Yesterday evening Mr. Hartley met with Mr. Jay and myself when the ratifications of the definitive treaty were exchanged. Thus the great and hazardous enterprise we have been engaged in, is, god be praised, happily completed: an event I hardly expected I should live to see. A few years of peace well improved will restore and increase our strength. But our future safety will depend on our union and our virtue. Britain will be long watching for advantages to recover what she las lost. If we do not convince the world that we are a nation to be defended on for fidelity in treaties; if we appear negligent in paying our debts and ungrateful to those who have served and befriended us, our reputation and all the strength it is capable of procuring will be lost, and fresh attacks upon us will be encouraged and promoted by better prospects of success. Let us therefore beware of being lulled into a dangerous security and of being enervated and empoverished by luxury; of being weakened by internal contentions and divisions; of being shamefully extravagant in contracting private debts, while we are backward in discharging honorably those of the public; of neglecting militia exercises and discipline and in providing stores and munition of [war] to be [ready] on occasion. For all these are circumstances that give confidence to enemies and diffidence to friends. And the expences required to prevent a war are much lighter than those that will, if not prevented, be absolutely necessary to maintain it” Extract of a private letter from Do[c]tor Franklin