lves, by
suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we
may safely trust to temporary alliances for extra ordinary
emergencies.

29. Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are
recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our
commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand,
neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences;
consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and
diversifying, by gentle means, the streams of commerce, but
forcing nothing; establishing with powers so 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 'tis folly in one nation to look for disinterested
favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its
independence whatever it may accept under that character; that
by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of
having given equivalent for nominal favors, and yet of being
reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no
greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from
nation to nation. 'Tis an illusion which experience must cure,
which a just pride ought to discard.

30. 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 intrigues, and
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 recor