I
see him often, and with great pleasure mixed with commiseration. He is
as pure a son of liberty as I have ever known, and of that liberty which
is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. We are here under
great anxiety to hear from our Envoys.
*****
I agree with you that some of our merchants have been milking the cow:
yet the great mass of them have become deranged, they are daily falling
down by bankruptcies, and on the whole, the condition of our commerce
far less firm and really prosperous, than it would have been by the
regular operations and steady advances which a state of peace would have
occasioned. Were a war to take place, and throw our agriculture into
equal convulsions with our commerce, our business would be done at both
ends. But this I hope will not be. The good news from the Natchez has
cut off the fear of a breach in that quarter, where a crisis was brought
on which has astonished every one. How this mighty duel is to end
between Great Britain and France, is a momentous question. The sea which
divides them makes it a game of chance; but it is narrow, and all the
chances are not on one side. Should they make peace, still our fate is
problematical.
The countervailing acts of Great Britain, now laid before Congress,
threaten, in the opinion of merchants, the entire loss of our navigation
to England.
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