power, it cannot be so in time to come. We shall be able to afford it with effect, and our faith will oblige us to do so.

But whatever were the motives of France, and though the conditions of the alliance may be in their permanent tendency more beneficial to her than to us, it was our duty to be faithful to the engagements which we contracted with her, and it even became us, without scanning too rigidly those motives, to yield ourselves to the impulses of kind and cordial sentiments towards a power, by which we were succored in so perilous a crisis.

Nor should we ever lightly depart from the line of conduct which these principles dictate. But they ought not to be carried so far as to occasion us to shut our eyes against the just causes of complaint which France has given or may hereafter give us. They ought not to blind us to the real nature of any instances of an unfair and unfriendly policy which we have experienced or may hereafter experience from that country. Let us cherish faith, justice, and, as far as possible, good will, but let us not be dupes.

It is certain that in the progress and towards the close of our revolution war, the views of France, in several important particulars, did not accord with our interests-she manifestly favored and intrigued to effect the sacrifice of our pretensions on the Mississippi to Spain. She looked coldly upon our claim to the privileges we enjoy in the cod fisheries; and she patronized our negotiation with Great Britain without the previous acknowledg. ment of our independence:-a conduct which, whatever color of moderation may be attempted to be given to it, can only be rationally explained into the desire of leaving us in such a state of half peace, half hostility with Great Britain, as would necessarily render us dependent upon France.

Since the peace every careful observer has been convinced that the policy of the French government has been adverse to our acquiring internally the consistency of which we were capable—in other words, a well-constituted and efficient government. Her agents every where supported, and with too little reserve, that feeble and anarchical system, the old confederation;-which had brought us almost to the last stage of national nothingness, and

which remained the theme of their eulogies, when every enlightened and virtuous man of this country perceived and acknowledged its radical defects and the necessity of essential alterations.

The truth of all this, of which no vigilant and unbiased friend to his country had before the least doubt, has been fully confirmed to us by the present government of France, which has formally proclaimed to us and to the world the Machiavellian conduct of the old governments towards this country; nor can we suspect the promulgation to have been the effect of the enmity of the new against the old government, for our records and our own observations assure us that there is no misrepresentation.

This disclosure, which has not sufficiently attracted the attention of the American people, is very serious and instructive.. Surely it ought to put us upon our guard--to convince us that it is at least possible the succeeding rulers of France may have been on some occasions tinctured with a similar spirit. They ought to remember that the magnanimity and kindness of France and the former government were as much trumpeted by its partisans among us as are now the magnanimity and kindness of the present government. What say facts?

Genet was the first minister sent by the new government to this country. Are there no marks of a policy in his behavior, or in his instructions? Did he say to us, or was he instructed to say to us with frankness and fair-dealing-Americans, France wishes your co-operation ;-she thinks you bound by your treaty -or by gratitude-or by affinity of principles to afford it? Not a word of all this. The language was--France does not require your assistance; she wishes you to pursue what you think your

interest.

What was the conduct? Genet came out with his pocket full of commissions to arm privateers. Arrived at Charlestown, before he had an opportunity of sounding our government, he begins to them, and to fit out privateers from our ports; certain that this was a practice never to be tolerated by the enemies of France, and that it would infallibly implicate us in the war, our government mildly signifies to him its dis

approbation of the measure. He affects to acquiesce, but still goes on in the same way-very soon in open defiance of the government;-between which and our own citizens he presently endeavors to introduce jealousy and schism. He sets on foot intrigues with our southern and western extremes, and attempts to organize our territory, and to carry on from it military expeditions against the territories of Spain in our neighborhood—a nation with which we were at peace.

It is impossible to doubt that the end of all this was to drag us into the war, with the humiliation of being plunged into it without ever being consulted, and without any volition of our

own.

No government or people could have been more horridly treated than we were by this foreign agent. Our Executive, nevertheless, from the strong desire of maintaining good understanding with France, forbore to impute to the French government the conduct of its agent; made the

personal with him, and requested his recall. The French government could not refuse our request without a rupture with us, which at that time would have been extremely inconvenient for many plain reasons. The application for the recall accordingly had full success; and the more readily as it arrived shortly after the overthrow of the party (to which Genet belonged), and thus afforded another opportunity of exercising vengeance on that devoted party.

But it were to be very credulous to be persuaded that Genet acted in this extraordinary manner, from the very beginning, without the authority of the government by which he was sent; and did not the nature of his conduct contain an internal evidence of the source it could be easily traced in the instructions which he published. These instructions demonstrate three things, though the last is couched in very covert terms. 1. That France did not consider us as bound to aid her in the war. 2. That she desired to engage us in it, and the principal bribe was to be large privileges in her West India trade. 3. That if direct negotiation. did not succeed, indirect means were to be taken to entangle us in it whether so disposed or not. It is not matter of complaint,

that France should endeavor to engage by fair means our assistance in the war, if she thought it would be useful to her, but it is just matter of bitter complaint that she should attempt against our will to ensnare or drive us into it.

Fauchet succeeded Genet. It was a meteor following a comet No very marked phenomena distinguish his course. But the little twinkling appearances which here and there are discernible, indicate the same general in him which governed his predecessor. The Executive of our country, in consequence of an insurrection, to which one of them had materially contributed, had publicly arraigned political clubs. Fauchet, in opposition, openly patronizes them. At the festivals of these clubs he is always a guest, swallowing toasts full of sedition and hostility to the government. Without examining what is the real tendency of these clubs, without examining even the policy of what is called the President's denunciation of them, it was enough for a foreign minister that the Chief Magistrate of our country had declared them to be occasions of calamity to it. It was neither friendly nor decent in a foreign minister after this, to countenance these institutions. This conduct discovered towards us not only unkindness but contempt. There is the more point in it, as this countenance continued after similar societies had been proscribed in France; what were destructive poisons there, were in this country salutary medicines. But the hostility of the views of this minister is palpable in that intercepted letter of his, which unveils the treachery of Randolph. We there learn, that he pretended to think it was a duty of patriotism to second the western insurrection; that he knew and approved of a conspiracy which was destined to overthrow the administration of our government, even by the most irregular means.

Another revolution of party in France placed Mr. Adet in the room of Mr. Fauchet. Mr. Adet has been more circumspect than either of his predecessors-and perhaps we ought scarcely to impute it to him as matter of reproach, that he openly seconded the opposition in Congress to the treaty concluded with Great Britain. This was a measure of a nature to call forth the manoeuvres of diplomatic tactics. But if we are wise, we shall

endeavor to estimate rightly the probable motives of whatever displeasure France or her agents may have shown at this measure. Can it be any thing else than a part of the same plan which induced the minister of Louis XVI. to advise us to treat with Great Britain without the previous acknowledgment of our Independence? Can it be any thing else than a part of that policy which deems it useful to France, that there should perpetually exist between us and Great Britain germs of discord and quarrel? Is it not manifest that in the eyes of France the unpardonable sin of that treaty is, that it roots up for the present those germs of discord and quarrel? To pretend that the treaty interferes with our engagements with France, is a ridiculous absurdity-for it expressly excepts them. To say that it establishes a course of things hurtful to France in her present struggle, is belied by the very course of things since the treaty-all goes on exactly as it did before.

Those who can justify displeasure in France on this account, are not Americans, but Frenchmen. They are not fit for being members of an independent nation, but prepared for the al state of colonists. If our government could not without the permission of France terminate its controversies with another foreign power, and settle with it a treaty of commerce, to endure three or four years, our boasted independence is a name. We have only transferred our allegiance! we are slaves!

THE ANSWER.

December 6, 1796.

The French republic have, at various times during the present war, complained of certain principles and decisions of the American government, as being violations of its neutrality, or infractions of the treaty made with France in the year 1778.