o disposed,
in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our
merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual
opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view, that it is folly in one nation to look for
disinterested favours from another; that it must pay with a portion of
its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that
by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having
given equivalents for nominal favours, and yet of being reproached
with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error
than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from nation to nation.
It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought
to discard.

"In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual
current of the passions; or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations; but if I may even
flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign
intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism;
this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your
welfare by which they have been dictated.

"How far, in the discharge of my official duties, I have been guided
by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and
other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To
myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have, at least,
believed myself to be guided by them.

"In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of
the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your
approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of
congress; the spirit of that measure has continually governed me;
uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

"After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could
obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the
circumstances of the case, had