Note 996 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
"Altho' at first he proposed a separation of the Western country, ... yet he very early saw that the fidelity of the Western country was not to be shaken and turned himself wholly towards Mexico and so popular is an enterprize on that country in this, that we had only to be still, & he could have had followers enough to have been in the city of Mexico in 6. weeks." (Jefferson to James Bowdoin, U.S. Minister to Spain, April 2, 1807, Works: Ford, x, 381-82.)
In this same letter Jefferson makes this amazing statement: "If we have kept our hands off her [Spain] till now, it has been purely out of respect for France.... We expect therefore from the friendship of the emperor [Napoleon] that he will either compel Spain to do us justice, or abandon her to us. We ask but one month to be in ... the city of Mexico."