rms and manufactories. The cheap rate at which her citizens can be
furnished with food, tools, and machinery will make it necessary that
the contiguous islands should have the same advantages in order to
compete in the production of sugar, coffee, tobacco, tropical fruits,
etc. This will open to us a still wider market for our products.

The production of our own supply of these articles will cut off more
than one hundred millions of our annual imports, besides largely
increasing our exports. With such a picture it is easy to see how our
large debt abroad is ultimately to be extinguished. With a balance of
trade against us (including interest on bonds held by foreigners and
money spent by our citizens traveling in foreign lands) equal to the
entire yield of the precious metals in this country, it is not so easy
to see how this result is to be otherwise accomplished.

The acquisition of San Domingo is an adherence to the "Monroe doctrine;"
it is a measure of national protection; it is asserting our just claim
to a controlling influence over the great commercial traffic soon to
flow from east to west by the way of the Isthmus of Darien; it is to
build up our merchant marine; it is to furnish new markets for the
products of our farms, shops, and manufactories; it is to make slavery
insupportable in Cuba and Porto Rico at once and ultimately so in
Brazil; it is to settle the unhappy condition of Cuba, and end an
exterminating conflict; it is to provide honest means of paying our
honest debts, without overtaxing the people; it is to furnish our
citizens with the necessaries of everyday life at cheaper rates than
ever before; and it is, in fine, a rapid stride toward that greatness
which the intelligence, industry, and enterprise of the citizens of the
United States entitle this country to assume among nations.

U.S. GRANT.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, _Washington, D.C. June 2, 1870_.

_To the Senate of the United States:_

In reply to your resolution of the 1st instant, requesting, "in
confidence," any information in possession of the President "touching
any proposition, offer, or design of any foreign power to purchase or
obtain any part of the territory of San Domingo or any right to the
Bay of Samana," I transmit herewith a copy of a letter, dated 27th of
April, 1870. addressed to "Colonel J.W. Fabens, Dominican minister,
Washington," by "E. Herzberg Hartmount, Dominican consul-general in
London."

U.S. GRANT.

W