But it was not in his nature to despair. President Jefferson urged him in 1804, after the acquisition of Louisiana, to quit France, where the ground trembled beneath his feet, and come to a land where he could do so much good,--holding before him the governorship of the new Territory, and declaring that his presence alone would be better for its tranquillity than an army of ten thousand men. But Lafayette avowed his unwillingness to take a step that should seem to abandon the destinies of his own country, duty to which forbade him to despair of seeing established on the foundation of a just and generous Liberty,--in one word, American Liberty.[113] While in retirement, he was visited by temptation in yet another form, and again his fidelity shines forth. By Act of Congress, repaying in part the accumulated debt of the nation, he had become proprietor of a large territory in Louisiana, to which in his reduced condition he naturally looked for means. Persons familiar with the country advised him to set up a manufacture of tiles, promising from it, what he so much desired, “a fixed revenue”; but he dismissed the proposition, as “founded upon a purchased employment of thirty slaves,”--“a thing,” said he, “_I detest_, and shall never do”; and then, after expressing his wish that in letting the land there should be “a first condition to employ none but free hands, or, if negroes of New Orleans be admitted, to stipulate their liberty in a short time,” he proceeds to say, in memorable words: “I would not be concerned in transactions in a negro country, _unless not only my personal doings were unsullied with Slavery, but I had provided with others to render the very spot productive of Freedom_.”[114] This was in 1805, before the Slave-Trade was yet abolished, and when Slavery was just beginning its fatal empire over our Republic. But it was only part of that faithful testimony which he bore so constantly.