further pleasure.

Through the whole of this business, it will be best that you avoid all
suspicion of being on any public business. This need be known only to
the Chevalier Pinto and Mr. Carmichael. The former need not know of your
journey to Madrid, or if it be necessary, he may be made to understand
that it is a journey of curiosity, to fill up the interval between
writing your letters and receiving the answers. To every other person,
it will be best that you appear as a private traveller.

The President of the United States allows you from this date, at the
rate of two thousand two hundred and fifty dollars a year, for your
services and expenses, and moreover, what you may incur for the postage
of letters; until he shall otherwise order.

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER XXXVIII.--TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, August 12, 1790

TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.

New York, August 12, 1790.

Dear Sir,

Your letter of May the 29th to the President of the United States has
been duly received. You have placed their proposition of exchanging a
minister on proper ground. It must certainly come from them, and come in
unequivocal form. With those who respect their own dignity so much,
ours must not be counted at nought. On their own proposal, formally,
to exchange a minister, we sent them one. They have taken no notice of
that, and talk of agreeing to exchange one now, as if the idea were new.
Besides, what they are saying to you, they are talking to us through
Quebec; but so informally, that they may disavow it when they please. It
would only oblige them to make the fortune of the poor Major, whom they
would pretend to sacrifice. Through him, they talk of a minister,
a treaty of commerce and alliance. If the object of the latter
be honorable, it is useless; if dishonorable, inadmissible. These
tamperings prove, they view a war as very possible; and some symptoms
indicate designs against the Spanish possessions adjoining us. The
consequences of their acquiring all the country on our frontier,
from the St. Croix to the St. Mary's, are too obvious to you, to need
developement. 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