The preamble to the decree sets forth, that information, recently received from the French colonies and the continent of America, leaves no room to doubt that French cruisers, or such as call themselves French, have infringed the laws of the Republic relative to cruising and prizes; and that foreigners and pirates have abused the latitude allowed, at Cayenne and the West India Islands, to vessels fitted out for cruising. or for war and commerce, in order to cover with the French flag their extortions, and the violation of the respect due to the law of nations, and to the persons and property of allies and neutrals.' And Mr. Talleyrand, in one of his letters before noticed, dated the 22d of July last, speaks of this information as having been just received.'

But what has been more notorious than French depredations on neutral, and, especially, on American commerce, in violation of treaties and the law of nations? These have been coeval with the existing war in Europe; but were multiplied under the loose decree of the Executive Directory, passed the second of July, 1796, declaring that the flag of the French Republic will treat neutral vessels, either as to confiscation, to searches, or to capture, in the same manner as they shall suffer the English to treat them.'

This decree committed the whole commerce of neutrals, in the first instance, to the rapacity of the French privateers, and then to the discretion of their agents, consuls, and tribunals. These had only to say, truly or falsely, that the English treated neutrals in any given way, and then they were to treat them in the same manner. Accordingly, we have seen Santhonax and Raimond, Commissioners of the French Government in St. Domingo, in their adjudication of an American vessel, on the 10th of January, 1797, declare that the resolution (or decree) passed by the Executive Directory, on the 2d of July, 1796, prescribes to all the armed vessels of the Republic, and the armed vessels belonging to individuals, to treat neutral vessels in the same manner as they suffer the English to treat them;' and 'that it is in consequence of the above resolution of the Executive Directory, and in consequence of the manner in which the English Government, in the Antilles. treats neutral vessels, that the commission passed their resolution of the 7th of January, by which they declare all neutral vessels, bound to or from English ports, to be legal prize.' From these facts, and the tenor of the decree itself, we can form but one conclusion, that it was framed in such indefinite terms on purpose to give scope for arbitrary constructions, and, consequently, for unlimited oppression and vexation.

But, without waiting for this decree, the Commissioners of the French Government, at St. Domingo, began their piracies on the commerce of the United States; and, in February, 1797, wrote to the Minister of Marine, (and the extract of the letter appeared in the official journal of the Executive Directory, of the 5th of June,) That, having found no resource in finance, and knowing the unfriendly disposition of the Americans, and to avoid perishing in distress, they had armed for cruising; and that, already, eighty-seven cruisers were

at sea; and that, for three months preceding, the administration had subsisted, and individuals been enriched, with the products of those prizes.' That the decree of the 2d of July was not known by them until five months afterwards. But (say they) the shocking conduct of the Americans, and the indirect knowledge of the intentions of our Government, made it our duty to order reprisals, even before we had received the official notice of the decree. They felicitate themselves that American vessels were daily taken; and declare that they had learnt, by divers persons from the continent, that the Americans were perfidious, corrupt, the friends of England, and that, therefore, their vessels no longer entered the French ports, unless carried in by force.' After this recital before the Council of Five Hundred, Pastoret makes the following remarkable reflections:

"On reading this letter, we should think that we had been dreaming; that we had been transported into a savage country, where men, still ignorant of the empire of morals and of laws, commit crimes without shame and without remorse, and applaud themselves for their robberies as Paulus Emilius or Cato would have praised themselves for an eminent service rendered to their country. Cruisers armed against a friendly nation! Reprisals, when it is we ourselves who attack! Reprisals against a nation that has not taken a single vessel of ours! Riches acquired by the confiscation of the ships of a People to whom we are united by treaties, and whom no declaration of war had separated from us!" The whole discourse of the agents may be reduced to these few words:

"Having nothing wherewith to buy, I seize; I make myself amends for the property which I want, by the piracy which enriches me; and then I slander those whom I have pillaged" "This is robbery justified by selfishness and calumny." Yet Santhonax, one of these"robbers," and the chief of those directorial agents, continued in office, and going a few months afterwards from St. Domingo to France, was received as a member into one of the legislative Councils.

Pastoret also adverts to a letter from Merlin, then Minister of Justice, and now a member of the Executive Directory, to Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, which also appeared in the Journal of the Directory; and quotes the following passage: "Let your Government break the inconceivable treaty which is concluded on the 19th of November. 1794, with our most implacable enemies; and immediately the French Republic will cease to apply in its own favor, the regulations in that treaty, which favor England to the injury of France; and I warrant you that we shall not see an appeal to those regulations, in any tribunal to support unjust pretensions."

"Have I (says Pastoret) read this rightly? Unjust pretensions! Could it be possible, that they should thus have been characterized by the Minister who is himself their agent and defender ?"

After all, this inconceivable British treaty," was itself but a pretext to countenance the " unjust pretensions," as Merlin himself calls them, used by the French Government in its tribunals, for the purpose of condemning American vessels.

The details I have already given prove it. I beg leave to adduce other evidence. It is the testimony of Mr. Barlow, an American by birth, but for several years past a citizen of France; a man of acknowledged discernment and talents, devoted to the French Republic, and intimate with their leading men.

Mr. Barlow has long resided at Paris, and cannot have mistaken the views of the French Government, nor the motives of its conduct. He says, "that act of submission to the British Government, commonly called Jay's treaty, is usually considered, both by its friends and enemies, as the sole cause, or at least the great cause, of the present hostile disposition of the French Republic towards the United States. This opinion (says he) is erroneous." He then proceeds to an enumeration of a variety of matters which he says have influenced the conduct of France. But the most provoking, and the most unpardonable of all the offences of the United States against France, was, fortunately, not an act of the Government, but an act of the People. The freemen of the United States, "the true Americans." dared to exercise their independent rights, and, contrary to the wishes of the French Government, and the endeavors and practices of its Minister Adet. elected Mr. Adams to the office of President. Mr. Barlow's observations on this event further develop the character and the principles of that Government. He says, "when the election of Adams was announced here, it produced the order of the 2d of March, which was meant to be little short of a declaration of war:" "the Government here was determined to fleece you of your property, to a sufficient degree, to bring you to your feeling, in the only nerve in which it was presumed your sensibility lay, which was your pecuniary interest." And what was this feeling" to produce? The answer is obvious-Submission to the will of the French Government.

The mystery of French politics is here unveiled. The United States did not submit: hence the non-reception of her Envoys, and their haughty treatment: hence the insulting demands of tribute, as a preliminary even to their reception; and hence the expulsion of two of them from France.

But to return to the decree of the Executive Directory of the 3ist of July last.

I have already shewn that the mass of depredations on the com

It will be recollected that this is the decree of the Executive Directory, ordering the capture and condemnation of American vessels, not having a role d'equipage, that fruitful source of plunder to Frenchmen, and of ruin to American citizens, and which also declared all American seamen, making a part of the crew of an enemies' ships, even when put on board them by force, to be pirates, and directed them to be treated as such.

merce of the United States, under the French flag, of which we so justly complain are not those committed, as the Directory in their preamble insinuate, by "foreigners and pirates," but by French armed vessels, commissioned by the Government or its agents; or whether commissioned or not, whose acts in capturing American vessels, receive the sanction of French Consuls. of French tribunals, and of the special agents of the Directory. I have shewn that the laws of France, and the Directorial decrees. are themselves the sources of those violations of treaties and the law of nations, which have caused such immense losses to the citizens of the United States.

And to the proofs already offered, that the information of such aggressions and abuses, particularly in the West Indies, and on the coast of America, was not, as the preamble suggests, but "recently received."

I may add that their special agents authorized those depredations and violations of the law of nations, by decrees assuming the laws of the Republic, or the acts of the Executive Directory, for their bases; by decrees printed and published, and undoubtedly from time to time reported by those agents to the Directory itself. Further, these outrages on the American commerce have for years past been the theme of every tongue, and filled columns in our newspapers-those newspapers which Mr. Barlow says, "the office of Foreign Affairs, (at Paris) regularly receives."

I will conclude this point with the testimony of Mr. Letombe, late Consul General of the French Republic, and still residing in Philadelphia.

He has long since, and repeatedly assured me, that he collected all those accounts of depredations and outrages, committed by French privateers, and transmitted them to his government at Paris.

In relation to the depredations and outrages committed by the French on the commerce of the United States, I have said that as great, if not as numerous abuses were practised by the French in Europe, and even in France itself, as in her remote possessions: and that this fact was but too well known to our citizens, who bad felt severely their effects. Among these, we have seen the case of the ship Hare, captain Hayley: but never in all its disgusting features. With this, I will close my observations on the preamble of the Directorial decree of the 31st of July.

Extract of a letter from Rufus King, Esq. Minister of the United States in London, dated September 3, 1798, to the Secretary of State of the United States.

"The pretence of this arrete [the decree of the Directory of July 31st] is of a piece with the vindication of Talleyrand respecting X, Y, and Z, and the justice and sincerity of the Directory should be ascer

tained, not by their word, but by the following contemporaneous

fact:"

"Hayley, an American citizen, master of the American ship Hare, lying in the port of London, laden with a rich cargo, the property of Americans and bound to New York, went with my passport from London to Paris, where, in a personal interview, not with the agents of the Minister of Marine, but with the Minister himself, he disclosed his plan of bringing the ship Hare and her cargo into France; and to enable him to receive the profits of the fraud, without risking the punishment of piracy, he demanded and received from the Minister of Marine a commission, naming him the commander of a privateer that did not exist; with which in his pocket be returned to London, and soon after carried the ship Hare and her cargo as a prize into France.

The ship and cargo were both claimed by the American owners; and upon the unveiling of this infamous proceeding before the lower tribunals, the judges hesitated, and finally, refused to sanction so unheard-of a fraud; though, instead of restoring the property to its lawful owners, they, on some frivolous pretence, adjudged both ship and cargo to be good prize to the nation. Lately, the Tribunal, in the last resort, upon the appeal of Hayley, has reversed the judgment of the lower Court, and decreed the ship and cargo to be condemned as good prize to this renegado.'

"If a transaction more grossly corrupt and infamous has occurred in the West Indies, I have not heard of it; and yet, with this case of unequalled infamy and corruption before them, sanctioned by the highest Tribunals of the nation, the Directory expect to amuse us with a disavowal of the conduct of a few subaltern agents, in a remote part of their dominions."

Besides the communications from Mr. Gerry, I have received from Fulwar Skipwith, Esq. Consul General of the United States at Paris, three letters, dated the 4th, 8th, and 22d of August, copies of which, and of the papers therein referred to, are herewith presented, excepting the decree of July 31st, which appears among the communications from Mr. Gerry. Mr. Skipwith's letter of August 22d, with its enclosures, was delivered to me by Doctor Logan; I had previously received the original, which had been brought over by Mr. Woodward, of Boston.

Doctor Logan having been the bearer of the last mentioned communication from the French Government, and his embassy having not only engaged the attention of the public, but been made the subject of debate in Congress, I trust it will not be deemed improper to introduce into this report some circumstances respecting it.

On the 12th of November the Doctor came to me at Trenton; he advanced with eagerness, and handed me the packet from Mr. Skipwith. On examining its contents, I told the Doctor that I already possessed the same papers.

I made some remarks on the decree of the Directory of the Sist of July, to show that it was only ostensible and illusory, and that it