902. BONAPARTE (N.), United States, Russia and.—[further continued].
It is cruel that we should
have been forced to wish any success to such
a destroyer of the human race. Yet while
it was our interest and that of humanity that
he should not subdue Russia, and thus lay
all Europe at his feet, it was desirable to us
that he should so far succeed as to close the
Baltic to our enemy, and force him, by the
pressure of internal distress, into a disposition
to return to the paths of justice towards us.—
To John Clarke. Washington ed. vi, 308.
(M.
Jan. 1814)
