It will be observed that Washington warned his countrymen against _permanent_ alliances. He expressly said that we might "safely trust to _temporary_ alliances for extraordinary emergencies." Further than this many of those who are continually quoting Washington's warning against alliances not only fail to note the limitations under which the advice was given, but they also overlook the reasons assigned. In a succeeding paragraph of the Farewell Address he said: "With me a predominant motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own fortunes." The expression "entangling alliances" does not occur in the Farewell Address, but was given currency by Jefferson. In his first inaugural address he summed up the principles by which he proposed to regulate his foreign policy in the following terms: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." During the brief interval of peace following the treaty of Amiens in 1801, Napoleon undertook the reestablishment of French power in Santo Domingo as the first step in the development of a colonial empire which he determined upon when he forced Spain to retrocede Louisiana to France by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. Fortunately for us the ill-fated expedition to Santo Domingo encountered the opposition of half a million negroes and ultimately fell a prey to the ravages of yellow fever. As soon as Jefferson heard of the cession of Louisiana to France, he instructed Livingston, his representative at Paris, to open negotiations for the purchase of New Orleans and West Florida, stating that the acquisition of New Orleans by a powerful nation like France would inevitably lead to friction and conflict. "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low water mark. It seals the union of two nations who in conjunction can maintain exclusive possession of the ocean. From that moment we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation. We must turn all our attentions to a maritime force, for which our resources place us on very high grounds: and having formed and cemented together a power which may render reinforcement of her settlements here impossible to France, make the first cannon, which shall be fired in Europe the signal for tearing up any settlement she may have made, and for holding the two continents of America in sequestration for the common purposes of the united British and American nations. This is not a state of things we seek or desire. It is one which this measure, if adopted by France, forces on us, as necessarily as any other cause, by the laws of nature, brings on its necessary effect."