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
it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors 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 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. 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 intrigues, 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, that I have at least
believed myself to be guided by them.

"In r