9086. WEST INDIES, Opening the.—
Your communications to the Count de Moustier, whatever they may have been, cannot have done
injury to my endeavors here [Paris], to open
the West Indies to us. On this head, the ministers
are invincibly mute, though I have often
tried to draw them into the subject. I have,
therefore, found it necessary to let it lie, till
war, or other circumstance, may force it on.
Whenever they are at war with England, they
must open the Islands to us, and perhaps during
that war they may see some price which might
make them agree to keep them always open.—
To General Washington. Washington ed. ii, 536.
Ford ed., v, 57.
(P.
1788)
