America and Great Britain: 
Jefferson
Quotations
1775 Aug. 25. I am sincerely one of those [who still wish for
reunion with their parent country], and would rather be in dependance
on Great Britain, properly limited, than on any 
nation
upon earth, or than on no nation. But I am one of those too who
rather than submit to the right of legislating for us assumed
by the British parliament...would lend my hand to sink the whole
island in the ocean." (to John Randolph, B.1.242)
1786 May 6. "The English are still our enemies....The spirit existing there, and rising in America, has a very lowering aspect. To what events it may give birth, I cannot foresee. We are young, and can survive them; but their rotten machine must crush under the trial." (to C. W. F. Dumas, B.9.462)
1787 Oct. 9. "The Count de Moustier will find the affections of the Americans with France, but their habits with England. Chained to that country by circumstances, embracing what they loathe, they realize the fable of the living and dead bound together." (to Comte de Moustier, B.12.225)
1787 Dec. 15. "I considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation on earth who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am satisfied that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean, Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other." (to William Carmichael, B.12.424)
1804 April 23. "Would to god that nation would so far be just in her conduct, as that we might with honor give her that friendship it is so much our interest to bear her." (to James Madison, Ford.10.77)
1806 May 4. "No two countries upon earth have so many points of common interest and friendship; and the rulers must be great bunglers indeed, if, with such dispositions, they break them asunder." (to James Monroe, Ford.10.263)
1814 Dec. 10. "Instead of fearing and endeavoring to crush our prosperity, had [the British] cultivated it in friendship, it might have become a bulwark instead of a breaker to them. There has never been an administration in this country which would not gladly have met them more than half way on the road to an equal, a just and solid connection of friendship and intercourse. And as to repressing our growth, they might as well attempt to repress the waves of the ocean." (to John Melish, L&B.14.219)
1815 Mar. 16. "There is not a nation on the globe with whom I have more earnestly wished a friendly intercourse on equal conditions. On no other would I hold out the hand of friendship to any. I know that their creatures represent me as personally an enemy to England. But fools only can believe this, or those who think me a fool. I am an enemy to her insults and injuries. I am an enemy to the flagitious principles of her administration, and to those which govern her conduct towards other nations. But would she give to morality some place in her political code, and especially should she exercise decency, and at least neutral passions towards us, there is not, I repeat it, a people on earth with whom I would sacrifice so much to be in friendship." (to Caesar Rodney, L&B.14.285)
1816 Oct. 16. "Great Britain, in her pride and ascendency, has certainly hated and despised us beyond every earthly object. Her hatred may remain, but the hour of her contempt is passed and is succeeded by dread; not at present, but a distant and deep one. It is the greater as she feels herself plunged into an abyss of ruin from which no human means point out an issue. We also have more reason to hate her than any nation on earth." (to James Monroe, Ford.12.40)
1820 Dec. 27. "Circumstances have nourished between our kindred countries angry dispositions which both ought long since to have banished from their bosoms. I have ever considered a cordial affection as the first interest of both. No nation on earth can hurt us so much as yours, none be more useful to you than ours." (to William Roscoe, L&B.15.303)
1825 Nov. 9. "These two nations holding cordially together, have nothing to fear from the united world. They will be the models for regenerating the condition of man, the sources from which representative government is to flow over the whole earth." (to J. Evelyn Denison, Writings 1502.)
--Ann M. Lucas, Monticello Research Department, February 1996
Pictured: Detail from Map of Europe, Drawn from All the Best Surveys and Rectified by Astronomical Observation (1798), by Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1833); courtesy Library of Congress.