the month of November preceding, between the United States and Great Britain, filled the measure of the grievances of the Republick.

What had been, until then, the conduct of the French government towards the United States? The undersigned, in order to contrast it with that of the said states, will content himself with recalling facts, which cannot however have been forgotten.

Occupied with the most pressing cares in Europe, the Republick did not direct her attention to the United States, but in order constantly to give them new proofs of the most sincere friendship and interest, and she left it to her agents, amicably to discuss with the federal government, the controversies which have just been sketched, and which, had they been handled on both sides in the true spirit of conciliation, could not have altered their good understanding to the present degree. The Republick was hardly constituted, when a minister was sent to Philadelphia, whose first act was to declare to the United States, that they would not be pressed to execute the defensive clauses of the treaty of alliance, although the circumstances, in the least equivocal manner, exhibited the casus fœderis. Far from appreciating this conduct, the American government received it as the acknowledgment of a right; and it is in this spirit also, that the commissioners and envoys extraordinary have met this question in the beginning of their memorial. The minister of the Republick at Philadelphia, having given uneasiness to the American government, was readily recalled, even with circumstances of extreme rigour. His successor carried to the United States every desirable reparation, as well as declarations the most friendly and sincere.

Nothing equals the spirit of conciliation, or rather of condescension, in which his instructions were drawn, relatively to all the points which caused any uneasiness in the federal government. The citizen Adet again enforced, in the name of the National Convention, those expressions of good will; and that assembly itself received, with the effusion of an unbounded confidence and security, the new minister, whom the President of the United States sent to it, with the apparent intention of sincerely corresponding with the dispositions which the Republick had not ceased to profess.

VOL. IV.

18

What might appear incredible is, that the Republick, and her alliance, were sacrificed at the moment when she thus redoubled her regards for her ally; and that the corresponding demonstrations of the federal government, had no other object, but to keep her, as well as her gov ernment, in a false security.-And yet it is now known, that, at this very period, Mr. Jay, who had been sent to London, solely, as it was then said, to negotiate arrangements relative to the depredations committed upon the American commerce, by the cruisers of Great Britain, signed a treaty of amity, navigation and commerce, the negotiating and signing of which had been kept a profound secret at Paris and at Philadelphia. This treaty was avowed to our minister plenipotentiary only at the last extremity; and it was communicated to him only for form's sake, and after it had received the ratification of the Senate. When the agents of the Republick complained of this mysterious conduct, they were answered by an appeal to the independence of the United States, solemnly sanctioned in the treaties of 1778-a strange manner of contesting a grievance, the reality of which was demonstrated by the dissimulation to which recourse was had an insidious subterfuge, which substitutes for the true point of the question, a general principle, which the Republick cannot be supposed to dispute, and which destroys, by the aid of a sophism, that intimate confidence, which ought to exist between two allies, and which, above all, ought to exist between the French Republick and the United States.

If it be difficult to find in this conduct what ought to be expected from a friend, what must be thought of the treaty itself, and of its provisions? This treaty is now known to all Europe; and the small majority by which it passed the two houses, as well as the multitude of imposing wishes which were expressed by the nation against such an act, bear honourable testimony in favour of the opinion which the French government has adopted concerning it. The undersigned will not repeat, with respect to this treaty, what his predecessor has said of it, in his note of the 19th Ventose, before cited, and in that of the 19th Messidor following, nor what the minister plenipotentiary of the Republick at Philadelphia has set forth, at great length, in his official note of the 25th Brumaire. He

will content himself with observing, summarily, that in this treaty, every thing having been calculated to turn the neutrality of the United States to the disadvantage of the French Republick, and to the advantage of England; that the federal government having in this act made to Great Britain concessions, the most unheard of, the most incompatible with the interests of the United States, the most derogatory to the alliance which subsisted between the said states and the French Republick; the latter was perfectly free, in order to avoid the inconveniences of the treaty of London, to avail itself of the preservative means with which the law of nature, the law of nations, and prior treaties, furnished it.

Such are the reasons which have produced the decrees of the directory, of which the United States complain, as well as the conduct of its agents to the West Indies. All these measures are founded on the 2d article of the treaty of 1778, which requires, that, in matters of navigation and commerce, France should always be, with respect to the United States, on the footing of the most favoured nation. The executive directory cannot be arraigned, if, from the execution of this eventual clause, some inconveniences have resulted to the American flag. As to the abuses which may have sprung from that principle, the undersigned again repeats, that he was ready to discuss them in the most friendly manner.

From this faithful exposition of facts, which have progressively led to the present misunderstanding between the two states, it results, as the undersigned has said, in the beginning of this answer, that the priority of grievances belongs to the French Republick; and that such of its measures as may have occasioned the complaints of the United States, are, with some exceptions, the natural consequence of a state of things, which it depended upon them to create

or not create.

If the undersigned should terminate the exposition of the grievances of the Republick with the treaty of London, he would imperfectly fulfil his task-It is his duty to carry his views further. From the moment that the treaty in question was put into execution, the government of the United States seemed to think itself freed from the necessity of keeping any measures with the Republick; notwithstanding the reiterated assurance which had been

given to its ministers, that the treaty would in no respect change the pre-existing state of neutrality of the United States, notice was given in the course of the year 1796, to the French cruisers, that they could no longer, as had been until then practised, be permitted to sell their prizes in the ports of the United States. This decision was rendered by the federal court of justice, and founded upon the treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain.

The newspapers, known to be under the indirect control of the cabinet, have since the treaty redoubled the invectives and calumnies against the Republick and against her principles, her magistrates, and her envoys. Pamphlets, openly paid for by the minister of Great Britain, have re-produced, in every form, those insults and calumnies, without a state of things so scandalous having ever attracted the attention of the government, which might have repressed it. On the contrary, the government itself was intent upon encouraging this scandal, in its publick acts. The executive directory has seen itself denounced in a speech delivered by the President in the course of the month of May last (O. S.) as endeavouring to propagate anarchy and division within the United States. The new allies which the Republick has acquired, and, who are the same that contributed to the independence of the Americans, have been equally insulted in the official correspondences which have been made publick, or in the newspapers. In fine, one cannot help discovering, in the tone of the speech and of the publications which have been just pointed out, a latent enmity which only waits an opportunity to break out.

Facts being thus established, it is disagreeable to be obliged to think that the instructions, under which the commissioners have acted, have not been drawn up with the sincere intention of attaining pacifick results; because, far from proceeding in their memorial upon some avowed principles and acknowledged facts, they have inverted and confounded both, so as to be enabled to impute to the Republick all the misfortunes of a rupture, which they seem willing to produce by such a course of proceeding. It is evident that the desire plainly declared of supporting, at every hazard, the treaty of London, which is the principal grievance of the Republick, of adhering to the spirit in which this treaty was formed and executed, and of

not granting to the Republick any of the means of reparation, which she has proposed, through the medium of the undersigned, have dictated those instructions. It is equally evident, that no hesitation is made in sacrificing to these strange sentiments, those, which the treaties of 1778, and the recollection of the circumstances in the midst of which they were concluded, ought to inspire.

The remote consequences of such conduct have not escaped the attention of the directory. It is desired, while nothing is omitted to prolong the misunderstanding, and even to augment it, to throw upon the Republick all the odium, in the view of America and of Europe. It is sought to justify by delusive appearances the prejudices with which the name of the Republick is surrounded at pleasure, and the system of exasperation and alienation which is pursued in relation to it, with the most strange obstinacy. It is finally wished to seize the first favourable occasion to consummate an intimate union, with a power, towards which a devotion and partiality is professed, which has long been the principle of the conduct of the federal government.

The intentions which the undersigned here attributes to the government of the United States, are so little disguised, that nothing seems to have been neglected at Philadelphia to manifest them to every eye. It is probably with this view, that it was thought proper to send to the French Republick, persons whose opinions and connexions are too well known, to hope from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory. It is painful for the undersigned to be obliged to make a contrast between this conduct, and that which was pursued towards the cabinet of St. James, under similar circumstances. An eagerness was then felt to send to London, ministers well known for sentiments corresponding with the object of their mission. The Republick, it seems, might have expected a like deference; and if the same propriety has not been observed with respect to it, it is exceedingly probable, that it is to be attributed to the views above alluded to by the undersigned.

It is impossible to foresee whither such dispositions may lead. The undersigned does not hesitate to believe, that the American_nation, like the French nation, sees this state of things with regret, and does not consider its consequences without sorrow. He apprehends, that the American people will not commit a mistake, concerning