3035. FLORIDA, Buying.—[further continued] .
If you can succeed in procuring
us Florida, and a good Western boundary,
it will fill the American mind with joy.
It will secure to our fellow citizens one of their
most ardent wishes, a long peace with Spain
and France. For be assured, the object of
war with them and alliance with England,
which, at the last session of Congress, drew off
from the republican band about half a dozen
of its members, is universally reprobated by our
native citizens from north to south. I have
never seen the nation stand more firmly to its
principles, or rally so firmly to its constituted
authorities, and in reprobation of the opposition
to them.—
To James Bowdoin. Washington ed. v, 18.
(W.
1806)
