of, the most incompatible with the interests of the United States, and the most derogatory from the alliance which existed between the said States and the French Republic, the latter was perfectly free to avail itself of the preservatory means, with which it was furnished by the laws of nature and of nations, and by its anterior treaty, for the purpose of parying the inconveniences of the treaty of London.

Such are the reasons which have determined the arret of the Directory, of which the United States complain as well as the conduct of its agents in the Antilles."

But you have not shewn a single provision, "which turns the neutrality of the United States to the disadvantage of the French Republic, and to the advantage of England."

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You have not shown a single concession "incompatible with the interests of the United States," or derogatory from their alliance with France."

It is considered as having been demonstrated, that this treaty leaves the neutrality of the United States, with respect both to France and England, precisely in its former situation, and that it contains no concessions, which are either unusual, or derogatory from their alliance with this Republic. But if, in forming this judgment, the American Government has deceived itself, still it ought to be remembered that it has ever manifested a readiness to place France on the footing of England, with respect to the articles complained of.

You suppose that the 2d article of the treaty between France and the United States, justifies the arrets, of which the latter power complains but that article only entitles either of the contracting parties te a participation of any particular favour in respect of commerce and navigation, which might, therefore, be granted by the other to other nations, on allowing the same compensation, if the concession was conditional. It has never been pretended to extend to pre-existing rights, held and exercised under the law of nations, and barely recognized by any subsequent treaty.

If this could be insisted on, still it was shown incontestibly, by the undersigned, that the arrete particularly complained of, so far as it professes to found itself on the treaty with England, greatly transcends that treaty, and in its most noxious article, that requiring a rôle d'équipage, has no relation to it.

This all essential circumstance you have not pleased to notice; and it is with infinite regret the undersigned observe, that the discussions at which you hint, are to be limited to the abuses of the principle established by the arrete, and not extended to the compatibility of the principle itself, with justice, the laws of nations, or existing treaties.

It is well known that such a discussion, if indeed the undersigned could be permitted to enter upon it, would avail but little, since the vast mass of American property captured by the cruisers, and condemned by the courts of France, has been found in vessels not furnished with a rôle d'équipage.

The undersigned have been minute in their attention to every syllable you have uttered on this interesting subject, because it has been

often considered as having given cause of just irritation to France, and they are sincerely desirous of probing to the bottom every subject which may have assumed that complexion. Their wish is unaffected, to give to every complaint its real value, in order thus to prepare the way for accommodation, by the relinquishment of such as are not well founded, and the admission of those which have a real existence.

The third head of your complaints relates to the conduct of the Government of the United States. since their treaty with England.

You observe, that, as soon as the treaty in question had been put in execution, the Government of the United States seemed to think itself dispensed from the observance of any measure towards this Republic, and you adduce in support of this general observation—

1st. The refusal to permit in the ports of the United States the sale of prizes made by French cruizers.

2uly. The invectives and calumnies against the French Government, its principles, and its officers, contained in certain journals and pamphlets, published in the United States, &c.

sdly. The speech of the President to Congress in May last.

1st. The Government of the United States does not permit the sale, in their ports, of prizes made upon England by the cruisers of France. The fact is admitted. To erect it into an offence, it becomes necessary to prove that this measure violates either the engagements or the neutrality of the United States. Neither is attempted. To show that it violates neither, had this been rendered necessary, would by no means have been deemed an arduous task. It will now only briefly be observed, that the 17th article of the treaty of commerce, of the 6th of February, 1778, which alone relates to this subject, so far from stipulating for the sale of prizes in the ports of either nation, limits itself to a declaration, that the captors shall have liberty to bring them into port, free from duties, arrests, and searches, and to depart with them to the places expressed in their commissions, thereby evidently contemplating the then existing regulations of this nation. France has manifested her own opinion on this subject, in her treaty with Great Britain, of the 26th of September, 1786. The 16th article of that treaty declares, "that it shall not be lawful for foreign cruisers, who shall not be subjects of one or the other crown, and who shall have a commission from any prince or state, enemies of the one or the other, to arm their vessels in the ports of one or the other of the said two kingdoms, to sell there what they shall have taken, or to change the same in any manner whatever." In a war with England, then, France being neutral, the cruizers of the United States are forbidden to sell their prizes in the ports of this Republic.

The 17th article of the treaty of February, 1788. being reciprocal, France has pronounced her decision, that it does not give her cruisers a right to sell their prizes in the ports of America. If this right had been given by the treaty of February, 1778, that between the United States and England could not be construed to impair it. Nor is the prohibition a departure from the neutrality of the United States. A nation, to violate its neutrality, must manifest a partiality for one

of the belligerent Powers; must accord favors, not stipulated by preexisting treaties, to one, which it refuses to the other. This is not even alleged in the present instance. Far from permitting British cruisers to sell, in the United States, prizes they have made on the French, they are not even allowed to bring them into port. A candid consideration of this subject will prove that the withdrawal of a favor, the grant of which manifested so strongly the attachments of the United States, far from justifying the resentments which have been expressed in consequence of it, can only be attributed to the solicitude of the • American Government to render perfectly unexceptionable its observance of that neutrality which it professes to maintain.

It has been shown, unequivocally, to have been the opinion of the contracting parties, that the treaty of commerce, of the 6th of February, 1778, did not give to either, being at war, a right to sell its prizes in the ports of the other, being at peace. It is not pretended that this is one of the rights accruing, without special stipulation, under the laws and usages of nations.

It is not then a right at all. If granted, it is a voluntary favor; but a voluntary favor essential in the prosecution of the war, if granted by a neutral to one belligerent Power, and, of necessity, refused to the other, affords to that other, at least, a more plausible pretext for complaint than has been given by any other act of the Government of the United States.

What, in such a situation, would have been the language of France? Would this Republic permit a neutral nation, not bound thereto by any obligation whatever, to allow, in its ports. as a voluntary favor, the sale of prizes made on French citizens, while the same favor was, of necessity, denied to the cruisers of France ?

It is believed that such an use of neutrality would not be permitted; and the undersigned felicitate themselves and their country, that the Government they represent has never intentionally given to this Republic any cause of dissatisfaction as serious as this would have been.

You will not fail to observe, Citizen Minister, that this heavy accusation, when analyzed, is nothing more than the refusal of a mere favor on the part of the American Government, the grant of which might have been dangerous to itself; might have drawn it from that neutral station which it is its duty to observe, and which favor France had, previously, in the most explicit terms, declared its determination not to grant, under similar circumstances, to the United States.

2dly. Your second allegation is. "that the journals, known to be indirectly under the control of the Cabinet, have redoubled their invectives and calumnies against the Republic, its Magistrates, and its Envoys; and that pamphlets, openly paid for by the Minister of Great Britain, have reproduced, under every form, those insults and calumnies, without having even drawn the attention of the Government to a state of things so scandalous, and which it might have repressed.”

The genius of the Constitution, and the opinions of the People of the United States, cannot be overruled by those who administer the Government. Among those principles, deemed sacred in America;

among those sacred rights, considered as forming the bulwark of their liberty, which the Government contemplates with awful reverence, and approach only with the most cautious circumspection, there is no one of which the importance is more deeply impressed on the public mind than the liberty of the press. That this liberty is often carried to excess; that it has sometimes degenerated into licentiousness; is scen and lamented; but the remedy has not yet been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a shoot, which cannot be stripped from the stalk, without wounding, vitally, the plant from which it is torn. However desirable those measures might be, which might correct, without enslaving, the press, they have never yet been devised in America. No regulations exist which enable the Government to suppress whatever calumnies or invectives any individual may choose to offer to the public eye; or to punish such calumnies and invectives, otherwise than by a legal prosecution in courts, which are alike open to all who consider themselves as injured. Without doubt this abuse of a valuable privilege is matter of peculiar regret, when it is extended to the Government of a foreign nation.

The undersigned are persuaded it never has been so extended with the approbation of the Government of the United States.

Discussions respecting the conduct of foreign Powers, especially on points respecting the rights and interests of America, are unavoidably made in a nation where public measures are the results of public opinion, and certainly do not furnish cause of reproach; but it is believed that calumny and invective have never been substituted for the manly reasoning of an enlightened and injured People, without giving pain to those who administer the affairs of the Union. Certainly this offence, if it be deemed by France of sufficient magnitude to be worthy of notice, has not been confined to this Republic. It has still been more profusely lavished on its enemies, and has even been bestowed, with an unsparing hand, on the Federal Government itself.

Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invectives with which the wisest measures, and the most virtuous characters of the United States, have been pursued and traduced. It is a calamity incident to the nature of liberty, and which can produce no serious evil to France. It is a calamity, occasioned neither by the direct nor indirect influence of the American Government. In fact, that Government is believed to exercise no influence over any press. You must be sensible, Citizen Minister, with how much truth the same complaint might be urged on the part of the United States. You must know well what degrading and unworthy calumnies, against their Government, its principles, and its officers, have been published to the world by French journalists, and in French pamphlets: that Government has even been charged with betraying the best interests of the nation; with having put itself under the guidance of-nay, more! with having sold itself to a foreign Court. But these calumnies, atrocious as they are, have never constituted a subject of complaint against France. Had not other causes, infinitely more serious and weighty, interrupted

the harmony of the two Republics, it would still have remained unimpaired, and the mission of the undersigned would never have been rendered necessary.

3dly. You complain of the speech of the President made to Congress in May last. It denounces, you say, the Executive Directory, as searching to propagate anarchy and division in the United States. The Constitution of the United States imposes on the President this important duty: He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union."

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It having been deemed proper to recall the Minister from the United States to this Republic, and to replace him by a Citizen, the objects of whose mission. as expressed in his letters of credence, were to maintain that good understanding, which, from the commencement of the alliance, had subsisted between the two nations; and to efface unfavorable impressions, banish suspicions, and to restore that cordiality which was at once the evidence and pledge of a friendly Union,' the President of the Directory addressed the recalled Minister in the following terms: "In presenting to-day to the Executive Directory your letters of recall, you give to Europe a strange spectacle. France, rich in her liberty, surrounded with the train of her victories, strong in the esteem of her allies, will not abase herself by calculating the consequences of the condescensions of the American Government to the suggestions of its ancient tyrants. The French Republic hopes, moreover, that the successors of Columbus, Raleigh, and Penn, always proud of their liberty, will never forget that they owe it to France. They will weigh in their wisdom the magnanimous good will of the French People, with the crafty caresses of certain perfidious persons who meditate to bring them back to their ancient slavery.

Assure, Mr. Minister, the good American People, that, like them, we adore liberty; that they will always have our esteem, and that they will find in the French People that republican generosity, which knows as well how to grant peace as to cause its sovereignty to be respected."

The change of a Minister is an ordinary act, for which no Government is accountable to another, and which has not heretofore been “a strange spectacle" in France, or in any other part of Europe. It appears to be a measure not of itself calculated to draw on the Government making such change, the strictures or the resentments of the nation to which the Minister is deputed. Such an effect, produced by so inadequate a cause, could not fail to command attention, while it excited suprise.

This official speech, addressed by the Government of France to that of the United States, through its Minister, charges that Government with condescensions to the suggestions of its ancient tyrants, speaks of the crafty caresses of certain perfidious persons who meditate to bring back the successors of Columbus. Raleigh, and Penn, to their ancient slavery, and desires the Minister to assure, not his Government, but the good People of America. that they will always have the esteem of France, and that they will find in the French People, that republican