4818. LOUISIANA, Federalist opposition.—[continued].
These grumblers [the
opposition], too, are very uneasy lest the administration
should share some little credit
for the acquisition, the whole of which they
ascribe to the accident of war. They would
be cruelly mortified could they see our files
from May, 1801 [April 1801 in Ford edition],
the first organization of the administration,
but more especially from April, 1802. They
would see, that though we could not say
when war would arise, yet we said with
energy what would take place when it should
arise. We did not, by our intrigues, produce
the war; but we availed ourselves of it when
it happened. The other party saw the case
now existing, on which our representations
were predicted, and the wisdom of timely sacrifice.
But when these people make the war
give us everything, they authorize us to ask
what the war gave us in their day? They had
a war. What did they make it bring us?
Instead of making our neutrality the ground
of gain to their country, they were for plunging
into the war. And if they were now in
place, they would now be at war against the
atheists and disorganizers of France. They
were for making their country an appendage
to England. We are friendly, cordially and
conscientiously friendly to England. We are
not hostile to France. We will be rigorously
just and sincerely friendly to both. I do not
believe we shall have as much to swallow
from them as our predecessors had.—
To General Horatio Gates. Washington ed. iv, 495.
Ford ed., viii, 250.
(W.
July. 1803)
