261. ALEXANDER OF RUSSIA, Mission to.—
Desirous of promoting useful intercourse
and good understanding between
your Majesty's subjects and the citizens of the
United States and especially to cultivate the
friendship of your Majesty, I have appointed
William Short, [19]
one of our distinguished citizens,
to be in quality of Minister Plenipotentiary
of the United States, the bearer to
you of assurances of their sincere friendship,
and of their desire to maintain with your
Majesty and your subjects the strictest relations
of amity and commerce; he will explain to your
Majesty the peculiar position of these States,
separated by a wide ocean from the powers
of Europe, with interests and pursuits distinct
from theirs, and consequently without the
motives or the appetites for taking part in the
associations or oppositions which a different
system of interests produces among them: he
is charged to assure your Majesty more particularly
of our purpose to observe a faithful
neutrality towards the contending powers, in
the war to which your Majesty is a party,
rendering to all the services and courtesies of
friendship, and praying for the reestablishment
of peace and right among them; and we entertain
an entire confidence that this just and
faithful conduct on the part of the United
States will strengthen the friendly dispositions
you have manifested towards them, and be a
fresh motive with so just and magnanimous
a sovereign to enforce, by the high influence of
your example, the respect due to the character
and the rights of a peaceable nation.—
To the Emperor of Russia. Washington ed. v, 358.
Ford ed., ix, 206.
(W.
Aug. 1808)
