never-ceasing inculcation and rigid observance of just and liberal principles and rules of conduct towards each other in all things, is the high and solemn duty of every American

citizen.

The amount contributed by those States bordering on the Gulf of Mexico justifies me in calling attention to the following letter from the assistant Secretary of the Treasury, W. L. Hodge, Esq.:

WASHINGTON, 1852.

My DEAR SIR: In reply to your inquiry as to the probable annual value of the trade of the American ports in the Gulf of Mexico, I do not exactly understand whether you mean to confine it merely to the value of the merchandise which arrives at and leaves those ports, or to include likewise the value of the shipping employed in the transportation of that merchandise. In connexion with the question of a ship-canal through Florida, the Senate, in the late session of Congress, requested information from the Treasury Department as to the probable value of the property which annually passed round Cape Florida, which the department, in its answer to the resolution, estimated at two hundred and fifty millions of dollars. This estimate seems large, and was generally so considered at the time, but I am, on further reflection, now.convinced that it was an under instead of an over estimate, and I will give you the data on which this opinion is founded.

The great difficulty in arriving at the true value of the Gulf trade, is the impossibility to ascertain the amount of the coasting trade from the Atlantic ports, as no record is furnished to the custom-house of even

the kind of goods shipped coastwise; and, of course, nothing even ap proaching to the correct value can be ascertained from the outward manifests. Perhaps the most valuable cargoes shipped in American ports are those by the packet-ships to New Orleans, from Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and I have no doubt that some single cargoes are not unfrequently worth one million of dollars, and that half a million is a very common value for them. Some four years since, one of these Boston packets-a vessel of 1,000 tons-was missing, and considerable anxiety was felt for her safety, and from the inquiries made as to the amount of insurance effected on her cargo, and the ascertained value of some of the heaviest invoices by her, it was pretty well ascertained that her cargo was worth $700,000. When it is recollected that the entire supplies of the States on the lower Mississippi, and a large portion of those for the States higher up that river and its tributaries, are received through that city, the magnitude of them may to some extent be appreciated. The value of goods arriving at New Orleans from the American Atlantic ports, I should think would, at a low estimate, be at least fifty millions of dollars; but, in order to be perfectly on the safe side in this respect, I will estimate at that sum all the supplies thus received at all the Gulf ports, including New Orleans, Mobile, Pensacola, St. Marks, Appalachicola, and all the ports of Texas.

The value of foreign importations at New Orleans is about fifteen millions of dollars, and for the other ports of the Gulf not less than five millions more.

Very correct statistical details are kept at New Orleans of all the receipts of produce from the interior, with thequantity of each; and an annual statement is published, with the estimated value, based upon the current prices of the year, approximating, probably, as near, or more near to the true value than such statements usually do. These statements show that the value of this produce annually received at New Orleans from the interior ranges from ninety to ninety-five millions of dollars; and allowing ten millions for the local consumption, it would leave eighty to eighty-five millions of dollars as the annual value of the export trade of New Orleans.

Mobile exports little but cotton, and the average receipt of which, there, is about 500,000 bales, worth at present prices about $22,000,000. The exports, including cotton from the ports of Florida, and those from Texas, may, in the aggregate, be safely placed at ten millions more, showing a total of exports from the American ports on the Gulf of about $115,000,000.

Upon the above data, then, the statement of the merchandise entering and leaving the American ports of the Gulf will be as follows:

Foreign imports..

Coastwise imports..
Exports.

Making a total of

$20,000,000

50,000,000

115,000,000

185,000,000

as the aggregate value of the merchandise shipped and received at

those ports.

I have not at hand, for reference, the record of shipping arriving

from the ocean at New Orleans annually, but it exceeds 600,000 tons, and at all the other ports of the Gulf it would probably be 300,000 tons more, making an aggregate of 900,000 tons, which, at the value of $75 per ton, would be $67,500,000; and as these vessels make the voyage in and out, the entire value of the tonnage which annually passes Cape Florida would be $135,000,000; which, added to the preceding amount of merchandise, would make a grand aggregate of $325,000,000 of property which annually passes to and from the American ports of the Gulf of Mexico. Although this estimate is made up in round sums, without going very particularly into detail, I have no doubt it is considerably below the real amount.

The value of the exports from the ports of the Gulf could, with a little care and attention, be very correctly ascertained, for they principally consist of articles of domestic produce, such as cotton, sugar, molasses, flour, lard, bacon, &c., &c., the quantities of which can always be ascertained from the outward manifests; and the prices are a matter of record, from day to day, throughout the year, in the daily publications of the public journals and price currents. The custom-house records, of course, exhibit the value of foreign importations; and the only difficulty in arriving at the correct value of the trade of the Gulf would be in the coastwise shipments from the Atlantic ports. Nor do I see how this can be correctly ascertained, and it will have to remain as a matter of conjecture, though, in placing it, as I have done in this communication, at fifty millions of dollars, I feel well assured it is considerably below the actual value.

I regret extremely, that under the heavy pressure of official duties, particularly at this time, I cannot devote more time to the subject of your inquiry, and am obliged to give you such a hastily-prepared and crude communication.

Very truly and sincerely,

ISRAEL DE WOLFE ANDREWS, Esq.

WM. L. HODGE.

There cannot be any surprise that the attention of the country, particularly the commercial portion, has within a few years been directed in a special manner to the value of the domestic and foreign commerce flowing through the Straits of Florida and Gulf of Mexico. That attention will now annually increase, for obvious causes; and, therefore, no apology is deemed necessary for the prominent position that subject, in connexion with the State of Florida, occupies in this part of the report, to which particular attention is requested.

50

Letter from the Hon. E. Carrington Cabell.

CITY OF WASHINGTON,

House of Representatives, August 29, 1852. DEAR SIR: I cheerfully comply with the request in your favor of the 10th inst., to furnish you memoranda of the works of internal improve ment, and for the improvement of rivers and harbors, heretofore undertaken in Florida, and which it is anticipated are to be undertaken by the general government, or by the State, or associations in it; and likewise as to the general resources of the State. You can use these notes in any manner you please in your forthcoming report to the Treasury. There is not, perhaps, any State of the confederacy that can be more benefited by the construction of judicious works of internal improvement, and by the improvement of its harbors, than Florida. Thirty-one years have elapsed since the provinces of East and West Florida were taken possession of by the United States, under the treaty of cession concluded in 1819. No works of internal improvement, except the "King's road," in East Florida, and a short and small canal (never completed) near Lake Okechobe, and De Brahme's surveys, in 1765, &c., were commenced by the British or Spanish governments whilst the provinces were under the control of either of those powers; and since their transfer to the United States, various circumstances have combined to retard the development of their valuable commercial, agricultural, and other resources.

The fortifications then near Pensacola, that at St. Marks, the fort at St. Augustine, and an old defence called Fort George, near the mouth of the river St. Johns, were all the military defences worth mentioning existing in the provinces at the cession. The United States have since established a navy-yard and works for the repair of vessels of war, and erected other forts, and built a naval and marine hospital near Pensacola; are building fortifications at the Tortugas, and at Key West, and near the mouth of the St. Mary's river, and have placed the fort at St. Augustine in good condition; but no other part of the extensive and exposed gulf and seacoast of the State is in any degree fortified; nor are there proper preparations made for the construction, at an early period, of such defences. The entire Atlantic and Gulf coast of the United States, from Passamaquoddy to the Rio del Norte, is about 3,500 miles, and of this extent the coast and reefs of Florida, from St. Mary's, around the Tortugas, to the Perdido, comprise upwards of 1,200 miles, extending over 80 of latitude and 73° of longitude; being more than onethird of the whole coast.

Within a few years past, our "coast survey" has been commenced, but with meagre and inadequate appropriations, not at all in just proportion either to the necessities of the work, or to the amounts yielded for such surveys in other sections less important to the whole country. No canal or railroad has been constructed by the federal government in Florida, but the expenditure of a few thousands of dollars (whilst Florida was a Territory) for the removal of obstructions in some of the rivers and harbors, and for two or three partial surveys of important

1

routes of a national character, has given rise to allegations that profuse grants have been made for her benefit. She has, too, been unjustly reproached as being the cause of the immense expenditures so profitlessly made in the Seminole war; and by some she is held responsible for all the folly, waste, extravagance, impositions, peculations, and frauds committed in that war by the employees of the federal government, though not citizens of the State. A similar class have had the infamous audacity to impute to her people the purposed origination of the war, and a desire for its protraction, as a source of pecuniary gain. A devastated frontier of several hundred miles, and the butchery by the savages of hundreds of men, women, and children, throughout the State, and the utter ruin brought upon many of her citizens by that war, ought to be sufficient to prove the falsity of this accusation. Those who have propagated or countenanced such unscrupulous slanders against the people of Florida have not, when challenged, exposed a single case in which any citizen of the State has obtained payment of any demand against the United States, founded on fraud; and the public records of Congress and of the federal departments will verify the declaration that scores of Floridians have been refused payment of just claims, or pestponed on the most frivolous pretexts and discreditable suspicions.

If attempts have been made in any instance, by individuals claiming to belong to Florida, to obtain from the federal treasury claims not founded in strict justice, such dishonorable exceptions do not excuse wholesale imputations against the citizens of the State generally, nor justify the excitement of prejudices against them, and the withholding payment of just demands.

Both of the provinces, when acquired by the United States, (excepting only a small portion of country around the city of Pensacola, at the western extremity, and the region contiguous to the city of St. Augustine, and to the lower part of the river St. John's, in East Florida,) were in the possession of warlike and hostile bands of savages. The territories, when ceded, were covered with British and Spanish titles to lands, some for tracts of several thousands of acres. The "Forbes grant"extending from the St. Marks to the west side of the Apalachicola river, and including also the site of the city of Apalachicola, and several thousands of acres contiguous thereto, further west, and the adjacent islands of St. George and St. Vincent, and Dog island, and reaching upwards of sixty miles from the coast into the interior-covered an area of upwards of one million two hundred thousand acres. Most of the lands which had not been previously granted were included in the concessions by the King of Spain to the Duke of Alagon, the Chevalier De Vargas, and the Count of Punon Rostros, clandestinely made whilst the treaty of cession was being negotiated, and which, though annulled by a codicil to the treaty, are still claimed by the grantees, and those to whom the grants have been assigned, to be valid and in force. A decision has recently been given by the United States court in Florida, in a suit brought upon the Alagon or "Hackley grant," against its validity. The procrastination since 1821 of the definitive ascertainment and confirmation or rejection, of alleged Spanish titles, has been a serious evil to the State, and aided to retard its settlement and progress. The removal of many of the Indians from the upper and middle