He elaborated on his policy with reference to the West Indies in another letter to Short, written three months later. In it will be found expressed more discreetly, but no less firmly, the philosophy outlined already with reference to Spain and the Mississippi. He maintained first of all that the United States had no design whatever on the West Indies, for "If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." This principle once established, he proceeded to examine the situation from a practical point of view. The regulations imposed by the French on their colonies are such that they cannot trade directly with their neighbors; for the supplies necessary to relieve their mutual wants have to be carried first to France in order to be exported either to the colonies or to the American continent. This is contrary to the natural order of things: "An exchange of surplusses and wants between neighbor nations, is both a right and a duty under the moral law, and measures against right should be mollified in their exercise, if it be wished to lengthen them to the greatest term possible." It seemed to Jefferson that such a right ought to be recognized by any unprejudiced mind; but, unfortunately, "Europeans in general have been too long in the habit of confounding force with right with respect to America." Circumstances are such that these rights cannot be pressed very strongly and "can be advanced only with delicacy", but what the United States cannot do themselves, Lafayette perhaps can present informally to his friends. He alone can make them understand that, while they are establishing a new régime for their colonial possessions of the West Indies, "in policy, if not in justice, they should be disposed to avoid oppression, which, falling on us, as well as on their colonies, might tempt us to act together."[274]