2303. DUPONT DE NEMOURS, Confidence in.—
You will perceive the unlimited
confidence I repose in your good faith, and in
your cordial dispositions to serve both countries,
when you observe that I leave the letters
for Chancellor Livingston open for your perusal.
The first page respects a cipher, as do the
loose sheets folded with the letter. These are
interesting to him and myself only, and therefore
are not for your perusal. It is the second,
third, and fourth pages which I wish you to
read, to possess yourself of completely, and
then seal the letter with wafers stuck under
the flying seal, that it may be seen by nobody
else if any accident should happen to you. I
wish you to be possessed of the subject, because
you may be able to impress on the government
of France the inevitable consequences of their
taking possession of Louisiana; and though, as
I here mention, the cession of New Orleans
and the Floridas to us would be a palliation,
yet I believe it would be no more, and that this
measure will cost France, and perhaps not very
long hence, a war which will annihilate her on
the ocean, and place that element under the
despotism of two nations, which I am not reconciled
to the more because my own would be
one of them.—
To M. Dupont de Nemours. Washington ed. iv, 435.
(W.
April. 1802)
