3303. FRIENDSHIP WITH ENGLAND, Her advantage.—
If the British
adopt a course of friendship with us, the commerce
of one hundred millions of people,
which some now born will live to see will
maintain them forever as a great unit of the
European family. But if they go on checking,
irritating, injuring, and hostilizing us,
they will force on us the motto “Carthago delenda
est”. And some Scipio Americanus will
leave to posterity the problem of conjecturing
where stood once the ancient and splendid
city of London. * * * I hope the good
sense of both parties will concur in travelling
rather the paths of peace, of affection, and
reciprocations of interests.—
To C. F. Gray. Washington ed. vi, 439.
(M.
1815)
