The Moon-Voyage

CHAPTER XI.

FLORI­DA AND TEXAS.

There still re­mained one ques­tion to be de­cid­ed--a place favourable to the ex­per­iment had to be cho­sen. Ac­cord­ing to the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Cam­bridge Ob­ser­va­to­ry the gun must be aimed per­pen­dic­ular­ly to the plane of the hori­zon--that is to say, to­wards the zenith. Now the moon on­ly ap­pears in the zenith in the places sit­uat­ed be­tween 0° and 28° of lat­itude, or, in oth­er terms, when her dec­li­na­tion is on­ly 28°. The ques­tion was, there­fore, to de­ter­mine the ex­act point of the globe where the im­mense Columbi­ad should be cast.

On the 20th of Oc­to­ber the Gun Club held a gen­er­al meet­ing. Bar­bi­cane brought a mag­nif­icent map of the Unit­ed States by Z. Bell­tropp. But be­fore he had time to un­fold it J.T. Mas­ton rose with his ha­bit­ual ve­he­mence, and be­gan to speak as fol­lows:--

“Hon­ourable col­leagues, the ques­tion we are to set­tle to-​day is re­al­ly of na­tion­al im­por­tance, and will fur­nish us with an oc­ca­sion for do­ing a great act of pa­tri­otism.”

The mem­bers of the Gun Club looked at each oth­er with­out un­der­stand­ing what the or­ator was com­ing to.

“Not one of you,” he con­tin­ued, “would think of do­ing any­thing to lessen the glo­ry of his coun­try, and if there is one right that the Union may claim it is that of har­bour­ing in its bo­som the formidable can­non of the Gun Club. Now, un­der the present cir­cum­stances--”

“Will you al­low me--” said Bar­bi­cane.

“I de­mand the free dis­cus­sion of ideas,” replied the im­petu­ous J.T. Mas­ton, “and I main­tain that the ter­ri­to­ry from which our glo­ri­ous pro­jec­tile will rise ought to be­long to the Union.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered sev­er­al mem­bers.

“Well, then, as our fron­tiers do not stretch far enough, as on the south the ocean is our lim­it, as we must seek be­yond the Unit­ed States and in a neigh­bour­ing coun­try this 28th par­al­lel, this is all a le­git­imate _ca­sus bel­li_, and I de­mand that war should be de­clared against Mex­ico!”

“No, no!” was cried from all parts.

“No!” replied J.T. Mas­ton. “I am much as­ton­ished at hear­ing such a word in these precincts!”

“But lis­ten--”

“Nev­er! nev­er!” cried the fiery or­ator. “Soon­er or lat­er this war will be de­clared, and I de­mand that it should be this very day.”

“Mas­ton,” said Bar­bi­cane, mak­ing his bell go off with a crash, “I agree with you that the ex­per­iment can­not and ought not to be made any­where but on the soil of the Union, but if I had been al­lowed to speak be­fore, and you had glanced at this map, you would know that it is per­fect­ly use­less to de­clare war against our neigh­bours, for cer­tain fron­tiers of the Unit­ed States ex­tend be­yond the 28th par­al­lel. Look, we have at our dis­po­si­tion all the south­ern part of Texas and Flori­da.”

This in­ci­dent had no con­se­quences; still it was not with­out re­gret that J.T. Mas­ton al­lowed him­self to be con­vinced. It was, there­fore, de­cid­ed that the Columbi­ad should be cast ei­ther on the soil of Texas or on that of Flori­da. But this de­ci­sion was des­tined to cre­ate an un­ex­am­pled ri­val­ry be­tween the towns of these two states.

The 28th par­al­lel, when it touch­es the Amer­ican coast, cross­es the penin­su­la of Flori­da, and di­vides it in­to two near­ly equal por­tions. Then, plung­ing in­to the Gulf of Mex­ico, it sub­tends the arc formed by the coasts of Al­aba­ma, Mis­sis­sip­pi, and Louisiana; then skirt­ing Texas, off which it cuts an an­gle, it con­tin­ues its di­rec­tion over Mex­ico, cross­es the Sono­ra and Old Cal­ifor­nia, and los­es it­self in the Pa­cif­ic Ocean; there­fore on­ly the por­tions of Texas and Flori­da sit­uat­ed be­low this par­al­lel ful­filled the req­ui­site con­di­tions of lat­itude rec­om­mend­ed by the Ob­ser­va­to­ry of Cam­bridge.

The south­ern por­tion of Flori­da con­tains no im­por­tant cities. It on­ly bris­tles with forts raised against wan­der­ing In­di­ans. One town on­ly, Tam­pa Town, could put in a claim in favour of its po­si­tion.

In Texas, on the con­trary, towns are more nu­mer­ous and more im­por­tant. Cor­pus Christi in the coun­ty of Nu­aces, and all the cities sit­uat­ed on the Rio Bra­vo, Lare­do, Co­ma­lites, San Ig­na­cio in Web, Rio Grande city in Starr, Ed­in­burgh in Hi­dal­go, San­ta-​Ri­ta, El Pan­da, and Brownsville in Cameron, formed a pow­er­ful league against the pre­ten­sions of Flori­da.

The de­ci­sion, there­fore, was hard­ly made pub­lic be­fore the Flori­dan and Tex­ican deputies flocked to Bal­ti­more by the short­est way. From that mo­ment Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane and the in­flu­en­tial mem­bers of the Gun Club were be­sieged day and night by formidable claims. If sev­en towns of Greece con­tend­ed for the hon­our of be­ing Homer's birth­place, two en­tire states threat­ened to fight over a can­non.

These ri­val par­ties were then seen march­ing with weapons about the streets of the town. Ev­ery time they met a fight was im­mi­nent, which would have had dis­as­trous con­se­quences. Hap­pi­ly the pru­dence and skill of Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane ward­ed off this dan­ger. Per­son­al demon­stra­tions found an out­let in the news­pa­pers of the dif­fer­ent states. It was thus that the _New York Her­ald_ and the _Tri­bune_ sup­port­ed the claims of Texas, whilst the _Times_ and the _Amer­ican Re­view_ took the part of the Flori­dan deputies. The mem­bers of the Gun Club did not know which to lis­ten to.

Texas came up proud­ly with its twen­ty-​six coun­ties, which it seemed to put in ar­ray; but Flori­da an­swered that twelve coun­ties proved more than twen­ty-​six in a coun­try six times small­er.

Texas bragged of its 33,000 in­hab­itants; but Flori­da, much small­er, boast­ed of be­ing much more dense­ly pop­ulat­ed with 56,000. Be­sides, Flori­da ac­cused Texas of be­ing the home of palu­di­an fevers, which car­ried off, one year with an­oth­er, sev­er­al thou­sands of in­hab­itants, and Flori­da was not far wrong.

In its turn Texas replied that Flori­da need not en­vy its fevers, and that it was, at least, im­pru­dent to call oth­er coun­tries un­healthy when Flori­da it­self had chron­ic “vom­ito ne­gro,” and Texas was not far wrong.

“Be­sides,” added the Tex­icans through the _New York Her­ald_, “there are rights due to a state that grows the best cot­ton in all Amer­ica, a state which pro­duces holm oak for build­ing ships, a state that con­tains su­perb coal and mines of iron that yield fifty per cent. of pure ore.”

To that the _Amer­ican Re­view_ an­swered that the soil of Flori­da, though not so rich, of­fered bet­ter con­di­tions for the cast­ing of the Columbi­ad, as it was com­posed of sand and clay-​ground.

“But,” an­swered the Tex­icans, “be­fore any­thing can be cast in a place, it must get to that place; now com­mu­ni­ca­tion with Flori­da is dif­fi­cult, whilst the coast of Texas of­fers Galve­ston Bay, which is four­teen leagues round, and could con­tain all the fleets in the world.”

“Why,” replied the news­pa­pers de­vot­ed to Flori­da, “your Galve­ston Bay is sit­uat­ed above the 29th par­al­lel, whilst our bay of Es­pir­itu-​San­to opens pre­cise­ly at the 28th de­gree of lat­itude, and by it ships go di­rect to Tam­pa Town.”

“A nice bay tru­ly!” an­swered Texas; “it is half-​choked up with sand.”

“Any one would think, to hear you talk,” cried Flori­da, “that I was a sav­age coun­try.”

“Well, the Semi­noles do still wan­der over your prairies!”

“And what about your Apach­es and your Co­manch­es--are they civilised?”

The war had been thus kept up for some days when Flori­da tried to draw her ad­ver­sary up­on an­oth­er ground, and one morn­ing the _Times_ in­sin­uat­ed that the en­ter­prise be­ing “es­sen­tial­ly Amer­ican,” it ought on­ly to be at­tempt­ed up­on an “es­sen­tial­ly Amer­ican” ter­ri­to­ry.

At these words Texas could not con­tain it­self.

“Amer­ican!” it cried, “are we not as Amer­ican as you? Were not Texas and Flori­da both in­cor­po­rat­ed in the Union in 1845?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered the _Times_, “but we have be­longed to Amer­ica since 1820.”

“Yes,” replied the _Tri­bune_, “af­ter hav­ing been Span­ish or En­glish for 200 years, you were sold to the Unit­ed States for 5,000,000 of dol­lars!”

“What does that mat­ter?” an­swered Flori­da. “Need we blush for that? Was not Louisiana bought in 1803 from Napoleon for 16,000,000 of dol­lars?”

“It is shame­ful!” then cried the Tex­ican deputies. “A mis­er­able slice of land like Flori­da to dare to com­pare it­self with Texas, which, in­stead of be­ing sold, made it­self in­de­pen­dent, which drove out the Mex­icans on the 2nd of March, 1836, which de­clared it­self Fed­er­ative Re­pub­li­can af­ter the vic­to­ry gained by Samuel Hous­ton on the banks of the San Jac­in­to over the troops of San­ta-​An­na--a coun­try, in short, which vol­un­tar­ily joined it­self to the Unit­ed States of Amer­ica!”

“Be­cause it was afraid of the Mex­icans!” an­swered Flori­da.

“Afraid!” From the day this word, re­al­ly too cut­ting, was pro­nounced, the sit­ua­tion be­came in­tol­er­able. An en­gage­ment was ex­pect­ed be­tween the two par­ties in the streets of Bal­ti­more. The deputies were obliged to be watched.

Pres­ident Bar­bi­cane was half driv­en wild. Notes, doc­uments, and let­ters full of threats in­un­dat­ed his house. Which course ought he to de­cide up­on? In the point of view of fit­ness of soil, fa­cil­ity of com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and ra­pid­ity of trans­port, the rights of the two states were re­al­ly equal. As to the po­lit­ical per­son­al­ities, they had noth­ing to do with the ques­tion.

Now this hes­ita­tion and em­bar­rass­ment had al­ready last­ed some time when Bar­bi­cane re­solved to put an end to it; he called his col­leagues to­geth­er, and the so­lu­tion he pro­posed to them was a pro­found­ly wise one, as will be seen from the fol­low­ing:--

“Af­ter due con­sid­er­ation,” said he, “of all that has just oc­curred be­tween Flori­da and Texas, it is ev­ident that the same dif­fi­cul­ties will again crop up be­tween the towns of the favoured state. The ri­val­ry will be changed from state to city, and that is all. Now Texas con­tains eleven towns with the req­ui­site con­di­tions that will dis­pute the hon­our of the en­ter­prise, and that will cre­ate fresh trou­bles for us, whilst Flori­da has but one; there­fore I de­cide for Tam­pa Town!”

The Tex­ican deputies were thun­der­struck at this de­ci­sion. It put them in­to a ter­ri­ble rage, and they sent nom­inal provo­ca­tions to dif­fer­ent mem­bers of the Gun Club. There was on­ly one course for the mag­is­trates of Bal­ti­more to take, and they took it. They had the steam of a spe­cial train got up, packed the Tex­icans in­to it, whether they would or no, and sent them away from the town at a speed of thir­ty miles an hour.

But they were not car­ried off too quick­ly to hurl a last and threat­en­ing sar­casm at their ad­ver­saries.

Mak­ing al­lu­sion to the width of Flori­da, a sim­ple penin­su­la be­tween two seas, they pre­tend­ed it would not re­sist the shock, and would be blown up the first time the can­non was fired.

“Very well! let it be blown up!” an­swered the Flori­dans with a la­con­ism wor­thy of an­cient times.