But in my opinion, it is unneceffary and would be unwife to extend them. Taking care always to keep yourfelves, by fuitable eftablishments, on a refpectable defenfive posture, we may fafely truft to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies. Harmony, liberal intercourfe with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and intereft. But even our commercial policy fhould hold an equal and impartial hand; neither feeking nor granting exclufive favours or preferences, confulting the natural courfe of things diffufing and diverfifying by gentle means the ftreams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers fo difpofed, in order to give trade a ftaple courfe, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them; conventional rules of intercourfe, the best that prefent circumftances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumftances fhall dictate; conftantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for difinterested favours from another: that it muft pay with a proportion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by fuch acceptance, it may place itfelf in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favours from nation to nation. It is an illufion which experience muft cure; which a jutt pride ought to difcard. In offering to you, my country men, thefe counfels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the ftrong and lafting impreffion I could with; that they will controul the ufual current of the paffions, or prevent our nation from running the courfe which has hitherto marked the deftiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myfelf that they may be productive of fome partial benefit, fome occafional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn againft the mifchiefs of foroign intrigue, to guard against the impoftors of pretended patriotifm; this hope will be a full recompence for the folicitnde of your welfare, by which they have been dictated. How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduc muft witness to you and to the world. To myself the affurance of my own confcience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them. In relation to the flill fubfifting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approved voice, and by that of your reprefentatives in both houfes of congrefs, the fpirit of that meafure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it. After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well fatisfied that our, country, under all the circumftances of the cafe, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and intereft to take a neutral pofition. pofition. Having taken it, I de termined, as far as thould depend upon me, to maintain it with mederation, perfeverance and firm nefs. The confiderations which respect the right to hold this conduct it is not neceffary on this occafion to detail. I will only obferve, that according to my underftanding of the matter, that right, fo far from being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually admitted by all. The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which juftice and humanity impofe on every nation in cafes in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations. The inducements of intereft for obferving that conduct will beft be referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant motive has been to endea vour to gain time to our country to fettle and mature its yet recent inftitutions, and to progrefs without interruption, to that degree of ftrength and confiftency, which is neceffary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own for tunes. Though in reviewing the incidents of adminiftration I am unconfcious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too fenfible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have cominitted many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently befeech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I fhall alfo carry with me the hope that my country will never ceafe to view them with indulgence; and that after forty five years of my life dedicated to its fervice, with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be configned to oblivion, as myself muft foon be to the manfions of rest. Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by that fervent love towards it, which is fo natural to a man who views in it the native foil of himself and his progenitors for feveral genera tions, I anticipate with pleafing expectation that retreat, in which I promife myfelf to realize, without alloy, the fweet enjoyment of partaking, in the midit of my fellow citizens, the benign influence of good laws, under a free govern ment, the ever favourite object of my heart, and the happy reward, as I truft of our mutual cares, labours, and dangers. G. WASHINGTON. United States, Sept. 17, 1796. Note from the French Envoy, Citizen Adet, to the Executive Government of America. THE underfigned minifter ple nipotentiary of the French republic, in conformity to the order of his government, has the honour of tranfmitting to the fecretary of ftate of the United States, a refolution taken by the executive government of the French republic, on the 14th Meffidor, 4th year, relative to the conduct which the fhips of war of the republic are to hold towards neutral veffels. The flag of the republic will treat the flag of neutrals in the fame manner as they fhall fuffer it to be treated by the English. The fentiments which the American government have manifefted to the under figned minifter plenipotentiary, potentiary, do not permit him to doubt, that they will fee in its true light this measure, as far as it may concern the United States; and that they will alfo feel, that it is dictated by imperious circumftances, and approved by justice. Great Britain during the war the has carried on against the republic, has not ceafed using every means in her power to add to that fcourge fcourges ftill more terrible. She has ufed the well-known liberality of the French nation to the detriment of that nation. Knowing how faithful France has always been in the obfervance of her treaties; knowing that it was a principle of the republic to refpect the flags of all nations, the British government, from the beginning of the war, has caused neutral veffels, and in particular American veffels, to be detained, taken them into their ports, and dragged from them Frenchmen and French property. France bound by a treaty with the United States, could find only a real disadvantage in the articles of that treaty, which caufed to be refpected as American property English property found on board American veffels. They had a right, under this confideration, to expect that America would take fteps in favour of her violated neutrality. One of the predeceffors of the underfigned, in July 1793, ap. plied on this fubject to the government of the United States; but he was not fuccessful. Never theless the national convention, who, by their decree of the 9th of May, 1793, had ordered the feizure of enemy's property on board neutral veffels, declaring, at the fame time, that the measure fhould ceafe when the English, should respect neutral flags, had excepted, on the VOL, XXXVIII. 23d of the fame month, the Americans from the operation of this general order. But the convention was obliged foon to repeal the law which contained this exception fo favourable to Americans; the manner in which the English conducted themfeles, the manifeft intention they had to stop the exportation of provifion from, America to France, rendered it unavoidable. The national convention by this had reftored the equilibrium of neutrality which England had deftroyed; had difcharged their duty in a manner justified by a thousand paft examples, as well as by the neceffity of the then exifting moment. They might, therefore, to recall the orders they had given to feize the enemy's property on board American veffels, have waited till the British government had firft definitively revoked the fame order, a fufpenfion only of which was produced by the embargo laid by Congrefs the 26th of March, 1794. But as foon as they were informed that, under orders of the government of the United States, Mr. Jay was directed to remonftrate against the vexatious measures of the English, they gave orders, by the law of the 13th Nivofe, 3₫ year, to the hips of war of the republic to refpect American veffels; and the committee of public fafety, in their explanatory refolve of the 14th of the fame month, haftened to fanction the fame principles. The national convention and the committee of public fafety had every reafon to believe, that this open and liberal conduct would determine the United States to use every effort to put a stop to the vexations impofed upon their commerce, to the injury of the French X republic; Tepublic; they were deceived in this hope; and though the treaty of friendship, navigation, and commerce, between Great Britain and the United States had been figned fix weeks before France adopted the measure I have juft fpoken of, the English did not abandon the plan they had formed, and continued to ftop and carry into their ports all American veffels bound to French ports, or returning from them. This conduct was the fubject of a note which the underfigned addreffed on the 7th Vendemaire, 4th year (29th September 1795, O. S.) to the fecretary of state. The remonftrances which it contained were founded on the duties of neutrality, upon the principles which Mr. Jefferfon had laid down in his letter to Mr. Pinckney, dated the 13th September, 1794 Yet this note has remained without an answer, though recalled to the remembrance of the fecretary of fiate by a dispatch of the 9th Germinal, 4th year (29th March 1796, O. S.); and American veffels bound to French ports, or returning from them, have ftill been feized by the English. Indeed more; they have added a new vexation to thofe they had already impofed upon the Americans; they have impreffed feamen from on board American veffels, and have thus found the means of firengthening their crews at the expence of the Americans, without the government of the United States having made known to the underfigned the fteps they had taken to obtain fatisfaction for this violation of neutrality, fo hurtful to the interefts of France, as the underfigned hath fet forth in his dif patches to the secretary of state of the 9th Germinal, 4th year (29th March 1796, O. S.), 19th Germinal (8th April 1796), and 1ft Floreal (20th April, 1796), which have remained without an answer. The French government then finds itself, with respect to America at the prefent time, in circumftances fimilar to thofe of the year 1795; and if it fees itfelf, obliged to abandon, with respect to them, and the neutral powers in general, the favourable line of conduct they pursued, and to adopt different measures, the blame fhould fall upon the British government: it is their conduct which the French government has been obliged to follow. The underfigned minifter plenipotentiary conceives it his duty to remark to the fecretary of state, that the neutral governments, or the allies of the republic, have nothing to fear as to the treatment of their flag by the French, fince if keeping within the bounds of their neutrality, they cause the rights of that neutrality to be refpected by the Englifh, the republic will refpect them. But if through weaknefs, partiality, or other motives, they thould fuffer the English to fport with that neutrality, and turn it to their advantage, could they then complain, when France, to restore the balance of neutrality to its equilibrium, fhall act in the fame manner as the English? No, certainly; for the neutrality of a nation confifts in granting to belligerent powers the fame advantages; and that neutrality no longer exifts, when, in the courfe of the war, that neutral nation grants to one of the belligerent powers powers advantages not ftipulated by treaties anterior to the war, or fuffers that power to feize upon them. The neutral government cannot then complain if the other belligerent power will enjoy advantages which its enemy enjoys, or if it feizes upon them; otherwife that neutral government would deviate, with refpect to it, from the line of neutrality, and would become its enemy. The underfigned minifter plenipotentiary thinks it ufelefs further to develope thefe principles. He does not doubt that the fecretary of ftate feels all their force and that the government of the United States will maintain from all violation a neutrality which France has always refpected, and will always refpect, when her enemies do not make it turn to her detriment. The undersigned minifter plenipotentiary embraces this opportunity of reiterating to the fecretary of ftate the affurance of his efteem, and informs him, at the fame time, that he will caufe this note to be printed, in order to make publicly known the motives which, at the present juncture, influence the French republic. Done at Philadelphia, 6th Bru- P. A. ADET. Reply of the Executive Government I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your note, of the 27th ult. covering a decree of the executive directory of the French republic, concerning the commerce of neutral nations. This decree makes no diftin&tion between neutral powers, who can claim only the rights fecured to them by the law of nations, and others between whom and the French republic treaties have impofed fpecial obligations. Where no treaties exift, the republic, by feizing and confifcating the property of their enemies found on board neutral veffels, would only exercife an acknowledged right under the law of nations. If, towards fuch neutral nations, the French republic has forborne to execute this right, the forbearance has been perfectly gratuitous. The United States by virtue of their treaty of commerce with France, ftand on different ground. In the year 1778, France vo◄ luntarily entered into a commercial treaty with us, on principles of perfeet reciprocity, and exprefsly ftipulating that free ships should make free goods. That is, if France fhould be at war with any nation with whom the United States thould be at peace, the goods (except contraband) and the perfons of her enemies (foldiers in actual fervice excepted) found on board the veffels of the United States, were to be free from capture. That on the other hand, if the United States fhould en:gage in war with any nation, while France remained at peace, then the goods (except contraband) and the perfons of our enemies (foldiers in actual service excepted) found on board French veffels, were also to be free from capture. This is plainly expreffed in the 23d article of that treaty, and demonftrates that the reciprocity thereby ftipuX 2 lated |