8386. TERRITORY, British acquisition of American.—
The consequences of their [the British] acquiring all the country on our frontier, from the St. Croix to the St. Mary's,
are too obvious to you to need development.
You will readily see the dangers which would
then environ us. We wish you, therefore, to intimate
to them that we cannot be indifferent
to enterprises of this kind; that we should contemplate
a change of neighbors with extreme
uneasiness; and that a due balance on our
borders is not less desirable to us, than a
balance of power in Europe has always appeared
to them. We wish to be neutral, and
we will be so, if they will execute the treaty
[of peace] fairly, and attempt no conquests
adjoining us. The first condition is just; the
second imposes no hardship on them. They
cannot complain that the other dominions of
Spain would be so narrow as not to leave
them room enough for conquest. [477]
—
To Gouverneur Morris. Washington ed. iii, 182.
Ford ed., v, 224.
(N.Y.,
1790)
