"Mr. Levy Lincoln and Mr. Wingate called on me at N. York, where I happened to be when they arrived on their Journey from Washington to the Eastward: I find by Mr. Lincoln that the Louisiana Memorialists will have to return as they came and the more decisively Congress put an end to this business the better. The Cession of Louisiana is a great acquisition; but great as it is it would be an incumbrance on the Union were the prayer of the petitioners to be granted, nor would the lauds be worth settling if the settlers are to be under a french jurisdiction.... When the emigrations from the United States into Louisiana become equal to the number of french inhabitants it may then be proper and right to erect such part where such equality exists into a constitutional state; but to do it now would be sending the american settlers into exile.... For my own part, I wish the name of Louisiana to be lost, and this may in a great measure be done by giving names to the new states that will serve as descriptive of their situation or condition. France lost the names and almost the remembrance of provinces by dividing them into departments with appropriate names. "Next to the acquisition of the territory and the Government of it is that of settling it. The people of the Eastern States are the best settlers of a new country, and of people from abroad the German Peasantry are the best. The Irish in general are generous and dissolute. The Scotch turn their attention to traffic, and the English to manufactures. These people are more fitted to live in cities than to be cultivators of new lands. I know not if in Virginia they are much acquainted with the importation of German redemptioners, that is, servants indented for a term of years. The best farmers in Pennsylvania are those who came over in this manner or the descendants of them. The price before the war used to be twenty pounds Pennsylvania currency for an indented servant for four years, that is, the ship owner, got twenty pounds per head passage money, so that upon two hundred persons he would receive after their arrival four thousand pounds paid by the persons who purchased the time of their indentures which was generally four years. These would be the best people, of foreigners, to bring into Louisiana--because they would grow to be citizens. Whereas bringing poor negroes to work the lands in a state of slavery and wretchedness, is, besides the immorality of it, the certain way of preventing population and consequently of preventing revenue. I question if the revenue arising from ten Negroes in the consumption of imported articles is equal to that of one white citizen. In the articles of dress and of the table it is almost impossible to make a comparison.