Was this a veiled threat? Not exactly. It was an extension of Montesquieu's theory of laws to international relations, an application of the theories of the French economists on free trade. But even supposing that the theory itself had some remote French origin, to a large extent it was new and typically American. Only former colonies which had won their complete independence could maintain that, in matters of trade, the colonies were completely independent of the metropolis, and that commercial and geographical considerations should outweigh political regulations. The United States were strongly inclined to use every favorable opportunity to make this principle obtain in their relations with their neighbors, and what was a far more dangerous thing, they considered this policy both "a right and a duty under the moral law." It was not political imperialism to be sure, but in our days it certainly would be called commercial imperialism under a moral disguise. At that time, it was really a theory far in advance of both the theory and practice of any European nation, and it is very doubtful whether Jefferson would have found justification for it in any of the authorities on the law of nations he had consulted with reference to the navigation of the Mississippi.[275] There is no doubt that Jefferson fully realized all the implications of his doctrine, for he submitted it to the President before sending it to Short in cipher; but he insisted that, if the contents of his letter were permitted to leak out at a favorable opportunity, "the National Assembly might see the impolicy of insisting on particular conditions, which, operating as grievances on us, as well as on their colonists, might produce a concert of action."[276] The news of the flight of the king was for him another evidence of the "fruits of that form of government, which heaps importance on idiots, and which the Tories of the present day are trying to preach into our favor." Then he added significantly: "I still hope the French revolution will issue happily. I feel that the permanence of our own leans in some degree on that; and that a failure there would be a powerful argument to prove there would be a failure here."[277]