His support for annexation now flew into the realm of fantasy. On the one hand, he admitted the Dominican republic was a weak nation, with fewer than 120,000 inhabitants; on the other, he prophesied that it was “capable of supporting a population of 10,000,000 of people in luxury.” Even though he had never visited the place, Grant advertised it as paradise on earth: “It possesses the richest soil, best and most capacious harbors, most salubrious climate and the greatest abundance of [most valuable] products of the forest, mine and soil, of any of the [West India] islands.”
