3159. FRANCE, Peace with.—[continued].
I know that both France
and England have given, and are daily giving,
sufficient cause of war; that in defiance of the
laws of nations, they are every day trampling
on the rights of the neutral powers, whenever
they can thereby do the least injury, either to
the other. But, as I view a peace between
France and England the ensuing winter to be
certain, I have thought it would have been
better for us to continue to bear from France
through the present summer, what we have
been bearing both from her and England
these four years, and still continue to bear
from England, and to have required indemnification
in the hour of peace, when I verily
believe it would have been yielded by both.
This seems to have been the plan of the other
neutral nations; and whether this, or the commencing
war on one of them, as we have
done, would have been wiser, time and events
must decide.—
To Samuel Smith. Washington ed. iv, 254.
Ford ed., vii, 277.
(M.
Aug. 1798)
