REGNAUD DE SAINT-JEAN-D'ANGÉLY (Michel-Louis-Étienne). Autog - Lot 86

REGNAUD DE SAINT-JEAN-D'ANGÉLY (Michel-Louis-Étienne). Autograph manuscript entitled "Bulletin de New York. Réflexions d'une soirée", addressed to his wife Laure. [Between September 1815 and June 1816]. 4 pp. in-4. REGNAUD ALSO REFLECTS ON THE SETTLEMENT CONDITIONS OFFERED TO IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES. "The most desired news is that relating to commerce. The most exalted federalist and republican reads current prices & the rate of public bills and exchange above all else. Among the most sought-after news items are those from France & South America, because these are the countries where existing revolutionary movements generate the most interest, & have the most animated passions for or against. LES FRANÇAIS QUE LES EVENEMENS AMENENT ICI SONT BIEN TRAITE, RECHERCHES S'ils s'ANNONCENT COMME INDEPENDANS SOUS LE RAPPORT DE FORTUNE - les fédéralistes même sont bien pour eux, hors un petit nombre qui dans le Gouvernem[ent] ou dans la société sont vendus à l'Angleterre - mais on a toujours ici, dans tous les cas sûreté & liberté. THERE ARE ONLY THREE CAREERS THAT CAN BE FOLLOWED HERE, THE BAR (and you need to know the language), TRADE (& you need money), AGRICULTURE (& you need to buy land). In the last party, one runs the risk of begging in 10 years if one puts in more than one's superfluous - land merchants are thieves, starting with the one who is still there & who sold some to men he deceived indignantly [allusion to General Charles Lallemand who diverted the Vine and Olive Colony project to the Champ-d'asile and made financial arrangements to the detriment of many colonists]. This trade is only good and practicable for professional ploughmen, strong and vigorous, who can have a 100-acre farm in 4 years for nothing. Tradesmen can make a fortune here. A cabinetmaker, a turner, a carpenter, a wheelwright, a locksmith earn 2 gourdes [former transaction currency in the French colonies of the West Indies] a day & live for half of one - a seamstress, a fashion merchant, a linen maid earn one or one and a half, & in spite of this almost everyone is miserable. Hardly any of them have useful establishments. One in a thousand makes a fortune, he's mentioned, and the wretches who are reduced to hospital by misbehavior, illness or misfortune are forgotten. MANY FRENCH PEOPLE LEAD A BAD LIFE HERE, DISTRESSING THOSE WHO SHARE A COMMON HOMELAND. A funny man who came with us named Saran, whose brother is at the War Office, left with a creature he had brought with him, taking 5 or 6,000 gourdes with him... The brothers of M[a]d[am]e Nairac, friend of M[adam]e Gay [woman of letters Sophie Gay], run a gambling house with girls. Mr de Balby does the same with a mulattress, Monneron lives by making cigars, refugees from the colonies vegetate by indulging, most without profit, some without honor, in trades they know little or nothing about. THOSE WHO SAW AMERICAN CUSTOMS 20 YEARS AGO, 10 YEARS AGO, ONLY 3 YEARS AGO, COULD NO LONGER RECOGNIZE THEM. THE NEW GENERATIONS ARE NEW IN THEIR HABITS, AND ARE BEGINNING TO FORM A PEOPLE. THERE WILL BE ONE IN 30 YEARS. Until then, there are only scattered peoples, made up of families of individuals who were not born on the soil, who only think of amassing it, & don't intend to end up there. HERE THERE ARE NO BINDINGS OF HOMELAND, NO BINDINGS OF CITY, NO BINDINGS OF FAMILY, EVEN LESS BINDINGS OF FRIENDSHIP, there are only ties or rather rivalries, enmities of interest & vanity. THERE'S TALK OF EQUALITY & NO ONE WANTS IT EXCEPT WHEN THEY'RE AT THE BOTTOM. Everyone wants to be Excellence, Honorable - the title of esquire is taken, demanded, given, returned by all who do not work with their hands or have a store - the retailer is not received into societies, nor his wife, even though he has a hundred thousand dollars - coats of arms are put on all bourgeois carriages, & all distinctions are eagerly sought. THERE IS NO TRUE PATRIOTISM AMONG RICH MEN. THEY ARE ALL WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS CLOSE TO THE ENGLISH PARTY - some vote for England in Congress, in the legislatures of each state, others represent English merchants in the numerous banks where they discount for them, where they place, by party transfers, a portion of English loans. The others feed, at a fair price, the English fleets that cruise in times of war to block the ports, the flotillas that are on the lakes, & even the troops of Canada & Nova Scotia - those who trade with the West Indies, those who smuggle with Montreal & Quebec on the St. Lawrence, with Halifax on the Atlantic &a. AND YET THE MASS OF THE PEOPLE,