4844. LOUISIANA, Mission to France respecting.—[further continued].
You see with what frankness
I communicate with you on this subject;
that I hide nothing from you, and that
I am endeavoring to turn our private friendship
to the good of our respective countries.
And can private friendship ever answer a
nobler end than by keeping two nations at
peace, who, if this new position which one of
them is taking were rendered innocent, have
more points of common interest, and fewer
of collision, than any two on earth; who become
natural friends, instead of natural
enemies, which this change of position would
make them.—
To Dupont de Nemours. Washington ed. iv, 459.
Ford ed., viii, 207.
(W.
Feb. 1803)
