CHAP. XXIV.] STATE DEBTS. 57 



thing is fluctuating and on the move a state from which tire 

 Indians are only just retreating, and where few whites ever con 

 tinue to reside three years in one place where thousands are 

 going with their negroes to Louisiana, Texas, or Arkansas 

 where even the County Court Houses and State Capitol are on 

 the move, the Court House of Clarke county, for example, just 

 shifted from Clarkesville to Macon, and the seat of legislature 

 about to be transferred from Tuscaloosa to Montgomery. In 

 the midst of such instability, a feeling of nationality, or state 

 pride, can not easily be fostered. Nevertheless, the resources, 

 both mineral and agricultural, of so vast a territory as Alabama 

 a fifth larger in area than the whole of England proper, may 

 enable them, with moderate economy, to overcome all their diffi 

 culties. 



Often was the question put to us, &quot; Are you moving ?&quot; But 

 at the small tavern at Claiborne it was supposed that I might 

 be the Methodist minister whom they were expecting to come 

 from the north, to preach a trial sermon. Two Alabamans, 

 who, as I afterward learnt, were under this persuasion, were 

 talking beside me of the chances of a war with England, and 

 praised the British ministers for their offer of mediation. They 

 condemned the folly of the Government at Washington for not 

 accepting it, and agreed that the trade of Mobile would suffer 

 seriously, if they came to blows with the English. &quot; Calhoun,&quot; 

 said one of them, &quot; has pronounced in favor of peace ; but they 

 say that the Governor-general of Canada is spending a mint of 

 money on fortifications.&quot; &quot;It is satisfactory,&quot; replied his com 

 panion, &quot; to think that we have not yet spent a dollar on prepa 

 rations ; yet I doubt not, if we had to fight, that the English 

 would get the worst of it.&quot; &quot; Yes,&quot; said his friend, &quot; we have 

 whipped them twice, and should whip them a third time.&quot; 



I am bound to state, that never once, where I was known to 

 be an Englishman, were any similar speeches, uncourteous in 

 their tone toward my country, uttered in my hearing. 



On the table of the inn at Claiborne, I found a book entitled 

 &quot; Walsh s Appeal from the Judgment of Great Britain,&quot; in 

 which all the provocations given to the Americans by English 



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