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2700. ENGLAND, War with.—[further continued].

I observed to Mr. Erskine
[British Minister] that if we wished
war with England, as the federalists charged
us, and I feared his government might believe,
nothing would have been so easy when
the Chesapeake was attacked, and when even
the federalists themselves would have concurred;
but, on the contrary, that our endeavors
had been to cool down our countrymen,
and carry it before their government.—
The Anas. Ford ed., i, 337.
(Nov. 1808)


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