TO WILLIAM SHORT.

New York, August 10,1790.

Dear Sir,

This letter, with the very confidential papers it encloses, will be
delivered to you by Mr. Barrett with his own hands. If there be no war
between Spain and England, they need be known to yourself alone. But
if that war be began, or whenever it shall begin, we wish you to
communicate them to the Marquis de la Fayette, on whose assistance we
know we can count in matters which interest both our countries. He
and you will consider how far the contents of these papers may be
communicated to the Count de Montmorin, and his influence be asked with
the court of Madrid. France will be called into the war, as an ally, and
not on any pretence of the quarrel being in any degree her own. She may
reasonably require, then, that Spain should do every thing which depends
on her, to lessen the number of her enemies. She cannot doubt that we
shall be of that number, if she does not yield our right to the common
use of the Mississippi, and the means of using and securing it. You will
observe, we state in general the necessity, not only of our having a
port near the mouth of the river (without which we could make no use
of the navigation at all), but of its being so well separated from the
territories of Spain and her jurisdiction, as not to engender daily
disputes and broils between us. It is certain, that if Spain were to
retain any jurisdiction over our entrepot, her officers would abuse that
jurisdiction, and our people would abuse their privileges in it. Both
parties must foresee this, and that it will end in war. Hence the
necessity of a well defined separation. Nature has decided what shall be
the geography of that in the end, whatever it might be in the beginning,