The West India commerce now gives us most anxiety. If the former British Ministry had stood, we might have secured it from England, and, in that case, France would have been obliged to admit us to their islands, _se defendendo_. The first maxim of a statesman, as well as that of a statuary, or a painter, should be to study nature; to cast his eyes round about his country, and see what advantages nature has given it. This was well attended to, in the boundary between the United States and Canada, and in the fisheries. The commerce of the West India Islands, falls necessarily into the natural system of the commerce of the United States. We are necessary to them and they to us; and there will be a commerce between us. If the government forbid it, it will be carried on clandestinely; France can more easily connive at a contraband trade than England. But we ought to wish to avoid the temptation to this. I believe, that neither France nor England will allow us to transport the productions of their Islands to other parts of Europe. The utmost we may hope to obtain would be permission to import the productions of the French Islands into France, giving bond to land them in some port of that kingdom, and the productions of the English Islands into some port of Great Britain, giving bonds to land them there. It must, however, be the care of the Minister, who may have to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Great Britain, to obtain as ample freedom in this trade as possible. While I was writing the above, my servant announced the Imperial Ambassador, whom I rose to receive. He said, that he was happy that the circumstances of the times afforded him an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with me, which he hoped would be improved into a more intimate one. I said, his Excellency did me great honor, and begged him to sit, which he did, and fell into a conversation of an hour. We ran over a variety of subjects, particularly the commerce which might take place between the United States and Germany, by the way of Trieste and Fiume, and the Austrian Netherlands, and the great disposition in Germany to migration to America. He says he knows the country round about Trieste very well, having an estate there; that it is a very extensive and a very rich country, which communicates with that maritime city, and that the navigation of the Adriatic sea, though long, is not dangerous. I asked him what we should do with the Barbary powers. He said, he thought all the powers of the world ought to unite in the suppression of such a detestable race of pirates, and that the Emperor had lately made an insinuation to the Porte upon the subject. I asked him if he thought France and England would agree to such a project, observing that I had heard that some Englishmen had said, "if there were no Algiers, England ought to build one." He said, he could not answer for England.