first cannon which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the United British and American nations.  This is not a state of things we seek or desire.  It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us as necessarily, as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect.  It is not from a fear of France that we deprecate this measure proposed by her.  For however greater her force is than ours, compared in the abstract, it is nothing in comparison of ours, when to be exerted on our soil.  But it is from a sincere love of peace, and a firm persuasion, that, bound to France by the interests and the strong sympathies still existing in the minds of our citizens, and holding relative positions which insure their continuance, we are secure of a long course of peace.  Whereas, the change of friends, which will be rendered necessary if France changes that position, embarks us necessarily as a belligerent power in the first war of Europe.  In that case, France will have held possession of New Orleans during the interval of a peace, long or short, at the end of which it will be wrested from her.  Will this short-lived possession have been an equivalent to her for the transfer of such a weight into the scale of her enemy?  Will not the amalgamation of a young, thriving nation, continue to that enemy the health and force which are at present so evidently on the decline?  And will a few years’ possession of New Orleans add equally to the strength of France?  She may say she needs Louisiana for the supply of her West Indies.  She does not need it in time of peace, and in war she could not depend on them, because they would be so easily intercepted.  I should suppose that all these considerations might, in some proper form, be brought into view of the government of France.  Though stated by us, it ought not to give offence; because we do not bring them forward as a menace, but as consequences not controllable by us, but inevitable from the course of things.  We mention them, not as things which we desire by any means, but as things we deprecate; and we beseech a friend to look forward and to prevent them for our common interests.

If France considers Louisiana, however, as indispensable for her views, she might perhaps be willing to look about for arrangements which might reconcile it to our interests.  If any thing could do this, it would be the ceding to us the island of New Orleans and the Floridas.  This would certainly, in a great degree, remove the causes of jarring and irritation between us, and perhaps for such a length of time, as might produce other means of making the measure permanently conciliatory to our interests and friendships.  It would, at any rate, relieve us from the necessity of taking immediate measures for countervailing such an operation by arrangements in another quarter.  But still we should consider New Orleans and the Floridas as no equivalent for the risk of a quarrel with France, produced by her vicinage.