mander que l'on ne mette plus d'Obstacles à leur Retour en Amérique

To the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French

Republic.

Citizen Minister,

The undersigned Ministers Plenipotentiary and Envoys Extraordinary from the United States of America to the French Republic, have been hitherto 'restrained by the expectation of entering on the objects of their mission in the forms usual among nations, from addressing to the Executive Directory, through you, those explanations, and reclamations with which they are charged by the government they represent. If this expectation is to be relinquished, yet the unfeigned wish of the United States to restore that harmony between the two republics, which they have so unremittingly sought to preserve, renders it the duty of the undersigned to lay before the government of France, however informal the communication may be deemed, some considerations, in addition to those heretofore submitted, relative to the subsisting differences between the two. nations.

Openly and repeatedly have France and America interchanged unequivocal testimonials of reciprocal regard. These testimonials were given by the United States, with all the ardor and sincerity of youth. It is still believed that on the part of France they were likewise the offspring of real est em. They were considered on the other side of the Atlantic as evidencing a mutual friendship to be as durable as the republics themselves. Unhappily the scene is changed; and America looks around in vain for the ally or the friend. The contrast both of language and of conduct, which the present so avowedly exhibits to a portion of the past, has been repeatedly attributed by France, to a disposition alleged to exist in the government of the United States, unfriendly to this republic, and partial towards its enemies. That government, astonished at a reproach so un

founded in fact, so contradicted by its declarations and its conduct, could scarcely consider the charge as serious, and has ever cherished the hope, that a candid review of its conduct founded on the documents, and aided by the arguments with which the Executive Directory has been furnished, would have rescued it from the injurious suspicion. This hope seems not to have been realized. The undersigned, therefore, deem it proper to precede their application for that justice which they claim from France, by an effort to remove the cause, which is alleged to have produced the injuries of which they complain. With this view, they pray the attention of the Executive Directory to a serious and candid reconsideration of the leading measures adopted by the government of the United States, and they persuade themselves, that however various and multiplied the channels may be through which mis-information, concerning the dispositions of that government, may have been received; yet this reconsideration must remove unfounded prejudices and entirely exculpate the American nation from an accusation it knows to be unfounded, and believes to be supported by no single fact.

When that war which has been waged with such unparalleled fury, which, in its vast vicissitudes of fortune, has alternately threatened the very existence of the conficting parties, but which, in its progress, has surrounded France with splendor, and added still more to her glory than to her territory, when that war first involved those nations with whom the United States were in habits of friendly intercourse, it became incumbent on their government to examine their situation, their connexions and their duties. 'America found herself at peace with all the belligerent powers. She was connected with some of them by treaties of amity and commerce, and with France by a treaty of alliance also. These several treaties were considered with the most serious attention, and with a sincere wish to dẹtermine by fair construction the obligations which they

really imposed. The result of this enquiry was a full conviction, that her engagements by no means bound her to take part in the war, but left her so far the mistress of her own conduct as to be at perfect liberty to observe a system of real neutrality. It is deemed unnecessary to analyze those treaties in order to support the propriety of this decision, because it is not recollected ever to have been questioned and is believed not to admit of doubt.

Being bound by no duty to enter into the war, the government of the United States conceived itself bound by duties the most sacred to abstain from it. Contem

plating man, even in a different society, as the natural friend of man, a state of peace, though unstipulated by treaty, was considered as imposing obligations not to be wantonly violated.

These obligations, created by the laws of nature, were in some instances strengthened by solemn existing engagements, of which good faith required a religious observance.

To a sense of moral right, other considerations of the greatest magnitude were added, which forbade the government of the United States to plunge them unnecessarily into the miseries of the bloody conflict then commencing. The great nations of Europe either impelled by ambition, or by existing or supposed political interests, peculiar to themselves, have consumed more than a third of the present century in wars. Whatever causes may have produced so afflicting an evil, they can..not be supposed to have been entirely extinguished, and humanity can scarcely indulge the hope, that the temper or condition of man is so altered as to exempt the next century from the ills of the past. Strong fortifications, powerful navies, immense armies, the accumulated wealth of ages and a full population, enable the nations of Europe to support those wars in which they are induced to engage, by motives which they deem adequate, and by interests exclusively their own.

States: possessed of an extensive unsettled territory, on which bountiful nature has bestowed, with a lavish hand, all the capacities for future legitimate greatness, they indulge no thirst for conquest, no ambition for the extention of their limits. Encircled by no dangerous powers, they neither fear, nor are jealous of their neighbours, and are not on that account obliged to arm for their own safety. Separated from Europe by a vast and friendly ocean, they are but remotely, if at all, affected by those interests, which agitate and influence this portion of the globe. Thus circumstanced, they have no motive for voluntary war. On the contrary, the most powerful considerations urge them to avoid it.An extensive and undefended commerce, peculiarly necessary to a nation which does not manufacture for itself, which is, and for a long time to come will be almost exclusively argricultural, would have been its immediate and certain victim. The surplus produce of their labour must have perished on their hands, and that increase of population, so essential to a young, country, must, with their prosperity, have sustained a serious check. Their exertions too would not have - been considerable, unless the war, had been transferred to their own bosom.

Great as are the means and resources of the United States for self-defence, it is only in self-defence that those resources can be completely displayed. Neither the genius of the nation, nor the state of its finances, - admit of calling its citizens from the plough, but to defend their own liberty and their own fire-sides. How criminal must have been that government which could -have plunged its constituents into a war, to which they were neither impelled by duty or solicited by interest ; -in which they committed so much to hazard; în which they must suffer, in order to act efficiently, and could only display their energy in repelling invasion? But motives still more powerful than the calamities of the moment, have influenced the government of the United-States..

It was perhaps impossible to have engaged voluntarily in the existing conflict, without launching into the almost boundless ocean of european politics without contracting habits of national conduct, and forming close political connections which must have compromitted the future peace of the nation, and have involved it in all the future quarrels of Europe. A long train of armies, debts and taxes, checking the growth, diminishing the happiness, and perhaps endangering the liberty of the United States, must have followed the adoption of such a system. And for what purpose should it have been adopted? For what purpose should America thus burthen herself with the conflicts of Europe-Not to - comply with any engagements she has formed; not to promote her own views, her own objects, her own happiness, or her own safety; but to move as a Satellite around some greater planet, whose laws she must of necessity obey. In addition to these weighty considerations, it was believed that France would derive more benefit from the neutrality of America, than from her becoming a party in the war.

The determination then of the government of the United States to preserve that neutral station, in which the war found them, far from manifesting a partiality for the enemies of France, was only a measure of justice to itself and to others, and did not even derogate from that predilection for this republic, which it has so repeatedly expressed and displayed. Having avowed this determination, encreased motives of honor and of duty commanded its faithful observance. It is not a principle which remains now to be settled, that a fraudulent neutrality is no neutrality at all; and that the nation, which would be admitted to its privileges, must also perform the duties it enjoins. Had the Government of the United States declared itself neutral, indulged its partialities by granting favours unstipulated by treaty, to one of the belligerent powers, which it refused to another, it could no longer have claimed the immunities