Adventurers had wandered into the country and returned with terrible stories of the unhealthiness of the climate as well as the difficulties to be overcome in reaching it; thus deterring the emigrant who desired a new home.  When General Jackson was elected to the Presidency a new policy was inaugurated.  The Indians were removed beyond the Mississippi; the lands they had occupied were brought into market, and a flood of emigration poured into these new acquisitions.  Cotton had suddenly grown into great demand.  The increase of population, and the great cheapness of the, fabrics from cotton, had increased the demand.  In Europe it had rapidly increased, and in truth all over the world.  Emigration from Europe had set in to a heavy extent upon the United States, and the West was growing in population so rapidly as to create there a heavy demand for these fabrics.  The world was at peace; commerce was unrestricted, and prosperity was everywhere.  Europe had recovered from her long war, and the arts of peace had taken hold of every people, and were bearing their fruit.  All the lands intermediate between the frontiers west of Georgia and Tennessee and those of the east of Mississippi and Louisiana were soon appropriated; and the more fertile lands of the two latter States were coming rapidly into request for the purpose of cotton cultivation.

The great flood of 1828 had swept over every cultivated field west of the Mississippi, and seemed to demonstrate the folly of ever attempting to reduce these lands to profitable cultivation.  But with the increase of population came wealth and enterprise.  The levees were continued up the river.  A long period of comparatively low water encouraged settlements upon the alluvial bottoms.  The levees were continued up the west bank, and in a few years the forests had melted away from the margin of the river.  Large fields were in their stead, and were continually increasing in extent.  Improvements of a superior character were commencing, and an occasional break in the levee, and partial inundation, did not deter, but rather stimulated the planters to increased exertion, to discipline and control the great floods poured down from the rain-sheds extending from the headwaters of the Ohio to those of the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red Rivers, embracing in extent an area greater than the continent of Europe.  It really seemed an attempt to defy the decrees of fate.  In 1828, the waters from Cairo to Baton Rouge, a distance of nine hundred miles, averaged fifty miles in width.  For months the great river was covered with forests of timber, torn up with the roots by the flood, floating and tumbling wildly along the terrible torrent, making the navigation extremely dangerous for the few steamers then upon the river.  How often have I heard old men, who were long resident in the country, when standing on the bluff at Natchez, viewing the extent of that memorable flood, say:  “Every man who attempts