IT will be recollected, my fellow citizens, that while I have claimed, as one of the representatives of the American people, the right of acting according to my own judgment, on all questions which concern their general interests, I have always deemed it my duty to you, from whom I received the appointment, to make you acquainted, not only with my opinion and conduct on every important measure, but also with the reasons by which I have been guided.

This duty I am now about to fulfil in a case of the highest importance. Having on two former occasions declared to you in the most unreserved manner, my opinion respecting the differences which have unfortu­nately arisen between this country and France, I am now about to explain the reasons whereon that opinion is founded.

After stating some considerations which have induced me to believe that the charges alledged against us by France, are wholly unfounded, I shall endeavour to place her conduct and views respecting this country in their true light, and to develope the general system of policy towards other nations, which she appears to be pursuing. This part of the subject I apprehend will [Page 4]be found deserving of particular attention; for without taking into view her general plan of foreign policy, it will be extremely difficult to discern the principles whereby her conduct towards ourselves is directed.

And permit me, fellow citizens, to introduce my remarks on this subject, by a declaration to the truth whereof most of you can bear witness. Permit me to declare, that while France appeared to be engaged in a struggle for liberty and national independence, no heart beat higher than mine with affection for her cause. I joined with enthusiasm in the general exultation of my country for her victories, mourned for her disasters, and wished to draw a veil over her crimes, her follies, and her excesses. Even her crimes appeared only as mistakes in my eyes, and her most enormous atroci­ties as natural, and perhaps necessary consequences of the violent external and internal struggles wherein she was engaged; I called them the crimes of the re­volution, not of France, and I pardoned them. Where I could not pardon, I excused, I palliated. I considered her as fighting in the cause of freedom and humanity, and an end so excellent afforded much consolation for the means which she often employed.

This end we have now seen her most fully attain. We have seen her repel all her enemies, and establish her independance upon the firmest and most formidable basis. We have seen her instead of being crushed herself, threatening to crush all the surrounding states; annex­ing some to herself, reducing others to an absolute sub­serviency to her will, and making deep inroads on the power of the rest; we have seen her after various re­volutions at home, adopt at length the government for which she contended, the government of her own free choice.

Why then instead of confining herself to her own defence, has she become the assailant? Why does she refuse that peace which her enemies have over and over proposed, and whereby she would be left in possession of very large acquisitions? Why after renouncing repeat­edly, and in the most formal manner, all idea of con­quest, does she still press on to new conquests, and proudly refuse even to treat for peace, unless all that [Page 5]she has seized be first confirmed to her, and all that she has lost be first restored? ^*

Why does she compel all those states, whose councils she can influence or co [...]troul, to join her in the war? Why does she endeavour to excite the Russians and the Tutks against Austria, which offers and even soli­cits peace on terms highly advantageous to her? Why does she attempt to bribe Prussia with a part of the spoils of Austria, to assist her in reducing it under her power? Why does she strive to arm every neutral state against the commerce of the English, and to exclude their ships from every port? Why does she declare that she will never lay down her arms 'till she has broken and destroyed the maritime strength of England?

It is that she has formed a plan of aggrandisement at the expense of all her neighbours; that after the ex­ample of the Romans, those ferocious and systematic destroyers of mankind, she has resolved to make all Europe, and finally the whole world, bend beneath her yoke; a resolution in the accomplishment whereof she pursues the Roman policy, of dividing to destroy; of bribing one nation with the spoils of another; of in­ticing the stronger to inaction, reducing the weak to submission, and by the resources of the one, and the connivance of the other, breaking the strength of those whose power she dreads, and whose policy she cannot deceive.

And is this a project, my fellow citizens, in which we ought to wish her success? Is it desirable that the balance of power, whereby the great nations of Europe have heretofore been mutually checked, and in some degree confined within the limits of justice and mo­deration, should be wholly destroyed, to make way for one uncontrouled and despotic master, whose power being unchecked, must from the very constitution of human nature, be constantly abused? Is this a plan which deserves the good wishes of this country? Shall we be more safe when Europe shall have been reduced [Page 6]under the uncontrouled influence of France, than while her power is checked and balanced by that of other nations, who will be induced by the desire of preserving that balance to shield us from her aggressions? I believe that every principle of sound policy will answer in the negative.

Had France however, been content to pursue her pro­jects of ambition in Europe, and leave us in peace, though we might have wished, for the good of humani­ty, to see them defeated, yet a due regard to our own interests, and even to those of the civilized world, would have forbidden us to join in the attempt: for although we should certainly be exposed to temporary evils by the preponderance of her power, yet our strength in­creases with a rapidity, which must place us in a very short time beyond the reach of danger or dread, and may also enable us to preserve the liberties of mankind, by forming a counterpoise and a check to the ambition of France, after they shall be lost in Europe. This strength would be greatly diminished, and its increase long retarded by a premature exertion. To remain in peace therefore, amidst the present conflict of empires, was a duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to the hu­man race.

This wise policy, the result of deep foresight, and of an enlightened regard to the interests of this coun­try and of humanity, was early adopted by our go­vernment. But France did not thus judge, nor so de­termine. She early saw in this country a powerful in­strument for promoting her ambition, and she early formed a resolution to use it. Hence her efforts to gain the controul of our affairs: hence her unceasing endea­vours to excite jealousies against the government, and divisions among the people, to blow up our animosi­ties against England, and foment our ancient discon­tents. Hence those unfounded pretensions, which we saw her first minister set up; pretensions which, if ad­mitted, must have placed the affairs of this country intirely under his controul. Hence did we see him, when the government refused to yield to these pre­tensions, treating it with insult and outrage, and threat­ening to appeal from its decisions to the people. We [Page 7]saw him arm and commission privateers in our ports, against the express orders of the government, and send them to sea in contempt of its authority. We saw him attempt to levy an army in our country, for the pur­pose of invading nations with whom we were in peace. We saw him make a formal complaint against the Pre­sident for refusing to convene Congress at his instance.

All this he did in the avowed pursuit of the object of his instructions, which, to use their own words, en­joined him ‘to excite to the utmost the zeal of the Americans, and induce them, if possible, to make a common cause with France. ^*’

When he was recalled on our complaining of his conduct, our warm and partial regard for France induced us to hope, and even to believe, that the system was relinquished with the change of the Minister.

We soon however found our mistake; we found that not the object, but the mode of pursuing it had been changed; and that instead of threats and blustering whereby it was perceived that the plan was counteracted instead of being promoted, an artful insidious course was adopted, more dangerous because more deceptive.

With this change in the form, the principles and substance of Genet's system were invariably pursued by his successors: the same attempts to drive us from our neutrality, under the pretence of preserving it, were renewed and incessantly repeated: his most inadmissable pretentions, those pretentions so incompatible with our sovereignty, so repugnant to our system of impar­tial neutrality, were renewed and unceasingly urged; and the steady refusal of our Government to yield to them, with its firm resolution, to persist in conducting our affairs in the manner which it conceived most con­ducive to our interests, and most consonant with justice towards other nations, have been made the ground of proceedings on the part of France, the most insulting and injurious. The French Government has at length made that appeal to the people of America, which her Min­ister formerly threatened. It has explained its pretensions, stated its complaints, and detailed its injuries. In re­venge [Page 8]for those injuries, as it informs us, it has brok­en the treaty between the two countries, let loose its ships of war and privateers to pillage and maltreat our citizens, and has insultingly driven from its territo­ry a minister sent expressly to explain and conciliate. It has declared, that it will hear nothing from us, until the injuries of which it complains are redressed; or in other words, that we must submit to the terms which it shall think proper to prescribe, before it will deign to negociate, or even to converse, on the points in dispute. It has informed us that it is "terrible to its enemies;" reminded us, as it has very frequently done before, that we are indebted to it for our independence; and pro­mised ‘that when we bring back our Government to its true principles, we shall again be regarded as friends and allies.’

It has said in effect, ‘you Americans whom we re­deemed from slavery when you were about to sink again under the yoke of your former masters, and who for that reason ought to become in all things subservient to us, have instituted a government which in the management of your affairs, has presumed to judge for itself, and refused to be guided by our di­rections. As a friendly admonition of our just dis­pleasure, we take your vessels, confiscate your pro­perty, and throw your citizens into dungeons and prison ships; for we are 'terrible to our enemies.' But as soon as you shall reclaim your government from its errors, and teach it to conform to our will, you shall again be received into favour. In the mean time, having signified to you our pleasure, we expect silent and submissive compliance. We will hear nothing from you, or from this government which has given us offence, until you repent and amend. The rod, under which you now smart, shall still be ex­tended over you, till you kiss it and return to your duty. Then indeed will we hold out the sceptre of forgiveness; for though 'terrible to our enemies,' we are generous to our friends.’ This is the plain lan­guage of their conduct, the true interpretation of their words.

[Page 9] And is America so low, so fallen, that she must tame­ly and submissively kiss this rod? Has that spirit which twenty years ago, when she had not half her pre­sent population, not a tenth part of her present wealth, no government, no bond of union among her different parts, no experience of her strength, no establishments of national defence, no name, no existence as a people; which then impelled her to resist the haughty preten­sions and tyrannical encroachments of Britain, in the zenith of her power and elated by her recent triumph over the arms of France; is that spirit so totally extin­guished, that she must crouch at the feet of this haugh­ty, this ambitious republic, and by abject submission, purchase a precarious, a dishonourable quiet? Ameri­cans of 76, ye who fought at Bunker's Hill, at Ben­nington, at Quebec, at Saratoga, at Monmouth, at Guil­ford, Kings-Mountain, Eutaw and the Cowpens; compa­nions of Warren, of Montgomery, of Gates, of Mercer, of Morgan, of Wayne, of Green and of Washington, where have ye retired? Has your courage rusted with your swords; or is the soil which gave you birth, no longer capable of nourishing Patriots and Heros? Shall your country, that country which notwithstanding the insulting taunts of this proud republic, your arms rescued from the oppression of a tyrannical parent, shall it reap no other fruit from your toils and your blood, than to be reduced under the obedience of an unjust and ambitious neighbour, who in return for benefits always gratefully acknowledged, tho' conferred because they were useful to herself, and with which for four years past she has never ceased to upbraid us, claims a surrender of our interests and our rights, and the directi­on of our affairs? I hear you with one voice answer NO. "The sons of America," I hear you cry, ‘should her wise and moderate endeavours to preserve her rights by peacable means still prove unsuccessfull, will again at her call beat their plowshares into swords, and the proud and insolent aggressor shall soon be convinced, that a brave and just people, tho' long patient under injuries from those whom once it loved, will rouse at last, and desirous of peace will re­member that it must sometimes be preserved by war.’

[Page 10] The American people, then my fellow citizens, and you as part of them, are called upon to decide be­tween their own government, and that of another nati­on; to decide whether their affairs shall be conducted by those whom they have selected for that purpose from among themselves, or by the agents of a foreign power: Whether that power under pretence of a treaty, which it asserts an exclusive right to expound, and claims the priviledge of violating as often as its operation shall be found disadvantageous, ^* and of the law of nations, which it has publicly professed to disregard, ^† shall snatch the reins of our government from the hands in which we have placed them? whether, in fine, they will give their confidence to men of their own choice, having the same interests with themselves, or to strangers and fo­reigners, charged with the interests of another country, and always seeking to promote them at our expence? Can the decision be difficult?

And what are these pretensions, which France enforces by the plunder of our merchants, and the imprisonment of our citizens? What are those injuries which she avenges by insulting our government and our country, and wherof, with a more than magisterial haughtiness, she declares, that the redress shall precede all explanation?

She complains of our treaty with Great Britain, of the construction which we have put on some articles of her own treaties with us, of our refusal to form a new and [Page 11]more comprehensive treaty with her; of a backwardness, which she says, has appeared on our part, to accept her assistance in our negotiation with Algiers, and of viola­tions of our neutrality, which, she alledges, we have authorised, or winked at in favour of England. Of the British treaty she complains, ‘that it is a violation of the treaty concluded with France in 1778, and equi­valent to a treaty of alliance with Great Britain.’ She declares that in this treaty ‘the United States have knowingly and evidently sacrificed their connections with the republic, and the most essential and least contested prerogatives of neutrality.’

But in this treaty the rights of France are expressly secured; for in the twenty-fifth article, it is provided, that, ‘nothing in the treaty contained shall be constru­ed, or operate, contrary to former and existing pub­lic treaties, with other sovereigns or states?’ How then can this treaty infringe the rights of France, or violate the treaty subsisting between her and this coun­try.

But she replies, it makes concessions to Great Britain, of important rights; admitting this to be true, France could not complain; for those rights would immediate­ly become common to her: It being expressly stipulated in the second article of her treaty with us, ‘that neither of the parties shall grant any particular favour to other nations, in respect of commerce or navigation, which shall not immediately become common to the other party, who shall enjoy the same favour freely, if the concession is freely made, or on allowing the same compensation, if the concession was conditional;’ each party therefore may make concessions to other na­tions. There is nothing in the treaty which forbids it; and if it should be done, the other party cannot com­plain: It however becomes entitled to the benefit of the concession.

But what right have we conceded to the British by the late treaty? France charges us with having conceded to them the right to take the goods of their enemies, out of our neutral ships; the right to consider various articles as contraband, which are not so by the law of nations; [Page 12]and the right, in some cases, to consider even provisions as contraband.

As to the right of taking enemies goods out of neutral vessels, it is not a right conceded to Britain by the treaty; the treaty says not one word about it, except that it shall hereafter become the subject of negotiation, and that if vessels in the mean time, shall be stop'd on that ac­count, they shall be released with as little delay and in­convenience as possible: It is a right, indisputably given by the law of nations; and which Britain, tho' we urged her to the utmost of our power, refused to surrender at present; the exercise of it, being of the greatest impor­tance to her in the present war: She however intimated that hereafter, it might perhaps be relinquished. It was then agreed that things should remain, for the present, on the footing whereon the law of nations has placed them, and that hereafter, negociations shall take place on the subject. Does this look like conceding a right! What more could we do; could we make war on Bri­tain, to compel the relinquishment of this right? This no doubt was what France wished; it has been the ob­ject of all her intrigues, all her threats, and all her com­plaints; but our government wisely took a different re­solution.

That this right was given to Britain by the law of nations, we have the express authority of Mr. Jeffer­son, of every writer on the subject, and of France herself.

Mr, Jefferson in his letter to Mr. Genet, of July 24, 1793, says, ‘I believe it cannot be doubted, that by the general law of nations, the goods of a friend found in the vessels of an enemy are free, and the goods of an enemy found in the vessels of a friend, are lawful prize. Upon this principle, I presume, the British vessels have taken the property of French ci­tizens found in our vessels, and I confess I should be at a loss on what principle to reclaim it. It is true, that sundry nations, desirous of avoiding the inconvenience of having their vessels stopt at sea, &c. have in many instances introduced by their special treaties, another principle between them, that ene­my bottoms shall make enemy goods, and friendly [Page 13]bottoms friendly goods; but this is altogether the ef­fect of particular treaties, controuling in special cases the general principles of the law of nations. England has generally determined to adhere to the rigorous prin­ciple.’—Afterwards in his letter of August 16th, 1793, to our minister in Paris, on the subject of Mr. Genet's conduct, he says, ‘We suppose it to have been long an established principle of the law of na­tions, that the goods of a friend are free in an ene­my's vessel, and the goods of an enemy lawful prize in the vessels of a friend. We have established a con­trary principle, that free ships shall make free goods, in our treaties with France, Holland, and Prussia, it is our wish to establish it with other nations; but this requires their consent also, and is a work of time. In the mean time they have a right to act on the general principle, (that enemies goods are prize on board of neutral ships,) without giving us or France cause of complaint.’

So say all the most respectable writers on the law of nations, with Vattel at their head, whose works, tho' treated with contempt by Mr. Genet, and called "worm-eaten volumes," are acknowledged as autho­rity by all the nations of Europe.

France, however, has sufficiently proved, not only by her declarations, but by her conduct, that she pays no regard to the writers on the law of nations, or to the law itself; but perhaps she will permit her own laws and public acts to be relied on as authority.

By her treaty with this country in 1778, she ex­presly relinquished the right of taking enemies goods out of neutral vessels: she did the same thing by her treaty with England in 1786; but why should she re­linquish this right, if she did not believe herself to have possessed it? How could she possess it but by vir­tue of the law of nations? That she did believe her­self to possess it, is most evident, from her marine laws, in one of which, passed in the year 1744, and in force when this treaty was made; it is provided, ‘that if there are found on board of neutral vessels, of whatever nation they may be, merchandizes belonging to the enemies of his majesty, (which is the same as of [Page 14]France,) they shall be good prize, even though they be not of the growth or manufacture of the ene­mies country.’

If then it be not permitted by the law of nations, to take enemies goods out of neutral vessels, the stand­ing marine regulations of France, which remained of force from 1744 to 1778, little less than half a century, were a plain and direct infringement of that law.

And yet France alledges that we have conceded to Great Britain, the right to take the goods of her ene­mies out of our neutral vessels!

She even pretends that the law of nations is altered in this respect, by what she calls the principles of the modern law, introduced by the armed neutrality; and this modern law of nations she says we have aban­doned.

But what is this armed neutrality, by which the law of nations is said to have been altered? What is this modern law of nations, by which the former system is said to have been superceded?

During the American war, the Empress of Russia published a declaration of the principles on which she would protect her subjects in carrying on commerce. One of these principles was, ‘that free ships should make free goods.’ She invited the neutral powers to join with her in this declaration, and ordered her fleet to arm in support of it. Several of them did join, particularly Denmark, Sweden, and the other northern powers, and they entered into a convention to support each other. This is what is called the armed neutra­lity, which being no more than a partial agreement among certain states, in the nature of a treaty, could make no alteration in the general law of nations. It could only, like any other treaty, modify that law with respect to the contracting parties themselves.

Yet this agreement thus partial in its extent, and violated since by its authors themselves, is the modern law of nations, for the establishment and defence of which, the United States are required by France to engage, against the most obvious dictates of prudence, in a quarrel with the greatest maritime power on earth.

[Page 15] If the charge of conceding to Britain, the right to take the goods of France out of our vessels, a right which the law of nations gives her, and which, far from con­ceding, we did all in our power to prevail on her to re­linquish, has appeared to be wholly untrue; that which relates to contraband, is equally void of foundation.

By the law of nations, there are certain goods which neutral nations cannot carry to one power at war, with­out their being good prize, if taken by the other: these goods are called contraband, they include, according to the best writers on the law of nations, ‘commodities particularly used in war; such as arms, military and naval stores, ship timber, horses, and even provisions in certain junctures;’ and the prohibition rests on this principle, that a nation engaged in war, has a right as a natural means of defence, to prevent its ene­my as far as it can, from being supplied with those things, which are peculiarly of use in carrying on the war; but tho' the law of nations enumerates the articles which shall be considered generally as contraband, and specifies the particular cases, in which even other articles may be added to the list; yet in this respect, as in all others, its operation as to particular states, is liable to be re­stricted and modified by treaties between them. Two states for instance, have a right by the law of nations, to consider naval stores as contraband, and each to pre­vent the other from carrying them to its enemy, as far as this can be effected by capture and condemnation; but these two states may agree mutually, to relinquish this right; and may make a treaty for that purpose; this treaty does not alter the law of nations, as to others; any more than an agreement between two men, that neither of them should go along such a road, would pre­vent other people from using it; it only restricts the operation of the law as to themselves.

Treaties of this kind, are very usual among nations: In some of them naval stores are agreed to be contra­band; in others, not. In our treaty with France, made in the year 1778, the right to consider ship timber and naval stores as contraband is mutually relinquished. When we came to treat on this subject with Great Britain, [Page 16]we were anxious to prevail on her to relinquish i [...] also, but she refused: She insisted on her right by the law of nations, and we had no means of compelling her to recede; naval stores and ship timber therefore, not­withstanding our efforts to get them excepted, continue to be contraband between us and Great Britain, as they were before the treaty.

And yet one of the accusations of France against the United States, and against this treaty, is, that it has ceded to Britain the right of considering, naval stores as contraband! we are charged with giving to Britain, what she had before, and what we strove in vain to make her relinquish!

But, says France, if ship timber and naval stores were contraband before, why mention them in the trea­ty! Because it is useful, that the rules whereby the con­duct of nations towards each other is to be regulated▪ should become as public, as precise, as little doubtful as possible; any merchant can read a treaty, though every one does not find leisure or opportunity to study the law of nations; for this reason, and a very good one it is, the enumeration was made.

The last accusation of France against this treaty, is, ‘That it concedes to Britain the right of considering even provisions as contraband; and thereby becomes manifestly injurious to France, whose supplies from this country, it permits Britain to cut off,’ This charge is, if possible, even more void of foundation than the former.

The part of the treaty complained of, is the second clause of the 18th article; which instead of being a con­cession by us to Britain, is a very valuable concession by her to us; and far from offering any injury to France, must when it affects her at all, operate very much to her advantage; to prove this nothing more is necessary than simply to recite the clause; which is in the following words:

‘And whereas the difficulty of agreeing on the pre­cise cases, in which alone provisions and other arti­cles not generally contrabanded, may be considered as such, renders it expedient to provide against the inconveniences and misunderstandings which might [Page 17]thence arise. It is further agreed, that whenever any such articles, so becoming contraband, according to the existing laws of nations, shall for that reason be seized, the same shall not be confiscated, but the owners thereof, shall be speedily and completely in­demnified; and the captors, or in their default the government under whose authority they act, shall pay to the masters or owners of such vessels the full value of all such articles; with a reasonable mercan­tile profit thereon, together with the freight, and also the demurrage incident to such detention.’

To what cases do the regulations of this clause apply? to such, and such only, where provisions &c. may be regarded as contraband by the existing law of nations; are there any such cases? no maxim in the law of nati­ons, is clearer or better established, than that there are such; and if there are not, then it is manifest that the article is perfectly harmless? and when provisions &c. are seized in such cases, what is to be done with them? instead of being confiscated, as they might be by the law of nations, they are to be paid for with a mercantile profit, freight, and damages for the detention: In which case is the risk to the merchant least! certainly in the latter, where his goods, if taken, are not, as in the former, to be condemned as prize, but paid for with profit and charges: which regulation, that of the trea­ty, or that of the law of nations, is the most beneficial to France? certainly that of the treaty; for where the risk is the least, the merchant will be most inclined to send her provisions; and on what account was this re­gulation adopted? to prevent those misunderstandings which might arise between us and Britain, from the difficulty of ascertaining the cases in which provisions are made contraband by the law of nations.

And yet France alledges, that we have ceded to Bri­tain, the right of considering provisions as contraband! and yet this article so just in itself, so liberal on the part of Britain, so beneficial to us, and so useful to France herself, has been laid hold of by her, as a ground of quarrel! whence can proceed her displeasure at this ar­ticle? the true cause of it is to be found in the word "misunderstandings" the tendency of this article, to [Page 18]prevent "misunderstandings" between this country and Britain, has given umbrage to France; those misunder­standings which it has been her unceasing endeavour to foment, and her constant hope to blow up into a quar­rel.

Hence too her anger at the treaty; hence those objec­tions so manifestly unfounded; those flimzy pretexts, which throw so thin a veil over her real motives. She saw many causes of difference existing between this country and England; she saw those causes aggravated by ancient resentments, and recent injuries; and she looked, with confident and eager expectation, to the moment, which she thought fast approaching, when these differences should produce an open rupture: then should we become her associates in the war; then would our commerce be cut off from her rival; then, like Hol­land and Belgium, should we have been placed under the controul of her agents, our ports possessed by her ships, our towns seized by her troops, our country pil­laged to supply her armies, and our resources exhausted to replenish her treasury. If we escaped the necessity of surrendering to her, as Holland has been compelled to do, important parts of our territory, as the price of what she would not have failed to call "her protection" we should have had much reason to rejoice in our good fortune.

These prospects, which she regarded as so certain, and contemplated with so much pleasure, were blasted by the treaty. By it she saw our differences composed, a mutual spirit of justice and conciliation restored, and the foundation of a friendly and beneficial intercourse solidly laid; hence her efforts to prevent its conclusion; hence her disappointment and rage, at its final accom­plishment.

Thus manifestly unsounded, fellow citizens, thus plainly destitute of even plausible appearances, are the os­tensible objections, thus unfriendly and mischievous to us are the real motives, from which the French govern­ment declares, ‘that she regards this treaty as a viola­tion of that between her and this country, as equi­valent to an alliance with Great Britain, and as a wilful and evident sacrifice on the part of the United [Page 19]States, of their connections with France, and of the most essential and least contested rights of neu­trality.’

Let us examine her next charge, the charge of hav­ing put a wrong and injurious construction on some articles of her treaties with us.

Under this head she complains, that contrary to the 17th article of the treaty of commerce, we have suffer­ed our courts of justice to take cognizance of prizes brought into our ports by her armed ships; that in violation of the same article, British ships of war, which have made prize of her vessels, have been al­lowed shelter in our harbours; that we have suffered British ships to arm in our ports; that we have prevent­ed the sale of her prizes, which she contends is per­mitted by the treaty; that a provision of the consular convention, which makes part of the treaties, has been rendered ineffectual by our neglect to pass laws for en­abling the French consuls to enforce their decrees; that our judges and magistrates, in contempt of the fifth article of this consular convention, have required the masters of French ships, applying for warrants against absconding sailors, to produce in evidence the original roll of their crews instead of the copy, whereby the power given to French consuls of causing the arrest of sailors who desert, has been greatly impeded; and finally, that contrary to the 19th article of the treaty of com­merce, we suffered a public ship of war, belonging to France, to be arrested in one of our ports, for acts done on the high seas.

It is not of the decision of prize causes made by our courts, that France complains, it is the right to decide which she contests. She alledges, that by the treaty of 1778, article the 17th, our courts are prohibited, in all cases whatsoever, from taking cognizance of captures made under colour of a French commission. This is the true point of dispute. If the courts be thus prohi­bited, their decisions however upright and legal in themselves, must be improper. If on the contrary, they have a right, notwithstanding the treaty, to take cognizance in certain cases, of prizes made under pre­tence [Page 20]of French commissions, they must be the judges when those cases occur, and no complaint can be ad­mitted against their decisions.

I have said, ‘under the pretence and colour of a French commission,’ because, if the allegation of the French government be well founded, our courts are precluded in all cases where any thing called a French commission is produced: they can take no cognizance, can enquire into nothing; consequently they cannot even enquire whether the commission be true or forg­ed; whether the vessel be in fact a privateer or a pirate.

To admit this pretension, would be to admit in the words of Mr. Jefferson, ^* ‘that any armed vessel of any nation, might cut away our own ships, or those of persons coming to trade with us, from the wharves of Philadelphia, Charleston, or New York, and by call­ing them prizes, prevent our courts from redressing the wrong.’ Can it be conceived, that any nation would cede such a right by treaty? The stipulations on this subject between us and France are mutual. Can it be conceived, that France has intended to cede, or now would permit such a right to us? We know per­fectly well that she would not.

The 17th article of our treaty with France indeed stipulates that the prizes made on its enemies by one party shall not ‘be arrested or seized when they come to enter the ports of the other; nor shall the search­ers or other officers of such ports search such prizes, or make any examination concerning their lawful­ness.’ But we contend that the prizes here intended are prizes made on the high seas, without the jurisdic­tion of either party; and not by its people, or by vessels equipt or armed in its ports. We contend that not­withstanding this stipulation, we have a right to protect our own vessels and those of our neighbours, within our territories, and the jurisdiction of our laws; that we have a right to prevent vessels from being armed and sitted in our ports for cruising against nations with whom we are at peace, and to restrain our citizens from [Page 21]carrying on war against those nations under a foreign commission. These rights we contend, we ought to enforce, by restoring property taken in contempt of them whenever it comes within our power. This and this alone our courts have done. In these three cases alone have they taken property from French captors, and restored it to the owners: where it was taken, ei­ther within the jurisdiction of our Laws; by our own citizens, under French commissions: or by vessels sitted out, armed, or equipped for war in our ports.

Of this France complains. Her Minister had armed and commissioned privateers in our ports; her armed vessels had seized ships, not only within a league of our coast, to which distance, by the Law of Nations, the jurisdiction of every country extends, but even in the Delaware: our citizens had taken French commissions, and under them made prize of vessels belonging to nations at peace with us. When prizes, made in either of these three cases, were brought into our ports, the courts interfered, and after trials in which the facts were proved, restored the property to the former owners. It is by this interference; so necessary for maintaining our neutrality and the independence of our government, that France alledges we have broken the treaty.

But this interference is justified not only by necessity, but by the Law of Nations, and their universal practice. To these, however, France has shewn that she pays very little regard; and to discuss the points would lead to too great a length. But fortunately, we are saved the trouble, she has herself decided the question in our favour. Her own laws now in force, and her own practice at this moment, support our interpretation of the treaty. Let us now hear France against herself: her laws against her complaints.

A commentary on the marine laws of France, drawn up by an ^† officer of the government, and first published under its authority in 1776, says, ‘that as far as the distance of two leagues, the Sea, according to the rule universally acknowledged, is under the dominion of the sovereign of the neigbouring coast; the effect of which dominion is that within it, every sovereign has a right to protect foreign commerce, as well as to [Page 22]secure his own territories from insult.’ How is fo­reign commerce to be protected within our dominion? Certainly by restoring property taken there. In ex­tending our dominion only one league from the coast, we have gone only half as far as France goes herself: and yet she accuses us of breaking the treaty, because we do not suffer her privateers to take vessels on our shores and even in our rivers.

The Marine ordinances of France, which are now in force, and which her commissions to privateers require to be observed, ‘prohibit all her subjects from taking commissions from foreign kings, princes or states, to arm vessels for war, or to cruise at sea under their colours, without express permission, under pain of being treated as pirates.’ "These rules," says the commentary, ‘have no exception; they extend to all commissions from friends or allies, as well as neutrals, and include all Frenchmen, whether they dwell in France or in foreign countries; for Frenchmen are not less Frenchmen for having gone to live in foreign parts. ^‡’

Thus, what has been long practised and is now established in France, we have done, and no more; and yet she complains. We have forbidden our citizens to take commissions from her, against nations with whom we are at peace, and as the only method of en­forcing this prohibition, we have restored property taken in contempt of it; and in all this, we have pre­cisely practised her own rules. Yet she charges us with breaking the treaty.

The whole scope and tenor of her laws forbid vessels under foreign commissions, from arming in her ports, against nations in peace with her. This we have also forbidden, after her example; and we have enforced the prohibition, by stopping and disarming the vessels when in our power, and by restoring the property which they had taken and brought into our country. And this France alledges as a breach of the treaty.

She next accuses us of another infraction, in suffering ships of war of her enemies, which have made prizes on her citizens, to find an asylum in our ports.

[Page 23] The treaty in article 17th provides, that ‘no shelter or refuge shall be given in the ports of either party. to such as shall have made prize of the subjects, peo­ple or property, of the other’ and the 22d article for­bids ‘foreign privateers, in enmity with one party, to sell or exchange their ships or prizes, in the ports of the other.’

Now it is clear, that nothing is expressly forbidden here, but the sale or exchange of prizes, and the en­trance of ships that had taken prizes; the prizes them­selves, according to the literal construction, might be sent in, tho' not sold; and this would have been a great advantage to the captors: This advantage the United States supposed, that the treaty did not intend to give to the enemies of France.

Beside if no British ship of war, which had ever taken a French prize, could be admitted into our ports, how was the fact to be established; the British might deny the fact: could we take it for granted, because asserted by the French; or must we in every case, before we could send off the vessel, institute a suit to decide whe­ther at any time, or in any part of the world, she had taken a French prize? This it is evident, would have been a subject of endless and vexatious contention.

Our government therefore adopted a construction more beneficial to France, more conformable to the spi­rit of the treaty, and much easier of execution. In­stead of admitting prizes made on France by her ene­mies, and excluding all vessels which were charged with having made them, it resolved to exclude the prizes in all cases, and to admit all ships of war except such as might attempt to come in with their prizes, those were to be, and have been excluded.

France complains of this construction, and calls it a breach of the treaty; she does not recollect that if we were to adopt her construction, and follow the letter of the article, we should do her a much greater injury, by admitting all the prizes which her enemies might think sit to send in.

Another breach of the treaty with which she charges us, is that we have permitted British ships to arm for war in our ports.

[Page 24] This charge is directly contrary to fact, the strictest orders have always existed against such armaments, and every attempt to make them, has been prevented as soon as known to the government; two or three instanc­es have been mentioned, in which vessels armed and went out, before the government, or even the French minister or consuls, had information of it. But what could be done after the vessels were gone? had they returned, they would have been seized; and their prizes, had they come within our power, would have been restored to the owners. But neither of those cases happened; and I would ask again, what could be done after the vessels were gone? Go to war, France would have said, to revenge the injury; this was her aim, and this she did say, over and over, tho' not in express words. But if acts like this, had been a proper reason for going to war, we ought to have attacked France herself long ago; for she has attempted ten armaments, where the English have attempted one; and several of them, more­over, her minister sent to sea, against the express orders of the government, and in contempt of its authority.

As to the sale of her prizes in our ports, for prevent­ing which, she charges us with another infraction of the treaty, she has by the treaty no such right: there is not one word said about her prizes; except that she may bring them in and carry them away. This she says, is the same thing as a permission to sell; but common sense, and the plain meaning of words, say otherwise. Her own laws also, say otherwise; which notwithstanding this treaty with us, expressly forbid the sale of foreign prizes, in her ports.

We did indeed for a time, permit the sale of her prizes in this country, as a matter of special favour; but we soon found this permission productive of many ill effects; our sea ports having became the resort and station of privateers, whose crews are generally among the most profligate of mankind, were converted into scenes of riot; many disorders took place, our citizens were drawn off from their regular industry, and by the intro­duction of goods, under pretence of prize, frauds on the revenue began to be practised. The permission therefore, [Page 25]was very properly revoked; the only subject of regret is, that it ever was granted.

The consular convention, comes next into view: this convention makes part of the treaties between us and France, and she alledges that we have infringed it in two points.

The 12th article provides, that the consuls of France and the United States, shall possess the power of decid­ing, respectively, all differences which may arise between the people of one country in the territories of the other. We have never hindered the French consuls from decid­ing all such controversies between French citizens; but the French government has lately found out, that we have passed no law to enable those consuls to enforce their decisions. It might be asked, why has this mat­ter rested in silence so long? why has nothing been heard of this complaint till now; although the fact complained of, has existed for more than eight years? We might remark on the extraordinary and unprece­dented nature of the complaint itself; whereby, con­trary to universal usage and the first principles of na­tional sovereignty, a government is required to put compulsory process into the hands of persons not amen­able to its laws, for the purpose of enforcing decisions not under the controul of its judiciary authority: But it will be sufficient to observe, that France herself has never passed, or been required by us to pass, any such laws as she demands from us; and that it most evident­ly appears, from the convention itself, that no such laws, were ever intended to take place in either coun­try; since the decrees of the consuls are to be enforced against the parties by their own governments respec­tively; to whose courts the right of appeal, and of course the power of reversing, confirming, and executing the decrees, is expressly and solely reserved.

Another article of this convention authorises the consuls of each nation respectively, to cause the desert­ing sailors of their nation, to be arrested and delivered to the captains, on application to a magistrate of the country, and the production of proof. The French go­vernment has lately found out, that our magistrates when applied to for the arrest of their sailors, require [Page 26]the original articles to be produced. Those articles contain the agreement of the sailors and are signed by them. They remain on board the ship, and are the only authentic document by which any dispute between the captain and sailors can be decided. It is an inva­riable and most excellent maxim of our laws, that no copy of a paper can be produced in evidence, especi­ally where life or liberty is to be effected by it, unless the paper itself be proved to be destroyed, or in the power of the other party. In conformity to this max­im, our majestrates very properly require, that the original articles themselves should be produced to prove that a man belongs to the ship, before they will arrest him for deserting from it; ^* of this the French govern­ment, after eight years silence, has at length bethought itself to complain. It calls this a breach of the con­sular convention, and alledges, that copies of the ar­ticles, certified from the consuls office, ought to be received; although it is most evident from the slightest view of the consular convention, that the copies whereof it speaks, are wholly of a different kind, and to be used for a different purpose.

I have explained these two points thus particularly, not from a belief that they are of the least weight or importance, even in the eyes of France herself; but to shew with what eagerness she catches at the most futile accusations against this country.

The last accusation under the head of breaking trea­ties, is, if possible, more extraordinary than any of the former. France accuses us of having broken the 19th article of the treaty, by permitting a public ship of war belonging to the republic, to be arrested in one of our ports for an act done on the high seas. Would it be believed, that this ship, arrested by process of the courts, at the instance of a citizen, and for a most re­prehensible act, had been actually released by the in­terference of the executive, on the express ground, that being a public ship of war, she was potected by the treaty? yet such is the fact. Complaint being made of [Page 27]her arrest by the French minister, the executive direct­ed the attorney general to file the necessary proceed­ings in the court for obtaining her release. He did so, and after hearing the case she was released; but as the forms of the court, the priority of other business, and the course of proceedings, did not admit of a decision so speedy as Mr. Adet desired, he refused to accept the vessel after she was released, and declared that he would abandon her to the government, and claim damages. These damages have never been refused, nor even demanded; and yet because the pre­sident would not undertake at the instance of a foreign minister, to overrule the courts of justice, whose in­dependence is expresly secured by the constitution, be­cause he would not with a strong hand arrest their pro­ceedings, and in open defiance of the constitution and the laws, wrest from their hands the object of their deliberations; we are accused of having broken our treaty with France! we are charged with an arrest, which instead of sanctioning; we caused to be remov­ed; we are charged with breaking a treaty by an act which we redressed!

Such are the grounds whereon for four years together, and in terms the most disrespectful, we have been un­ceasingly charged with violation of treaties!

But we have refused, she says, to enter into a new and more extensive treaty with her. She says, that under "the most frivolous pretexts," ^* we have evaded all her advances to a new negociation. This also is an accusation against us, made by the minister Genet, and which Mr. Adet has renewed and enforced.

But had we not a right, without offending France, to decline a new treaty if we thought it would not suit us? We already had a treaty; was it a ground of quar­rel that we were satisfied with it? Why was a new treaty proposed? For our benefit; if so we were the proper judges how far it was beneficial. For the be­nefit of France? In that case we certainly had a right to decide, how far the advantage which she desired was [Page 28]compatible with our own interests. Who ever heard, that to decline an advantageous bargain ourselves, or refuse one to another person, was a cause of of­fence?

The truth however is, that we did not decline this negociation; we did not wish it indeed, but our go­vernment was willing to hear what France had to say on the subject, and frequently expressed its willingness. The proposition was first made by Mr. Genet, in May 1793, but Mr. Jefferson, at that time secretary of state, informed him, that the business could not be entered on immediately, because the senate was not in session. He renewed the subject the September following, but before that time he had behaved so much amiss, that the government had requested his recall, and did not think fit to communicate with him, except on matters of immediate and pressing necessity; it therefore po­litely waved the business, with an assurance ‘that it should be considered, with all the respect and in­terest which its object necessarily required.’

His successor, Mr. Fauchet, never mentioned the new negociation; the next that we heard of it was from Mr. Adet, in June 1795. The president immediately met his advances, and directed the secretary of state to enter on the negociation without delay. He inform­ed Mr. Adet of this, and proposed a mode of proceed­ing; Mr. Adet promised to enter on the business, but he postponed it from time to time, on the plea of in­disposition or business, and it was finally dropt by himself.

And yet Mr. Adet says, ‘that his offers to treat were evaded, under the most frivolous pretexts.’

But although our government was willing, and even desirous to hear what France had to propose on the sub­ject of a new treaty, it could not have agreed to one on the terms which she held out, without sacrificing the best interests of this country.

Those terms are to be found in Mr. Genet's instruc­tions, by which Mr. Adet, when pressed on the subject, declared that he also was to be guided; and from those instructions it appears undeniably, that our joining France in the war, engaging to defend her iands, and [Page 29]forming an alliance offensive and defensive, were to be essential conditions of the new treaty; an extension of commercial priviledges with the islands, was the lure thrown out to us.

The instructions begin with declaring, ‘that the executive council have highly approved the overtures made to a former minister, by the American go­vernment, on the means of renewing and consoli­dating the commercial treaties between the two countries, and are disposed to set on foot a new ne­gociation on those foundations—that they do not know but that such a treaty admits a latitude still more extensive in becoming a national agreement, in which two great nations shall suspend, (that is ac­cording to the French expression, shall closely unite) their political and commercial interests, and establish a mutual understanding to befriend the empire of liberty wherever it can be embraced to guarantee the sovereignty of the people, and to punish those powers who still keep up an exclusive colonial and commercial system, by declaring that their vessels shall not be received in the ports of the contracting parties.’ ‘Such a pact, they add, will quickly contribute to the general emancipation of the new world.’

This "general emancipation of the new world," we know was to include the liberation of the slaves, whom this very French government soon after set free in its islands.

"Besides the advantages," continue the instructions, ‘which humanity in general will draw from the suc­cess of such a negociation, we (the French) have at this moment, a particular interest in taking steps to act efficaciously against England and Spain, if, as every thing announces, those powers should attack us. In this situation of affairs, we ought to excite by all possible means, the zeal of the Americans, who are as much interested as ourselves in disconcerting the de­structive projects of George third; the executive council has room to believe, that these reasons, in addition to the great commercial advantages, which we are disposed to concede to the United States, will determine their government, to adhere to all that citizen Genet shall propose to them on our [Page 30]part—and the executive charges him, in expectation that the American government will finally make a com­mon cause with us, to take such steps as exigencies may require.’

Hence it manifestly appears, that we were to make a common cause with France for her interest, against Great Britain and Spain, and that commercial advantages were to be our wages. Subsequent parts of the instructions are still more explicit.

‘The Executive Council recommends it especially to Citizen Genet, to sound early the disposition of the American Government, and to make it (the guarantee of their Islands) a condition sine qua non of their free commerce with the West-Indies, so essen­tial to the United States. It nearly concerns the peace and prosperity of the French Nation, that a people, whose resources increase beyond all calcu­lation, and whom nature has placed so near our rich colonies, should be interested, by their own engage­ments, in the preservations of these Islands. Citizen Genet will find the less difficulty in making this proposition relished in the United States, as the great trade which will be the reward of it, will indemnify them ultimately for the sacrifices which they may make in the outset, and we shall immediately put ourselves in a condition to fulfil our engage­ments, by sending to the American ports a sufficient force to put them beyond insult, and to facilitate their intercourse with the Islands and with France.’

I have been the more full and particular in citing these instructions, because they not only prove, incon­testibly, what were to be the conditions of the new treaty proposed to us by France, but also that her project, from the beginning of the war, was to draw us into it. We shall presently see that altho' she recalled Mr. Genet, she neither disapproved his measures nor abandoned this project.

That the refusal of our government to enter into a new treaty on these terms, should have been matter of displeasure and vexation to France, is perfectly natural; because it disconcerted one of her most favorite schemes: but none of its measures have either merited or receiv­ed, [Page 31]more warmly or more universully, the approbation and thanks of this country.

And yet France has made it one of her charges against us, that we have evaded this new treaty ‘under the most frivolous pretexts.’!

She has gone further. She has accused us of having ‘eluded her friendly offers of assistance in our nego­ciations with Algiers.’

Here again I would ask, whether we had not a right to decline her mediation in this business, if we thought fit? Are we to make no treaties without not only consulting France, but employing also her assistance? should one of my neighbours offer to interfere in com­posing a difference between me and another, surely I might decline his interference without giving him cause of offence? He might think it very unfriendly, or very unwise; but surely it would not authorize him to quar­rel with me.

The truth however is, that far from "eluding" this friendly offer of France, we shewed the utmost readi­ness, and even inclination, to avail ourselves of it to the utmost. Our minister in Portugal, to whom the Algerine negociation was entrusted, went first to Paris, "in order to engage the assistance of the French go­vernment," in the mean time, he sent an agent imme­diately to Algiers to pave the way; and as the Alge­rines are known to be a very fickle, capricious people, difficult to be managed, and capable of being dealt with at particular times only, he furnished this agent with proper powers, that he might avail himself of any fa­vourable moment which shoeld chance to offer; such a moment did offer very soon after his arrival: he seiz­ed it, and concluded a treaty, disagreeable indeed, but far better than none, and more favourable than Algi­ers has lately, if ever, made with any other country.

Ought he to have lost this moment in waiting for the assistance of France? Before the orders from France could arrive, the opportunity might have passed away, never to return.

Besides; our agent, who concluded the treaty, de­clares that neither France, nor her consul, had the least interest with the Algerine government at that time. It was for this reason, he says, that he did not request the [Page 32]assistance of the French consul; which would have only injured the cause. But he applied for this assistance in negociating with the other Barbary States, where the French were supposed to possess influence.

So much for this complaint: the bitterness with which it is urged, gives some ground to suspect, that her an­ger does not arise from our having made a treaty with­out her assistance, but from our having made one at all; and that her interference was intended to prevent, not to promote the object. It is very difficult to believe that the freedom of our flag, and the extension of our commerce, in the Mediterranean, can be desirable ob­jects to her, or to any other commercial power.

She charges us further, with having authorised, or permitted, various infractions of our neutrality by the English, or in their favour.

One of these infractions is the impressment of our seamen by British ships of war; we have not adopted, she says, or at least have not made known to her, any ef­ficatious measures for repelling this violence; whereby her enemies are suffered to support and increase their maritime forces, from among our citizens.

In the first place, we have adopted such measures as we judged most efficacious for this purpose; and those measures being public, were known to France. Our government has, at all times, resisted the impress­ment of our seamen, by every means short of hostility; and early in the year 1796, before this complaint was made, Congress passed an act, for the sole purpose of protecting and relieving American seamen from im­pressment. These measures indeed, were not such as France wished, and probably hoped to see adopted; for they were calculated to produce the effect without hostility: but they were such as our own government, to whom, and not to France, we have entrusted the protection of our citizens, considered as the most ad­visable.

As to our not having informed France of these mea­sures, it is not true; she did not need information of a public law, which was printed in the newspapers; and she knew that other measures were pursued, tho' she said that they were not efficacious; we well know what [Page 33]we means by efficacious measures; but on this point, we and not France, were the proper judges.

And let me be permitted to ask, what obligation we were under to inform France of our measures? Is she to prescribe to us in what manner our citizens are to be protected! If under pretence, that the inefficacious manner in which we conduct our affairs, operates to her injury, she may direct and controul us, there is an end of our independence. This complaint is of a piece with that of Mr. Genet against the President, "for refusing to convene Congress at his instance."

We have also, she says, restrained our citizens from receiving commissions from her, or serving on board of her armed vessels.

We have indeed done so, and it was our duty; a duty enjoined by our own peace and safety, and by the impartial justice which we wished to observe towards other nations. We never objected to our citizens going to France, and engaging in her service, which many of them did; but we objected to their receiving com­missions from her in our own country, or entering on board of her privateers, to rob those who were coming peaceably to trade with us. This was conformably to prudence, as well as justice; and it was, moreover, what we had stipulated with her to do, and to the ut­most of our power had done, in the case of her enemies.

It is worth while to remark the inconsistency of these two complaints. She first quarrels with us, because we could not prevent, in her own words ‘the marine of England from being augmented by our seamen,’ and in the same breath, she accuses us of infringing the laws of neutrality, by prohibiting our seamen to serve in her privateers! We forbad both, and as far as we could, we prevented both; but unfortunately, it was not always in our power to prevent either; and yet she quarrels with us, for not preventing, even by hostility, in the case of her enemies, the same thing, which she also quarrels with us, for having attempted to prevent in her own case! such is the justice, mode­ration, and impartiality of France!

We are also charged with permitting the English to violate our neutrality, by capturing French property on [Page 34]board of our ships; and even American property when bound to, or from the ports of France.

As to the capture of French property on board of our ships, it has already appeared to be a right which Britain possesses by the laws of neutrality. How then can the permission of its exercise be a breach of them? But we never did willingly permit its exercise. We acquiesed in it indeed, because we knew that the right existed, which the English, notwithstanding all our en­deavours, could not be induced to relinquish. Had it been in our power to induce her, we most certainly would have done so; for of all things, next to keeping out of the war, it was what we most desired, and what would most effectually have promoted our interests.

But France says, that our measures for this purpose, were not efficacious; and when she says so, we well know what she means. The instructions to Mr. Genet, and the whole tenor of her conduct, leave no doubt on that point.

With respect to the capture of American property, bound to or from French ports, we were so far from permitting it, that after remonstrating in the firmest manner, tho' not in terms of outrage and insult, we demanded satisfaction, and armed to enforce it; and had not the measure been discontinued, and reparation agreed on, there is no doubt that war would have been the consequence. That we accepted this reparation, that we did not fall into her views, by making war in the first instance, is the true cause of offence which we have given to France.

Another breach of neutraltiy with which she charges us, is ‘that we suffered the British to declare her Islands in a state of blockade.’!

But I would ask, how we were to prevent this decla­ration? Or how we were bound to prevent it, had we been able? France does not pretend that we were bound by treaty; the treaty of alliance indeed, stipu­lates for a guarantee of her islands; but the treaty of alliance was purely defensive, not offensive; and it being perfectly certain, that she was the aggressor in the war with England, the guarantee in this instance could not operate. But we were bound, she says, by [Page 35]the laws of neutrality. How! can the laws of neu­trality oblige us to defend the possessions of our neigh­bours? This would amount to saying, that neutrality required us to enter into the war.

We know that by the law of nations, provisions can­not be carried to a blockaded place. The British de­clared, ‘that certain French islands were blockaded, and that all persons attempting to carry provisions to them, should be dealt with according to the law of nations. While they adhered to this declaration, and dealt with us according to the low of rations.’ we had no right to complain; whenever, under colour of the declaration, they infringed the law of nations, they have engaged to make reparation, and are pursuing the most effectual measures for fulfilling the engagement.

In the mean time, as these blockaded islands were prevented from receiving provisions, France suffered an injury; but it was an injury which we could not pre­vent; for we had no fleet to drive away the English ships which formed the blockade. Even had we pos­sessed a fleet, it would not have been incumbent on us to engage in a war, merely to save one of our neigh­bours from an inconvenience. We also suffered an injury; reparation for which we demanded, and are to receive.

Her next complaint, with which the long catalogue is terminated, rests on an outrage offered to Mr. Fau­chet, a former French minister, by a British ship of war in the waters of the United States; and which, she says, we have suffered to pass with impunity.

The outrage offered to Mr. Fauchet, was an attempt to seize his person and papers, on board of a vessel in which he had taken his passage from New York to Rhode-Island. The attempt was made by a British ship of war, lying near Newport in Rhode-Island. The ves­sel was stopt, and the trunks of Mr. Fauchets atten­dants were searched, he and his papers escaped, because having been informed of the design, he went ashore, and proceeded to Newport by land: perceiving that they had missed their prey, the British party released the vessel and those on board.

[Page 36] When the President heard of this daring insult to our country, he felt and expressed a proper indigna­tion; but as he received the information from one party only, prudence no less than justice, required that before he acted, he should hear the other side. He accordingly directed enquiries to be made; having ful­ly ascertained the facts, he ordered the British man of war to depart immediately from our harbours, and di­rected that in case of her disobedience for more than forty eight hours, all intercourse between her and the country would be cut off. Our minister at London was instructed to complain against the Captain, and demand his punishment; this was done, but the Cap­tain with his ship, was in Nova Scotia, from whence he went to the West Indies. He lately returned to England, and as soon as it was known, the minister was ordered to renew his demand.

What could we do more? we could not seize him on board of his ship to punish him? we could not fol­low him to Nova Scotia, the West Indies, or England to punish him. If the British government should ne­glect to punish him, shall we declare war against them to avenge this injury? even France perhaps might al­low, that this would be to buy vengeance at too dear a rate.

This is what France calls "suffering the insult to her minister to pass with impunity!" and yet much greater lenity was exercised, when her consul at Boston, with an armed force, rescued a vessel from the officers of justice; and when one of Mr. Genet's illegal priva­teers resisted the custom-house offieers, and the militia sent by the President to arrest her in the Delaware, and proceeded to sea in defiance of his authority.

Such my fellow-citizens, is a true picture of French grievances! Such are the injuries for which we have been subjected, during four yeass, to the importunate and insulting remonstrances of three successive minis­ters! for which we have been accused of making ‘an insidious proclamation of neutrality,’ of ‘sacrificing France to her enemies, and prostituting our own rights to Great Britain,’ of permitting ‘by a perfi­dious complaisance, the English to violate rights which [Page 37]our honour and interests required us to defend,’ of ‘presenting to England under the cloak of neutrality, a poignard to cut the throats of our faithful allies,’ of ‘partaking in the tyrannical and murderous rage of Great Britain, and joining with her to plunge France into the horrors of famine,’ ^¶ and of ‘co­vering our proceedings with the veil of dissimulation.’

For such injuries, it is, that we have been insulting­ly told of the "cold impartiality of our government," of our "inability to maintain our treaties," ^* of having ‘abandoned our neutral situation through an excessive complaisance for England,’ of ‘amusing the French by specious correspondences to cloak our own inactivi­ty,’ of making ‘forced constructions of our trea­ties, and endeavouring to throw a veil over the mea­sures of the English government,’ and that the res­pectable and heretofore unimpeached proceedings of our courts, have been termed "unjust chicaneries. *"

These are the injuries, on account whereof, the Pre­sident has been contemptuously charged with promul­gating philosophical principles; the expression applied by France to that proclamation of neutrality, which she, on another occasion, terms insidious, but which has received the sanction of both Houses of Congress, and the universal approbation of the American people: that the government has been accused of acting ‘under an unknown influence, and of being guided by foreign impressions;’ that we have been upbraided with ‘a cowardly abandonment of our friends,’ that we have been told ‘that we had no flag, no regard for our laws, no reliance on our strength, and no sentiment of na­tional dignity,’ that France by the mouth of her mi­nister has said to us, ‘If we have been deceived, if you are not able to maintain the sovereignty of your peo­ple, speak; we supported it while we were slaves, [Page 38]and we shall know how to render it respectable, now that we are become free. ^†’

It is, in fine, for such injuries as these, that our treaty with France has been expressly violated, that swarms of privateers have been let loose upon our com­merce, that our property to the amount of many mil­lions of dollars has been plundered, that hundreds of our ships have been seized and condemned, multitudes of our sailors thrown into jails and prison ships, that our seamen who may be found in Bri [...]sh ships of war, altho' brought there by compulsion, are declared liable to be condemned as pirates; ^‡ and, to fill up the measure of outrage, that a messenger of peace and conciliation, a minister expressly "sent to explain our conduct, to ‘remove misunderstandings, and restore harmony,’ has been contemptuously driven away, without a reception or a hearing!

Having taken this view of the injuries complained of by France, permit me now fellow citizens, to make some remarks on her pretensions; permit me to trace a little the consequences o [...] a compliance with her demands; the nature and extent of the terms to which she requires us to submit.

This submission, it must be remembered, is to precede any explanation on our part, or even the reception of a minister. The directory told gen. Pinckney, through Mr. Munroe, that France would receive no minister plenipotentiary from the United States, till all the inju­ries whereof she had complained and of which she had a right to expect redress, should first fully receive it

The first of these injuries is the British treaty, which she declares to be a violation of her's, and a departure in us from the principles of neutrality. This injury must be redressed; therefore the treaty, though sancti­oned by every branch of the government, and executed in part, must be broken: the posts which have been given up under it, must be re-delivered; the prospects of reimbursement for their losses which it affords to [Page 39]our merchants, must be renounced, and the commis­sioners now employed in deciding on their claims, must b [...] recalled. In fine, our whole dispute with Great Britain must be renewed under circumstances of the highest aggravation, and we must be left to settle it by a new treaty under the direction of France, or by a war in her alliance.

Without all this it is most evident, that the injuries of which France complains under this treaty, cannot be redressed, and she requires them to be redressed before she will even hear our explanation.

She next complains against the decision of our courts. The constructions put upon our treaties, and upon the laws of nations by our courts, she complains of as injuries, which, like the others, must be redressed before she will listen to us.

Therefore the decisions of our courts, wherever she complains of them, and that is in every case where they have been adverse to her claims, must be reversed. How is this to be done? Those decisions have been carried by appeals into the supreme courts of the Union, and there confirmed. The judicial power is indepen­dent of the legislative and executive by the express terms of our constitution, which to render the courts more completely independent, provides that the judges shall not be displaced, like other officers, at the plea­sure of the president, but shall hold their places till turned our by impeachment. In the mean time there is no power in the government by which their decisions can be altered. France, however, informs us, that they must be altered before she will listen to us.

It is plain therefore, that in order to satisfy her, we must violate our constitution in its most valuable part, the independence of the judicial power.

And this is not all, we must place these courts hereafter under the controul of her minister, and restrain them from taking cognizance of any causes which he may pronounce improper for their interfe­rence; for France complains not only of the decisions of our courts, but of their creating delay to her pri­vateers, by taking cognizance of cases which have fi­nally been decided in her favour.

[Page 40] Therefore our courts having issued process to bring a cause before them on the complaint of our citizens, must dismiss it on the orders of a French minister. Should they refuse to dismiss it, what then is to be done? The executive must interfere with a strong hand and over-rule them, and this not from his own judg­ment, but at the instance of a French minister. Thus the public force of our country must be placed in the hands of a foreign agent, to be employed in compell­ing our courts of justice to submit to his orders.

This is the very lowest stage of dependence and de­gradation; and it is manifest, that this must be done be­fore the demands of France can be satisfied; for there is no other method of preventing that interference of our courts whereof she complains as one of her greatest injuries.

The legislature must also share in this degradation. It must be compelled to repeal one of its laws; for one of them, the act of June 5, 1794, unfortunately con­firms the principles which had been adopted by our-courts and by the executive. This act accordingly is placed by France in the catalogue of her injuries, and must be repealed.

Therefore the legislature must hereafter ask France what laws it shall enact, and what, being already en­acted, it shall suffer to remain; for it is evident that if she can insist on the repeal of one law on the pre­tence of its being injurious to her interests, or contrary to her rights, she may equally object to the continu­ance or the passing of any other, there being none to which this pretence may not be extended. ^*

[Page 41] When these obnoxious decisions and laws shall be removed, then will France enter into the exercise of those rights, which through them have hitherto, as she alledges, been unjustly withheld from her. She will give commissions to our citizens in our own ports to privateer against her enemies with whom we are at peace. These privateers, if they please, will capture vessels on our coasts, in our rivers, and even at our wharves, and our courts will be prevented from giving redress. She will arm vessels in our ports, and if they can proceed to sea by stealth, or in despight of the Presi­dent's authority, as they have heretofore done, neither they nor their prizes on their return into into port, can be questioned by the courts. She will sell her prizes in our country, whereby our harbours will again be­come a station for her privateers, our towns overrun by their crews, our police insulted and disturbed, our regular commerce interrupted, and our revenue de­frauded. She will even arm and equip vessels for war in our ports, for the prohibition against it rests at present, on that law of June 5, 1794, whereof she requires the repeal; and should British ships of war enter our har­bours, she will alledge that they have at some time or other made prize on her citizens, and we, without wait­ing to examine the truth of her allegation, must com­pel them to depart.

All this is the plain and necessary consequence of complying with her demands.

Having proceeded thus far, we must go on to de­clare war against England, or at least to exclude her commerce from our ports, for the prevention and a­vengement of what France tells us are infractions of our neutrality and insults to our honour. France tells us, that we have heretofore submitted to these insults, and winked at these infractions; that our measures to repel or redress them, have been inefficacious, and the inconvenience which she suffers from this inefficacy, is numbered among the greatest of her injuries.

It has already been seen, that these infractions and in­sults consist chiefly in the capture of French property in our vessels, that is in the exercise of a right which we acknowledge, and the law of nations clearly supports. [Page 42]They also consist in part of real injuries, whereof we have complained, and for which the authors have en­gaged to make, and now are making ample satisfaction. These two descriptions include the whole list of "infrac­tions and insults." But if it were otherwise; if as France asserts, all the acts complained of were really infractions, and we had failed to obtain satisfaction, still it is evident that the measures which we have adopted for that pur­pose, were the most efficacious in our power short of hostility, or what would have immediately led to it. Since therefore she requires us to adopt more efficacious measures, such as shall satisfy her and remove the evil, it manifestly appears, that nothing short of hostility, or measures that must speedily end in it, would content her.

Therefore we must make war on Great Britain, con­trary to our own inclination, and to what, in our judg­ment, the best interests of our country require.

When we shall have done all this, when we shall have broken our treaties, repealed our laws, and in contempt of our constitution, reversed the most solemn decisions of our courts; when we shall have placed the judicial power of our country under the controul of a French minister, and abandoned the whole system of our foreign policy, so wise and adopted after so much deliberation; when weshall have placed our ports, our ri­vers, and our commerce at the mercy of French privateers, and engaged in a war with the enemies of France, to compel the surrender of an acknowledged right, because its exercise happens to be inconvenient to her; when we shall have done all this, what will be gained? Will France then restrain her privateers, restore our property, and respect our few remaining rights? No! she promises no such thing; she requires all this to be done as a preliminary, and when it is done, she will then hear what we have to say, and will signify to us her further pleasure.

And are the people of America, who once generously resolved to maintain their independence, or die in the last ditch, are you, my fellow citizens, whose blood has often slowed in the cause of your country, prepared for this? Are you prepared to lay your country prostrate at the feet of France? Are you prepared to put your [Page 43]courts under the controul of her agents, violate your constitution at her orders, and tamely allow her minis­ter, under the pretence of watching over the execution of a treaty, and of inforcing the laws of neutrality, to over-rule the legislature, dictate to the President, and assume the absolute direction of your affairs? If you be thus prepared, which I will never believe till I see it, I freely, nay proudly, declare to you that I am not, and that my voice shall never sanction this surrender of our rights and independence. Sooner would I see every ship sunk, every town in ashes, and devastation once more spread from one end our coast to the other.

With the loss of these things we might retain our soil, our hands, our courage, our independent spirit, and our constitution; and we should be a nation still. Industry would again give us ships and towns; again might commerce gladden our ports, and agriculture smile over our land; and our children possessing in peace and honour, the blessings which with so many sacrifices, we had purchased, might proudly look on our graves, and say, "these were our fathers." But independence once lost, is most rarely regained: Such is the condi­tion of our nature, that a nation once fallen, once re­duced under foreign rule, most rarely rises again; and where its fall proceeds, as in our case it must, not from its want of means, but its want of courage to use them, from its pusillanimity, its intrinsic weakness of character, it is destined never more to shake off the yoke.

But it may be said, is not this picture exaggerated? Can it be supposed that France, even should we yield to her present demands, would attempt to push thus far her abuse of our concessions?

Let us enquire of the Dutch, let us ask the Bel­gians, they can give us some useful information; and from their example, we may learn that the oppressions of France always keep pace with the weakness, the credulity, and the submissive spirit of those with whom she has to deal. Let us ask the Swiss; from them we may receive a lesson equally important, that the only [Page 44]means of setting bounds to her unjust and haughty pre­tensions, is a firm and manly opposition.

In the winter of 1794, the French armies having overrun Belgium, and being favored by the intense cold, which covered the rivers with Ice, marched into Holland. On the 20th of January, a few days after their arrival, the French commissioners with the army, published a proclamation, in which they told the Dutch, ‘In the midst of war, we consider you as our friends and allies; it is under this name that we enter your country, we seek not to terrify, but to inspire you with confidence. It is but a few years since a ty­rannic conqueror prescribed you laws; we abolish them, and restore you freedom.’

‘We come not to make you slaves, the French na­tion shall preserve to you your independence.’

‘Personal safety shall be secured, and property pro­tected.’

All this was very friendly, and the Dutch very good naturedly believed it, more especially as the French generals, when they were approaching the country, had constantly repeated the same thing. They however soon found their mistake.

Seven days after this first proclamation, the same com­missioners, having now been admitted into all the towns with their troops, and obtained complete possession of the country, published a second, in which they ‘for­mally invited’ the Dutch government to furnish the army, within one month, with the following supplies, viz. 200,000 quintals of wheat; 500,000 of rations of hay; 200,000 rations of straw; 500,000 bushels of corn; 150,000 pair of shoes; 20,000 pair of boots; 20,000 coats and waistcoats; 40,000 pair of breeches; 150,000 pair of pantaloons: 200,000 shirts; and 50,000 hats; and besides all this, 12,000 oxen to be delivered in two months. This requisition they call ‘their ami­cable intentions,’ which they flatter themselves the citizens and the government will shew equal [...]eal to second, and in the execution whereof, they hope that ‘the slow forms of ordinary administration, and all doubts about the want of authority, which might im­pede the operation, will be carefully set aside?’ and [Page 45]they give the Dutch to understand, that in case the ar­ticles were not furnished, they should be exacted by force.

It was now too late to hesitate; the French had cross­ed the rivers, their army was in the country, and the Dutch had opened their gates to these ‘restorers of their liberty;’ they were therefore obliged instantly to comply, and on the same day, they addressed a pro­clamation to the people, informing them of the demand, and directing them to furnish their respective propor­tions. In this proclamation, they remind the peo­ple of the ‘absolute necessity of furnishing the supplies, without the smallest delay, and of the distress to which they must expose themselves, if they manifest the least unwillingness, or even procrastination.’

This however was only the commencement; they subsisted their armies in Holland during the winter, took every thing they wanted, and paid in depreciated assignats at par; and finally they forced the Dutch to form an ossensive and defensive alliance with them against England for ever. The treaty was signed on the 15th May, 1795. It obliges the Dutch to cede to France, "as indemnities" two of their most important frontier towns, with the adjoining territories, and one of their provinces; to admit French garrisons, in case of war in that quarter, into three others of their strongest fron­tier towns; to admit a French garrison both in peace and war, into one of their principal seaports? to give France the free navigation of one of their principal ri­vers; to employ half their forces in carrying on the present campaign, under the command of French ge­nerals; and finally, to pay France, as a further indem­nification for the expences of the war, one hundred millions of livres, equal to twenty five millions of dol­lars, in cash or bills of exchange on foreign countries.

In addition to this, it has lately appeared from the statements made to the Dutch government by a com­mittee of Finance, that for fourteen months then last, the Dutch had paid two millions of dollars per month, amounting in the whole to twenty eight millions, for the support of the French armies. The these two sums add the value of the first contribution which was ex­acted [Page 46]in kind, and they amount at the least, to fifty-five millions of dollars, two thirds of the whole expences of our revolution; of this enormous sum have the Dutch been plundered by France, under the name of amity and alliance in less than two years, and in ad­dition to the immense amount of assignats they have been forced to receive, to the surrender of a whole province, of their five strongest frontier towns, and of a principal sea-port, and to the employment of one half of their troops in the service of France.

In return for all this, the French have driven away the Statholder and changed the government. They have not suffered the Dutch however to adopt one to their own mind. A convention was called for that purpose, a great majority of which was in favour of a federal republic. The minority having opposed this plan in vain, sent two of their members to Paris to obtain the interference of the French government. The French government did interfere, and the ma­jority was forced to yield. The plan of govern­ment, which this great majority had favoured, was now rejected, and a different form, more suitable to the views of France was imposed on the nation. ^‡

The Dutch have also obtained in addition to all these proofs of amity, an offensive and defensive war with France against England, in which they have already lost all their rich possessions in the East Indies, the Cape of Good Hope, a great part of their fleet, and the re­mains of their trade.

The easy conditions granted to the Dutch were com­plained of in the French convention, and it was alledg­ed, that the commissioners had not drawn from Hol­land all the advantages which the republic had a right to expect. The commissioners justified themselves by alledging that it would have been impolitic to demand [Page 47]harder conditions at first, because in that case, the Dutch might have been driven to resistance. ^*

Thus we see openly avowed and approved, the system of coaxing a nation into their power, under the pre­tence of rendering it services, and then plundering and oppressing it without bounds or remorse, under pre­tence of receiving a reward for those services: and this by a government which has talked to us of our perfidi­ous neutrality!

Without entering into so minute a detail respecting belgium, it will be sufficient to state, that the French en­tered this unfortunate country under repeated and so­lemn promises of protection and freedom; no sooner had they obtained possession by the success of their arms and the favour of the inhabitants, who were foolish enough to confide in their promises, than they put every article of property which could be of use to their armies into requisition, and compelled the people to receive payment in depreciated assignats at par. They next levied immense pecuniary contributions on all the towns, they ordered measures to be taken for compel­ling the people to exchange their money for assignats at par. ^† They placed the country under the government of military commissioners: finding that a majority of the conventions, which they had assembled under the pretence of making the people free, were adverse to their views, they dissolved these conventions by force, though freely chosen by the people, and this for the express purpose, to use the words of one of their commissioners ^§ in the account of his proceedings, ‘of raising up the minority, and destroying or counterbal­lancing the power of an ante patriotic majority.’

Having thus afforded "liberty and protection" to the Belgians, having thus ‘broken their chains, and released them from the yoke of their ancient tyrants,’ they proceeded to seize and confiscate, for their own [Page 48]use, the whole property of the clergy in Belgium, to the amount of more than two hundred and fifty milli­ons of dollars.

The military government and contributions levied at the point of the bayonet, still go on in this liberated country, for the gazettes have lately informed us of parties of horse being sent to seize the provisions of such farmers as neglected to bring them in at the orders of the commissioners.

It may also be useful to consider the example of Italy, to the people of which, the French when they invaded it, also promised liberty; they even carried on for some time the farce of a convention, at which gen. Buona­parte sent one of his officers with a detachment of troops to preside. Having by these means inticed these simple people to assist them against their own govern­ment, they have lately in their treaty with the Pope stipulated, that these provinces which belong [...] to him, shall not be made free, but be ceded to France. In the mean time they plundered the churches and the cities, stript the country to which they had promised freedom, of its wealth by enormous contributions, and com­pelled the militia to join their armies. Besides the territory which they compelled the Pope to relinquish, they exacted from him upwards of six millions of dol­lars, and many of his most valuable effects, and forced him to receive a French garrison into one of his sea­port towns.

Thus it is that France deals with countries which she can intice or compel into her grasp. Let us see how she acts towards such as are willing and able to resist.

The Swiss being neighbours to France, and having resolved according to their usual policy, to remain neuter in the present war, she early began as she has done in our case, to claim the right of directing their affairs under the pretence of enforcing the observance of treaties and of the laws of neutrality. The Swiss, as we have done, for a long time bore with her through a love of peace, but still, though in the mildest terms, repelled her pretensions. Emboldened by this moder­ation on their part, and by seeming compliances into which they had been led by their anxiety to avoid a quarrel, she increased in her demands, and at length [Page 49]formally required them to drive from their territory the numerous French emigrants who had taken refuge there, and were residing peaceably under the protection of their laws. The assylum granted by them to these unfortunate exiles, deprived of their all, and hunted by the implacable vengeance of France from country to country, was declared by her to be ‘a breach of neu­trality.’ The Swiss resolved not to yield this essential point of their sovereignty, but unwilling to refuse di­rectly, for some time evaded the matter; France per­sisted, called their evasions ‘outrageous and ridicu­lous delay,’ asked them how they ‘dared to hold a conduct so reprehensible,’ and demanded without delay, "a frank and amicable" explanation, which might dispel her doubts, and restore "their state to her "sentiments of good will." ^*

The Swiss made a firm reply, marked however with great moderation, and shewing a wish still to evade the question, rather than give a direct and pointed re­fusal.

But this did not satisfy France: she returned to the charge. Her minister tells the Swiss, ‘I conceive it my duty, agreeable to my INSTRUCTIONS, to request formally from you, that you will banish from your territory all descriptions of those strangers so dan­gerous to the tranquility of France and of Switzer­land, as well those whom a false pity has hitherto to­lerated, as those who may hereaster take refuge there. They cannot any longer prolong their stay there, without injuring that confidence which ought to subsist between two nations, one of which can­not grant an assylum to (the enemies of) the other, without essentially affecting the duties of neutrality. The directory demands and expects from your friend­ship, that listening only to your true and solid in­terests, you will drive from among you the emi­grants and French priests.—Your wisdom will appreciate the extreme and pressing importance of this request. ^†’

[Page 50] The Swiss however were resolved to judge them­selves of what "their true and solid interests" required; and finding that moderation only invited new ins [...]s, and that there was nothing left for them, but to submit, or firmly and plainly assert their rights, they replied that they themselves were the judges of the interests of their country; that they were desirous of avoiding of­fence to France and had given none; that those Emi­grants and Priests were peaceable exiles, whose mis­fortunes as well as their virtues and good conduct, gave them a claim to the assylum, which they had receiv­ed in the Swiss territory: that far from plotting against the interests of France, as she had alledged, these exiles were honestly and peacably labouring for their bread: that they had received in Switzerland the rights of hos­pitality which no duty of a neutral nation forbid it grant, and that in these rights the Swiss were resolved, at all hazards, to protect them. ‡

This reply put an end to the dispute; France perceiv­ing that the Swiss were resolved not to yield, and that, considering their warlike character and the situation of their country, an attempt to force them would be at­tended with hazard and difficulty, she wisely determin­ed to give up the point. The emigrants remained; and after all this blustering, she left the swiss quietly to manage their own affairs.

From these various examples my fellow citizens, we may learn the consequences to be expected from sub­mission, and from resistance; we may learn that to make the concessions now demanded, would only em­bolden her in new requisitions, to be constantly ex­tended in proportion as we should betray a disposi­tion to yield; whereas the true and only method of repelling or preventing aggression, is to shew by our conduct that we are resolved, at all hazards, to main­tain the exclusive and uncontrouled direction of our own affairs. Before she will desist from her attempts, we must convince her that in this resolution we are firm and united. Till then, she will continue to re­quire from us, as she now does, the sacrifice of our ^* [Page 51]interests and self government at the shrine of her own ambition.

And what are the titles whereby she claims this sa­crifice? She claims it from our justice, and our grati­tude.

Her claims on our justice, rest upon the stipula­tions of treaties, and the duties of neutrality. These have already been examined, and it has appeared how far they are from supporting her pretensions.

But our gratitude, we are told, forms a stronger tie, and rests on foundations still more sacred. She proud­ly holds up to our view her assistance in our struggle for independence; her commercial benefits, conferred in the present war; and the religious punctuality where­with, as she asserts her stipulations in the treaty with us have been fulfilled. On these is sounded, accord­ing to her, a debt of gratitude, which-nothing less than our independance can pay.

Again and again has she reminded us that to her we are indebted for the possession of our freedom: again and again has she recalled her services to our recollection, and upbraided us with our ingratitude: again and again, has she repeated her claim to unbounded compliance with her wishes, as the return for her assistance. These preten­sions at first were urged with some degree of modesty. The instructions to Mr. Genet go no further than to alledge ‘that the french nation contributed to acquire our independence, as the just price where­of we ought to submit to engagements which might appear burthensome.’ But Mr. Genet soon afterwards told us ‘that France had established our free­dom and that gratitude required us to yeild to his demands.’ Mr Adet declares that France ‘wrought and guaranteed our independence, at a time when, as the price of it she might have granted us condi­tions less liberal.’ And at the conclusion of that long list of complaints, which are founded on preten­tions so inadmissable and extravagant, he declares that our Goverment, in refusing to yeild to them ‘has set aside the duties of Gratitude, as if ingratitude was a duty of Goverments.’

[Page 52] To crown the whole, the directory in a public speech to our late our late minister at Paris, expressed their hope, ‘that the Americans, proud of their liberty, would never forget that they owe it to France.’

In the affairs of private life it is a rule, that to be upbraided with benefits received, very much impairs the obligation they create; and that to demand a reward for what was conferred as a favour, changes the obli­gations of gratitude into a debt by contract. The debt in this case must be weighed in the scale of strict justice, or measured by the extent of precise stipulations.

As to stipulations, there are none which can warrant the demands of France; for in that very treaty whereby the assistance so boasted of was furnished, it is expresly declared, ‘that each party being resolved to fulfil on its own part, the clauses and conditions of the present treaty of alliance, according to its own power and cir­cumstances, there shall be no after claim of com­pensation on the one side or the other.’ The only benefit stipulated for France, was our guarantee of her islands; but this stipulation, which was to take effect only when France should be engaged in a defensive war, does not operate in this case; because in the present war she is clearly the aggressor: and of this she is so sensible, that amidst all her extravagant demands, she has never called on us for the fulfillment of the gua­rantee.

A reward claimed for services on the principles of justice, must be regulated by two considerations; what the services were fairly worth, and what the parties at the time, may be supposed to have tacitly contemplated as the price. But can any possible service be worth our independence, nothing less than which France de­mands? Ought we in justice to make her this return, even if, as she pretends, she had bestowed this independ­ence? Can it be supposed, that when the services were rendered, she ever expected, or we would ever have consented, that this should be considered as their price? What in that case should we have gained by our seven years struggle, by the destruction of our property, by the devastation of our country, by the long toils and the blood of our citizens, and by our [Page 53]debt seventy millions of dollars? We should have gained not freedom, but a change of masters; of and whether a change for the better, let Holland, Belgium, and Italy, bear witness.

But is it true that France gave us independence? Let us appeal to dates and to her own assertions for an answer to the question.

Let us ask at what time she concluded this alliance, to which she says we are indebted for our success? At wh [...] time she rendered this assistance, by which she so confidently affirms, that our independence was main­tained? It was in the year 1778, after we had sup­ported the war three years by our own forces; after we had captured Burgoyne's army; after the English, convinced of their inability to subdue us, had offered us every thing we asked, except independence: it was after we having declared our independence, and fully assured of being able to support it, had unanimously refused to listen to their offers.

Before these events, and while the contest was yet doubtful, she had constantly refused to form an alli­ance, or to grant us assistance. She allowed us indeed to purchase arms and amunition from her merchants, but for these we paid, and with these we were furnish­ed by the merchants of other nations also.

This is the testimony of dates and facts; testimony written on the plains of Saratoga, and behind the breast works of Bunker's Hill.

But what is the testimony of her own declarations?

After the treaties of alliance and commerce became known to England, she published a manifesto in justi­fication of the war, which on account of those trea­ties she had resolved to wage against France. The French court gave a public answer to this manifesto, in which it vindicated its own conduct, and justified the treaties, on the express ground, that the United States had already not only declared, but established their independence, when the treaties were concluded. The answer asserts, ‘that the capture of Burgoyne overthrew the plan which England had laid for the reduction of her colonies;’ that ‘England had become unable to subdue her colonies;’ that ‘on [Page 54]the 6th of February, 1778, the date of the treaties, the Americans were in the full and public possession of their independence: that the colonies had establish­ed their independence, not only by a solemn decla­ration, but also in fact, and had supported it against all the efforts of the mother country;’ that ‘Eng­land had displayed her power to chastise the Ameri­cans, and reduce them by conquest, but that the result of all her efforts had been to demonstrate to America, to Europe, and to England herself, her impotency and the impossibility of her ever bringing the Ameri­cans again under the yoke.’

And yet we are now told by France, that she gave us our independence!

Assistance indeed she did give us, though not our independence, and all the world knows how fondly, how proudly, we have always acknowledged the obli­gation. All the world knows with what religious reverence, with what heartfelt gratitude, we have shut our eyes to the motive, while we looked only at the act. All the world knows how much delighted we have been to forget that France was an interested associate, and to regard her only as a generous, a magna­nimous benefactor. With what pain it is that we find ourselves obliged by her reiterated reproaches, to aban­don this voluntary this pleasing delusion! With wha [...] pain do we see ourselves compelled, by her taunting re­calls to our recollection of services which she says w [...] have forgotten, to draw aside the veil, and expose to the world and to ourselves, the objects for which we always knew that those services were rendered!

Her objects were to exhaust and divide the British empire, by fomenting and supporting the quarrel be­tween the colonies and the mother country; and then to gratify her resentment and exalt her own power, by seizing the moment of weakness, to humble and reduce her most formidable and her most dreaded rival. To effect this object, she did not wish the colonies to be­come independent, but to be reduced after a long struggle: because in that case both their resources and those of England, would be the most completely ex­hausted. For the proof of this position, we appeal once more to her own testimony.

[Page 55] Nothing is better known than that the pride of France never received so deep a wound as at the peace of 1763. It was by that peace, that after a war, in which her power, in the four quarters of the globe, had sunk un­der the arms of Britain, guided at that time by the genius of the elder Pitt, she found herself obliged to subscribe to terms which her statesmen, her warriors, and her writers, have never ceased to reprobate and la­ment. She tried every means to recruit her strength; sought to fortify herself every where by new alliances; and waited with impatience for the moment, when cir­cumstances might enable her to renew the combat, with better omens of success. This moment she saw ap­proach in the quarrel which broke out in 1775, between Great Britain and her colonies: and she immediately took into consideration how the opportunity might best be improved. This was the subject of her most anx­ious care, of the most profound deliberations of her wisest statesmen.

The result of these deliberations may be seen in a piece drawn up in April 1776, by Mr. Turgot, at that time one of the ministers of Lewis the sixteenth, and intitled, ‘Reflections upon the manner in which France and Spain ought to regard the consequences of the quarrel between Great Britain and her colo­nies;’ in this piece, which Mr. Turgot declares to be intirely conformable to the opinions of Mr. De Ver­gennes, it is declared, that the event the ‘most de­sirable for the interests of the two crowns (France and Spain) would be the reduction of the colonies again under the yoke of England.’ The reason as­signed for this opinion is extremely striking, and un­veils most completely the system of the French policy. ‘If the colonies should not he reduced till after the ruin of all their resources, England would lose the advantages which she has hitherto drawn from them, not only for the augmentation of her commerce in time of peace, but in the use of their forces in time of war. If on the contrary, the colonies should be subdued without the destruction of their wealth and their population, they would preserve also their cou­rage and their desire of independence, and England [Page 56]would be compelled to employ part of her forces in preventing a new revolt.’

Thus we see that these generous beenefactors de­sired no [...]ing so much as the destruction of all our resources, and even of our population, by a tedious and bloody, contest; and then our final reduction under the yoke of our former masters.

To effect this plan; to enable us to make this long resistance, by which our wealth and population were to be destroyed; Mr. Turgot advises, ‘that France should furnish us, by means of the merchants, with the warlike stores, and even with the money, which we might be in need of; but without abandoning her own neutrality, or affording any direct assis­tance.’ This he said was by all means to be avoided; because it would involve France in the war; who, without remaining in peace herself, could not reap all the expected advantages from the weak and ruined state, whereto England and the colonies would be re­duced by the struggle.

Another reason, and in his opinion a decisive one, for avoiding war, or even the appearance of it, he de­clares to be ‘the tendency which the one or the other would have to bring about a reconciliation between the colonies and the mother country, and thus ex­pose France to the danger which she most dreaded,’ that is, the danger of their speedy reunion, with undi­minished forces.

And finally, the better to accomplish this plan, he recommends the adoption of measures ‘for obtaining exact information of all that passed in the colonies; without however giving room to suspect, that France had there any direct or authorised agent. ^*’

The tendency of this plan to weaken and reduce the power of England is easily seen; but I cannot find in it the least trace of good faith, or good will, towards the colonies; much less of a wish to promote their prosperi­ty, [Page 57]or establish their independence. The very contrary indeed is expressly declared.

That this plan, contrived by Turgot and Vergennes, was afterwards adopted by the French government, is perfectly well known; not only from the power which those two ministers then, and for a long time after, en­joyed in France, but from the conduct of the govern­ment and its express declarations. In March 1784, we find M. de Vergennes, in a memoir addressed to Louis the sixteenth, on the conduct observed by the French government towards other powers, reminding him, ‘ [...] his majesty, provoked by the violence and injus­tice of England, had employed himself seriously about the means,’ of doing, what? of establishing the independence of the colonies? No: ^* but ‘of re­pressing the pride and ambition of that enterprising nation, and of preventing the revolution which had broken out in North America, from turning to the prejudice of France; for which view a negociation had already been commenced with the United States, when the unexpected death of the Elector of Bava­ria called his attention to the affairs of Germany.’

Thus when the king and his minister come to talk over the matter in private, where men tell the truth without disguise, they explain the true motives of their conduct. We find that they were actuated, not by good will to the Americans, but by resentment against England; not by a wish to promote the advantage of America, but to repress the pride and ambition of Eng­land; and that it was for this view, and not to secure our independence, that the negociation was commenc­ed.

It is indeed perfectly well known that untill they heard of the capture of Burgoyne, and the conciliato­ry offers of England, the French government treated all our advances with the greatest indifference; and to use their own words in their answer to the English mani­festo, ‘had all times manifested a dislike to any en­gagement [Page 58]with the colonies,’ this was entirely con­formable to her policy of avoiding the war, while Bri­tain and the colonies should go on to exhaust each other by a long struggle, and afford her an opportunity of attacking them both afterwards with entire forces. But when Burgoyne was taken, and the English offered us all we asked, except independence, then France, for fear we should accede, and lest that reunion which she so much dreaded, should take place, immediately departed from her former policy, and concluded a treaty with us, on terms far more favourable than those, which we had be­fore solicited in vain.

Her reasons for doing so, are very fully and strongly expressed, in the following extract from her answer to the British manifesto.

‘It is sufficient for the justification of his majesty, that the colonies, which form a nation considerable for the number of their inhabitants as well as for the extent of their dominion, have established their inde­pendence, not only by a solemn declaration, but also in fact, and have supported it against the efforts of their mother country; such was in effect the situa­tion of the United States, when his majesty began to negociate with them. His majesty had full liberty of considering them as independent, or as subjects of Great Britain; and he chose the first part, because his safety, the interest of his people, invariable policy, and above all, the secret projects of the court of London, imperiously laid him under the necessity.’

The answer then asserts, that the alliance, formed under the pressure of this imperious necessity, was, ‘even­tual and purely defensive; not to take effect unless France should be attacked by the court of London before the cessation of hostilities with the colonies.’

Thus we find that this boasted alliance, to which we have have been so often and so insultingly told that we owe our independence, was not resolved on by France, till after she knew that our independence was in fact established; was dictated by imperious necessity, and a regard to the safety and interests of France; and was [Page 59]not to take effect unless she would be attacked by our enemies!

And lest the evidence of circumstances and the point­ed declarations of the former government of France on this subject, should be doubted, the republic has also added its restimony. The executive council, in its in­structions to Mr Genet, declares ‘that the minsters of Louis the sixteenth thought it right for France to hinder the United States from taking that political stability of which they were capable; because they would soon acquire a strength which it was probable they would be eager to abuse. The same machive­lian policy,’ continue the instructions, ‘influenced the operations of the war for independence; the same duplicity reigned over the negocitions for peace,’ and in fact we know that the French go­vernment thwarted these negociations to the utmost of its power, and strove to render the conditions of the peace, which it had in vain striven to prevent, as dis­advantageous to us as possible, by depriving us of the Fisheries, the western country, and the navigation of the Mississippi. This was conformable to their system of keeping us at war as long as possible, and leaving us at the end of it, as weak as possible.

Surely therefore it may be expected, that we shall at length cease to be told of the disinterested generosity of France in establishing our independence, and of our ingratitude to her on that account.

Does her claim to our gratitude for commercial fa­vours during the present war, rest on a better founda­tion? She has indeed opened her West India ports to us; and of this we have been again and again reminded. But at what time was it done? At the time when she had resolved to give up her commerce, and convert all her ships into privateers for the purpose of destroying that of England.

As the productions of her colonies were of indis­pensible use to her, it was infinitely her interest that we should become the carriers of them, more especially as we were the only neutral power, whose local situation, and number of ships, could enable it to effect the object.

[Page 60] She hoped also to obtain another very desireable ob­ject. It was well known to her that England claimed a right to take the goods of her enemies on board of neutral vessels. When we should engage in this car­rying trade between France and her colonies, we should of course become exposed to infinite vexation from the exercise of this right. The profits of the trade would tempt us on one hand, while the vexations would pro­voke us on the other; and by this double operation the great object of bringing us into the war would be very much promoted. France also would be furnished with that pretext which we find her now using, for insisting on us to employ what she calls efficacious means in causing her property on board of our ships to be respected by England. If we should succeed, the property would go free, and that would be a great benefit; if we should fail, we should nevertheless be involved in the war, and that would be a greater still.

The sweets of this commerce too, it was hoped, would intice us into an alliance offensive and defensive for the purpose of securing it; and accordingly we find that when Mr. Genet was instructed to draw us into such an alliance, this was the bait which he was ordered to employ.

Thus it is manifest, that what we are now upbraided with as a generous and useful indulgence, was in fact a most dangerous snare, from which great good for­tune and the prudence of our government, joined to its unshaken firmness, could alone have enabled us to escape.

She rests her claim to our gratitude in the last place, on the respect which she has paid to our interests and our wishes, and the punctuality wherewith she has ful­filled her duties towards us.

One instance of her attention to our wishes is, the re­cal of Mr. Genet, in which she now asserts, that ‘listening only to the complaints of the American go­vernment, she immediately gave the most ample sa­tisfaction. ^*’

[Page 61] We, however, perfectly well know, that this recall proceeded not from complaisance to us, but from the fall of the Brissotine party, to which Mr. Genet be­longed, and by which he was sent here. Robespiere, who then came into power, not only drove all the men of that party from their employments, but destroy­ed as many of them as he could catch; but that France never abandoned the system which Genet had pursued, is most evident from the present measures, in which we see that system avowed and enforced. It is also evident from the whole correspondence of his two suc­cessors, which though not always quite as offensive in expression as that of Genet, was no less exceptionable in principle and substance. Indeed that appeal to the people, the mere threat of which was considered as the most offensive and outrageous of all Genet's proceed­ings, has actually been made by one of his successors, in the most formal manner and by express orders of the French government.

Another instance is, that France, on the application of our minister, repealed, as far as respected us, one of her decrees, which was injurious to the commerce of neutral states. This repeal, it is true, did take place; but unfortunately, the repealing law itself was repealed three days afterwards, through the influence of some French privateers, which had taken a very rich American ship; and the first decree was left for many months to operate in a manner the most injurious to our commerce.

This leads to the question, how far France has intitled herself to particular favour from us by her punctual ob­servance of treaties? For this also is one of the merits; whereof in the midst of her reproaches, she has repeat­edly reminded us. Her ministers have repeatedly told us of ‘the religious punctuality with which the French Republic keeps her engagements with a nation to whom she has not ceased to testify her attachment.’ ^† Let us see how punctual this observance has been, and what are the proofs of this attachment.

[Page 62] On the 9th of May, 1793, before the British com­menced their spoliations on our commerce, the national convention of France passed a decree, authorizing her ‘ships of war and privateers, to capture all neutral vessels loaded, in whole or in part, with merchan­dizes belonging to enemies, or with provisions belong­ing to neutrals, but bound to enemies ports.’

This was prior by one month, to the first orders of the British government, under which our provisions, destined for French ports, were made prize. Thus did France set the example of those very measures, against which, even while she contiued to pursue them herself, she so violently exclaimed as soon as they were imitated by the British, and to compel the recal where­of she has so often told us that our honour, and our good faith to her, required us to make war against England!

This decree of May 9, 1793, being a plain and di­rect violation of our treaty with France, ^† our minister at Paris complained, and on the 23d of the same month a new decree was passed, declaring that the former should not extend to American vessels; and thus plainly confessing its injustice. The second decree however was repealed only two days after it passed, and the first remained in force against our commerce. Our mini­ster again complained, and on the first of July the convention again decreed, that the decree of May the ninth should not extend to American vessels. This was a second acknowledgement of its injustice; and yet twenty-seven days afterwards, it was again enforced against our commerce by the repeal of the last decree for restricting it: and then it remained in force until January the 4th, 1795.

During this period a very considerable number of our vessels were carried into French ports by her pri­vateers and ships of war. It also became a practice to seize cargoes sent in to her ports by our merchants, and employ them for public use, without paying for them. Her agents also purchased considerable quan­tities of provisions from our citizens, and drew bills [Page 63]for payment on the government of France, or on her minister in this country, which in many instances were not paid. Those agents frequently made contracts also with our citizen for supplies of provisions, which, when the provisions arrived, they refused to fulfill. The pri­vateers and ships of war of France, frequently com­mitted spoliations at sea on such of our vessels as did not come within the decree of May 9, 1793, and final­ly an embargo was laid on our vessels in Bourdeaux, and continued during the greater part of the years 1793 and 1794, whereby one hundred and three of our vessels were detained, and our merchants sustained very great injury.

There were many cases of all these descriptions, and each of them was a plain infraction of the treaty, the law of nations, or the rights of neutrality. Many of them included a breach of all three; and the whole number amounted to one hundred and seventy, exclu­sive of those for detention by the embargo at Bor­deaux.

Our government, however, did not imitate that of France, by directing our ministers to importune and insult it, to raise an outcry in the country, or threaten the government with an appeal to the people. It sent an agent to Paris with instructions to attend to those claims, and endeavour to obtain indemnification.

Let us hear this agents account of the manner in which the French government respected the rights of its allies, and fulfilled the stipulations of treaties.

The agent, Mr. Skipwith, in a letter addressed to the American minister at Paris, and dated October 1794, writes thus.

Thus far the agent. He then proceeds to state 24 particular instances of oppression, by way of illustrati­on, and gives a list of one hundred and seventy cases which he had then brought forward. To this he adds a list of one hundred and three vessels detained by the embargo at Bordeaux.

Let it be remembered that all this took place in the years 1793 and 1794; previous to the existance of the Bri­tish treaty, which France has since made the pretext of her outrages, and at the very time when she was boast­ing to us of the "religious punctuality" with which she fulfilled the engagements of her treaty, and the duties of a neutral and allied power. While she was quarrel­ling with us for the detention of a few privateers and their prizes, whose whole number at the utmost did not exceed twenty: she had three hundred of our vessels in her ports, subject to ‘incessant vexations, abuses, and oppressions’ and a great part of which had been car­ried in by her cruisers, contrary to the law of nations, and in express violation of our treaty. While her mi­nisters were insulting our government, because it did not take what they chose to call efficatious measures, to prevent the capture of our vessels at sea by the British, and the impress of our seamen, her ships of war were seizing our vessels at sea indiscriminately, stripping them of their officers and crews, confining our sailors, and leaving the ships to the care of boys and inexperienced hands. While she was complaining in the bitterest and most offensive terms, of delays in our courts, the citi­zens of the United States, even such as had gone to her ports under the faith of express contracts with her minister, were obliged, in the prosecution of their claims, "to encounter a thousand difficulties," to submit to every arbitrary imposition, to suffer ‘every sort of de­lay [Page 68]and vexation,’ and finally to give up the pursait, and leave their business in the hands of an agent.

And yet France upbraids us with her favours and our ingratitude! and yet she reproachingly boafts of ‘the religious punctuality wherewith she fulfils her engagements with a people, to whom she has never ceased to testify her attachment!’

Such, my fellow citizens, being the claims of France, and such the foundations on which they rest; such being the inadmissible nature and alarming extent of her pretensions; it remains for me to present you with a concise view of the measures whereby she is now attempting to enforce them.

These measures commenced with a formal statement of her complaints presented to our minister at Paris on the 9th of March, 1796. It was answered by the minister and transmitted to the government here im­mediately after. The complaints and the answers to them were the same in substance with those already explained.

On the 3d of July, 1796, she passed a decree direct­ing her privateers and ships of war to treat the vessels of neutrals in the same manner in which those neutrals should suffer their vessels to be treated by the English. This decree was notified to our government by the French minister at Philadelphia, on the 27th of October, 1796.

This decree goes expressly upon the principle, equal­ly unjust and absurd, that if neutral states receive an injury from one party which they are unable to repel, the other acquires a right to inflict it likewise. As it respects the United States it goes much further, and avows another priciple no less repugnant to every idea of justice and good faith. Britain possesses by the law of nations, a right to take the goods of her enemies sound on board of our ships. This right France re­sinquished expresly by the treaty with us; but because Britain continues to exercise it, notwithstanding our endeavours to obtain her relinquishment, France de­clares by this decree, that she will exercise it also, in express violation of the treaty. The reason assigned [Page 69]for it by her minister is, ‘that since Britain continued to exercise this right, France could find only a real disadvantage in the articles of her treaty with us, whereby she had resigned it:’ thus expresly avow­ing the principle that she has a right to refuse the performance of a solemn engagement whenever she may think its operations disadvantageous to her­self.

The minister says that he has no doubt that we would acknowledge the justice of this measure, and that he would order his note to be printed for the purpose of making known publicly the motives whereby the French government has been guided in adopting the measure. In this he kept his word, and the note was published.

On the 15th of November, 1796; the French mi­nister, performing, to use his own words, "a duty painful but sacred," signified to us ‘the resolutions of a government terrible to its enemies, but generous to its allies;’ this note, which he also published, contains the whole list of complaints urged against us by France, and announces that his functions as minister were from that time to cease. This suspension, however, he tells us, must not be regarded as a rupture between the two nations, but as a ‘mark of just displeasure on the part of France, to continue till our government should return to sentiments and measures more conformable to the interests of the alliance, and to the sworn friendship between the two nations,’ and after re­minding us in very inflamatory terms, of the cruelties of the English, and the generous assistance of France, he concludes with an assurance ‘that when our govern­ment shall return to itself, we shall again find in the French, faithful friends and generous allies.’

Such is the scope of that famous manisesto, wherein Mr. Genet's threat of an appeal to the American people against their government, was carried into execution.!

Other measures in the mean time had been adopted in pursuance of this system. On the 1st of August, 1796, the special agents of the Executive Directory in the West-Indies, issued a decree authorizing the cap­ture [Page 70]and condemnation of all vessels loaded with con­traband goods. The pretext for this decree was, that some of the United States, especially Virginia, had fitted out vessels loaded with contraband articles for the English, contrary to the law of nations; which, as the decree affirms, forbids neutrals to carry contraband goods to the enemy.

This however, in the first place, is not true. The law of nations does not forbid neutrals to carry contra­band goods to the powers at war; it provides only that if those goods taken by the enemy of that power to which they are going, they may be made prize. Neutrals therefore, may lawfully send contraband articles to any or all the powers at war; but they are sent under the risk of capture and condemnation by the opposite party.

This had been admitted by Mr. Adet; for altho' he complained at first of our supplying the English with horses, which by the French treaty are contraband, yet this explanation having been given, he omitted the complaint in his manifesto.

In the next place, by the law of nations, and the ex­press terms of the French treaty, the contraband goods alone are to be condemned, but neither the ships which carry them, nor the rest of the cargo. This decree howe­ver, makes both the ships and the whole cargo liable to condemnation; and consequently is a direct and formal violation of the law of nations, and the treaty between us and France. The decree does not say expressly, that the rest of the cargo shall be condemned; but it is un­derstood in that manner by the French agents in the West-Indies, and in that manner executed.

The law of nations and the treaty, moreover, make contraband goods liable to condemnation in the single case only where being sent to one party at war, they are taken by the other. But this decree subjects them to capture in all cases, whether bound to French or Eng­lish ports, and with them the ships and cargoes.

On the 27th of November 1796, the French com­missioners at Cape Francois passed a decree authorizing the armed ships and privateers of France to capture all American vessels bound to or from English ports. This [Page 71]decree was founded on the act of the Directory, declar­ing that France would treat neutrals as they suffered themselves to be treated by the English; but this act, iniquitous as it was, did not justify the decree; for at the time of passing the one and the other, the orders of the British for the capture of neutral vessels bound to French ports, had long ceased to exist.

It is to be observed moreover, that those orders never went as far as this decree.

The first, those of June 8th, 1793; directed ‘all vessels laden wholly or in part with corn, flour, or meal, and bound to any port in France, or occupied by the arms of France, to be brought in, and the corn, flour, or meal, to be purchased and paid for with freight.’ But the decree orders all American vessels, whatever may be their lading, bound to or from British ports to be captured.

The orders of the 6th of November 1793, directed all ships laden with goods, the produce of any colony be­longing to France, or carrying provisions or other supplies for the use of such colony, to be brought in for adjudica­tion. Even this falls short of the decree; which directs all American vessels, bound to or from British ports, and however laden, to be captured.

On the 8th of January, 1794; these obnoxious or­ders of November 6th were repealed, and instead of them, it was ordered that all ships of the following de­scription should be brought in for adjudication. 1st. Ships with their cargoes laden, with the produce of the French islands, and bound directly from thence to any port in Europe. 2d. Ships with their cargoes laded with French property, being the produce of those islands, and bound to any place. 3d. Ships attempting to en­ter any blockaded port in those islands; and 4th. Ships bound to any port there, and laden, in whole or in part, with naval or military stores. These last orders, tho' extremely outrageous, and a clear infraction of the law of nations, still fell far short of the French decree, which consigns to capture all our vessels indiscriminately, bound to or from any British port, in America, Europe, or elsewhere. They, as well as the preceding ones, [Page 72]have all been long ago countermanded, and the British have engaged to make compensation for the acts done under them.

These orders were further distinguished from the French decree in question by another equally important circumstance. They extend to all neutral vessels alike; whereas the decree is confined solely to American ves­sels: which proves that it is not, like the British orders, a measure of general policy towards all neutral states, but of particular resentment and hostility against us. It is moreover in direct violation of a treaty, which was not the case with the British orders. The British too had some provocation, and made us no professions of friendship. We had celebrated their defeats and those of their allies, by universal rejoicings; and had shewn their enemies every mark of public good will, and pri­vate affection. The direct contrary of all this took place towards France, and yet she has treated us abun­dantly worse.

This decree however of the commissioners at Cape Francois, unjust and injurious as it is, falls short of one since adopted by the French agents at Guada­loupe. On the first of February 1797, they decreed that all neutral vessels bound to any port in the West Indies, which had been delivered up to the English and was occupied and defended by the Emigrants; and all neutral vessels cleared out for the West Indies generally, should be liable to capture and condemnation.

The French government has never publickly confirm­ed or acknowledged these decrees; but it has never disap­proved, much less countermanded them: and they are carried into execution with every circumstance of insult and injury. The vessels taken are sent into one port, their papers into another, and the captains and crews into a third. When brought to trial, nothing is heard in favour of the owners; and indeed as the papers and captains are sent to another place, there is often no person to make a desence, nor any means of supporting it. Vessels bound to neutral, and even French ports, are often taken and condemned copies of the condem­nation are generally refused: the captains and crews [Page 73]are sometimes beaten, always left destitute of subsis­tance, and generally confined, as prisoners of war, in dungeons or on board of prison ships; where a miserable and scanty allowance of the worst food, scarcely suffices to prolong their sufferings.

The number of ships taken, as far as has yet been ascertained, is above two hundred and fifty: there is no accurate amount either of the value of property, or the number of seamen.

These are some of the marks of "just displeasure," whereby France reminds us that she is ‘terrible to her enemies,’ and admonishes our government ‘to return to itself,’ to conform to her orders!

In the mean time, as soon as the President was in­formed by the dispatches from our Minister at Paris, which have been already mentioned, that the French government expressed serious discontent at the measures we had pursued, he resolved to send a new Minister, for the express and special purpose, as his credentials declared, ‘of banishing suspicions, effacing unfavor­able impressions, and restoring harmony.’ General Pinckney was selected for this purpose, not only on aceount of his talents and great respectability of charac­ter, but also for his known good will to France, and warm attachment to her cause. He sailed from Char­leston in August 1796, and having stopped at Philadel­phia for his instructions, arrived at Paris in December following, and laid his credentials before the Directory.

The Directory however refused to receive him as Minister, and informed his predecessor, whose letters of recal had been presented at the same time, that they had determined not to receive another Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States till after the redress of grievances demanded from the American government, and which France had a right to expect. This was saying in plain and express terms, ‘we will hear nothing from you, till you have first submitted to our will as already made known to you.’

They even refused him cards of hospitality by which alone, according to their laws, his person could be pro­tected from arrest; and told him verbally thro' his [Page 74]secretary, that they expected him to leave the coun­try. They went so far as to intimate, that if he did not depart he should be arrested. With becoming firmness and dignity, however, he declared that he would rely on the protection of the Law of Nations, and must remain at his post, till he had received a written order to leave it, whereby he might be justified to his own government. This order they perfisted in refusing, till they heard of Buonaparte's last victory in Italy. The day after that intelligence arrived, which was towards the last of January, General Pinckney received a written order to quit France. He imme­diately went to Holland, where he now remains wait­ing for new instructions.

Thus has France not only refused to listen to our explanations till we submit implicitly to her will, but driven from her territory with ignominy and insult a minister sent, like a messenger of peace, for the ex­press purpose of ‘removing unfavorable impressions and restoring harmony.’

This to use the language of the President in his late manly and patriotic speech to Congress, ‘is to treat us neither as allies, nor as friends, nor as a sovereign state.’

Pursuing still the same system, the Directory on the 2d of March last, published a decree, whereby our treaty with France is expressly violated in two impor­tant points, under pretence of assimilating it to that with Britain: And it is further declared ‘that every American who shall hold a commission from the ene­mies of France, as well as every seaman of that na­tion, composing the crew of the ships or vessels (of those enemies I suppose) shall by this fact alone be de­clared piratical and treated as such without suffering the party to establish, that the act was the consequence of threats or violence.’

This last regulation worthy in bloodiness and injus­tice, of a country whose citizens have butchered two hundred and fifty thousand women, carried infants to be drowned, stuck on the points of spears, and chopt off the hands of mothers stretched out for mercy [Page 75]to their tender babes, ^* is shelter'd under the pretext of a stipulation in the British treaty, which provides that such Americans as take commissions from the enemies of Britain, to privateer against her subjects, may, if taken by them, be treated as pirates. Our treaty with France contains precisely the same stipulation; so also do those with Holland, Prussia, and Sweden. It is found in almost every treaty, and means no more in our case, than that if our citizens take commissions from a foreign power to privateer against people with whom we are at peace, and should fall into their hands, we will not interfere in their behalf. It extends only to our own citizens, not to those of France; to such as take commissions to privateer, not to sailors, even on board of privateers, nor to persons having commissions in public ships of war; not to punishment which we en­gage to inflict, but to such as those who take our citi­zens in these unlawful pursuits, may inflict, without our interposing for its prevention.

And in revenge for this wise, equitable, and almost universal arrangement, which, tho' it now offends France by preventing in some degree our seamen from augmenting her marine, she herself entered into with us long before we made it with Great Britain, the French government has declared, not that in case of our being engaged in war, her citizens shall not take commissions from us to privateer against our enemies, which would be the utmost extent of just retaliation, but that she will treat as pirates all such of our citizens, whether with or without commissions, as shall be found on board of her enemies vessels, whether public ships of war or priva­teers; [Page 76]and with a thirst of vengeance as inhuman as it is unjust, she adds that they shall experience this treat­ment for the simple fact of being on board, tho' brought there by threats, or even by force!

Thus if an American seaman, has the misfortune of being impressed by a British ship, he is liable to be hanged for it by France! Such is the conduct of a nati­on which perpetually proclaims its own justice and mag­nanimity, and boasts of being "generous to its allies."

This decree it might have been supposed, would fill up the measure of unprovoked and insolent aggression. But no! not content with acting thus towards us her­self, France has endeavoured to excite the Dutch and Spaniards against us likewise. The poor humiliated dependant Dutch, afraid to refuse, begged off for a while, and were excused. Her attempts however, in all appearance, have been renewed, and as she has 25000 troops in their country, there is little probabi­lity of their being able to hold out. As for Spain, she has come into the measure; her minister has lately pre­sented a memorial containing the complaints of his Ca­tholic majesty: these complaints are, for the most part, an echo to those of France. There is one however, peculiar to Spain, the manifest and even ridiculous fu­tility of which, may be taken as an example of all the rest. Spain has been made to complain of the British treaty as an infraction of that concluded lately with her: notwithstanding this British treaty was prior in ratification by more than ten months.

Thus in case we are driven to a war with France, are those two nations to be compelled to join her, as they have done in that against Great Britain. Their fate in both will no doubt be the same. It will be out of their spoils that we also, like Britain, shall take our indemni­fication; and this affords a complete and most useful example of the arbitrary and selfish conduct of France towards those powers whom she can frighten or seduce into her measures. She compels them to form an alli­ance, for which they pay with most of their wealth and a part of their territories; and then she forces them to join her in wars, wherein having no possible interest, [Page 77]all their resources are sacrificed to promote her ambi­tion or revenge. This is the fate she intended for us, had she been able to draw us into her snares. This was the common cause with her, wherein Genet was in­structed to engage us; this was the meaning of those efficacious measures against Britain, about which his two successors never ceased to declaim.

That her object from the beginning has been to draw us into the war, is manifest, not only from the instruc­tions to Genet, and the correspondence of his successors, but also from the measures themselves, which she wished us to adopt, from the plan of aggrandizement we see her pursuing in Europe, and from her uniform conduct towards other countries.

As to Mr. Genet's instructions, they are full and ex­plicit; they go directly to the object, and point out, not unskilfully, the means whereby it was to be effected. This nobody has denied; but some have been of opinion, that when he was recalled, the system was abandoned.

If so, whence those reiterated complaints by his suc­cessors, that we had not adopted efficacious measures to make our neutrality respected by Britain, and to com­pel a relinquishment on her part, of rights which we acknowledged her to possess? what more efficacious measures than those which we had pursued, were in our power, short of hostility, or of what must have produ­ced it? why did M. Fauchet on the 2d of May, 1795; ^* say to the secretary of state, ‘I hope therefore, sir, that the executive of the United States will not rest satisfied under its treaty with England, since every thing proves that that mean is insufficient?’ what did he mean by our not "resting satisfied" under the treaty? what could we do if resolved ‘not to rest satisfied with the treaty,’ bu [...]temploy coercive means to extort what according to him, the treaty had been found in­sufficient to obtain? why after informing us, ^† ‘that the history of our neutrality would prove it to have been a prey to the arbitrary conduct of Great Bri­tain,’ [Page 78]did he assert the ‘necessity of an energetic and vigorous reaction on our part, and a solemn reparation, which by giving to America what her honour required, would have manifested towards the French republic the inclinations and intentions of our government?’ we had already done what we thought sufficient, or in our power for protecting our neutrality; what then beside hostility could have been meant by an energetic and vigo­rous reaction? why did he recal: specially to our attention, ‘the energetic and liberal execution of our treaty with France, and the support of our neutrality upon a respectable footing?’ we have already put it on the most respectable footing in our power by any means short of war? why then talk to us of energetic measures, and a "respectable footing," unless something more was to be done, and some further means to be used? Why did M. Adet in his note of September 29th 1795, tell us that "he had no doubt but that we would oblige England to cease from violating the rights of nations." whence the clamour, still fresh in every one's recollecti­on against the proclamation of neutrality, which this minister has branded as insidious, but which having no possible object but the preservation of peace, could not have given offence unless war had been desired? why did he make it a ground of complaint afterwards "that we had not compelled England to respect our neutrali­ty;" that is, according to him, to relinquish the right of taking enemy's goods out of neutral ships? was it not manifest and well known to this minister, that we had done every thing in our power to accomplish those objects, except attacking England? how were we to oblige her to desist from violating the rights of nations, but by war?

If in fine the system of Mr. Genet, whereof an alli­ance offensive and defensive was manifestly a part, had been relinquished at his recal, why were all his preten­sions renewed and enforced on the 15th of November, 1796; by the manifesto of Mr. Adet?

The measures themselves, which France required us to adopt, leave no doubt about her objects. In the ^† [Page 79]first place, that we should compel Britain to relinquish the right of taking enemies goods on board of neutral ships. This right she knew, that Britain had always refused to relinquish in time of war; even in the Ame­rican war, when she stood alone against the United States, France, Spain, and Holland; and when Rus­sia, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and the Hanse towns, had formed an association to repel the right. She had never, of late years at least, renounced it even in peace, except to France herself in 1786; and then she receiv­ed very great equivalents. For us therefore, to insist on her relinquishment of this right, during such a war as the present, wherein her very existance is staked on the support of her maritime superiority and the extent of her commerce, France well knew would be a vain attempt, which if persevered in, must infallibly end in war. On this point therefore, she insisted with un­wearied and importunate perseverance; and made it the grand hinge of all her complaints.

So also, as to the impress of seamen: she well knew that Britain claimed the right of impressing such of our seamen as having been her subjects at the conclusion of the revolution war, had since that time come to settle in this country. This was a right liable to abuse in­deed, and very much abused, but too important to Eng­land, in a maritime war, to be relinquished. This France well knew, and accordingly she required us to compel the relinquishment; an attempt to effect which must of necessity have brought on a quarrel.

She further required us to admit a construction of the treaty with her, whereby she would have been per­mitted to arm vessels, enlist crews, and sell prizes in our ports, capture British vessels within our jurisdiction, and exclude every British ship of war from our har­bours. To this partiality, so advantageous to her, and so hurtful to her enemy, and in no wise intended by the treaty, she well knew that Britain would not pati­ently submit; for the latter had already begun to com­plain. Had we in compliance with the importunate and clamorous demands of France, adopted this system, there is no doubt that Britain would have opposed it; [Page 80]for a proud and angry rival is not apt to see without discontent, favours injurious to itself gratuitously ac­corded to its opponent. Hence abundant matter for a quarrel must have arisen. All this France knew, and the urged the demand with encreasing earnestness.

These were the leading measures required of us by France, and they all had an obvious and necessary tenden­cy to bring about a war: a tendency whereof it was im­possible for her to be ignorant. Hence the eagerness with which she pursued them, and her vexation and re­sentment at seeing them defeated. The same tenden­cy, tho' not in all cases equally strong, may be perceived in all her other steps.

But it will be impossible to understand fully the views of France in this country, without attending a little to her projects in Europe.

It is perfectly well known, that she long since form­ed, and still pursues with the most steady perseverance, a system of aggrandizement in Europe, for ensuring the success of which, it is absolutely essential that the ma­ritime power of England should be reduced. Germa­ny opposed barriers to her by land, which were also to be removed. Accordingly Germany was to be divided and a maritime coalition formed against England. Of this coalition the United States were to form an im­portant part; for though we had no navy, it was known that we had the means of speedily forming one, and that when once engaged in the war we should be obliged to exert them. The great number of our mer­chant ships, in the mean time, the skill, numbers, and enterprizing character of our seamen, the abundance of provisions and naval stores in our country, the conve­nience of our harbours, and above all our vicinity to the West Indies, where the commerce and navy of England are most easily susceptible of a deep and deadly wound, would have rendered us a most important ally in a ma­ritime war against that power. To out off our com­merce with her at the same time, the importance wherof to her, though certainly great, has been far over­rated by France, would greatly aid the blow.

[Page 81] Accordingly we find that as soon as the republic and the power of the Jacobin leaders were established, and before the war with England commenced, Mr. Genet was sent out with express instructions to bring about this alliance; and I have been assured by a gentleman who about that time acted a considerable part in the convention, but has since visited America, that this maritime coalition was early devised, and that ‘nothing was wanting to its completion but the consent of the United States.’ "That consent," he added, with an air of resentment which four years have not been a­ble to allay, "was applied for and was refused."

In this refusal, and in that proclamation of neutrality against which the ministers of France have never ceased to cry out, from Genet who said ‘it was a breach of the treaty,’ to Adet who brands it as "insidious," was laid the foundation of our present quarrel with France. She did not however begin the quarrel im­mediately; for she still entertained hopes of drawing us gradually into the war by fomenting our ancient diffe­rences with England, and prevailing on us, under the pretext of fulfilling our obligations by treaty and the laws of neutrality, to adopt measures which her an­tagonist would not have failed, and justly too, to con­sider as hostile. When she saw these efforts constantly baffled by the firm prudence of our government, and all her hopes of a quarrel finally extinguished by the treaty with Britain, she then suffered her resentment to blaze out in the measures which she now pursues.

In the mean time, the plan went on in Europe, and was pursued with varying success, but undeviating perseverance: nor did it receive the least check or al­teration from the frequent changes of government in France. Various factions wished to rule at home, and in their struggles for power, slaughtered each other without remorse or forbearance: but they all had the same object as to their neighbours; and that object was aggrandizement to France at their expence.

They began with Germany, which being nearest to them, it was necessary first to cripple. They consider­ed it likewise as the most vulnerable, by the two wea­pons [Page 82]wherewith they meant to assail all Europe. Those weapons were division and insurrection. Mr. Fauchet, in his intercepted dispatch, has informed us that France had an eye to the use that might be made of them here also.

Germany is composed of a great number of indepen­dent powers, some of them very inconsiderable, and all held very loosely together by a kind of league, at the head of which is the emperor. Austria, which com­poses the peculiar dominions of the emperor, is by far the most powerful of the German states, and possessed also of very extensive dominions out of Germany, espe­cially in Italy and Belgium. Prussia comes next, which tho' formerly inconsiderable, was raised by the talents and long reign of the late king to a very high pitch of power and importance. This power regards itself as the rival of Austria, against which it entertains a jealousy mixt with resentment and dread. These two great powers mutually balance and controul each other in the affairs of Germany; and the smaller states adhere some to the one, and some to the other, as general policy or par­ticular motives may happen to dictate.

It is easy to see how abundantly the seeds of divisi­on are sown in this system. These were also circum­stances which seemed to favour the plan of exciting insurrection.

All the governments of Germany, except a few towns, were arbitrary in their form; and some of them very oppressive in their practice: and altho the appa­rent vices of these governments were greatly corrected by mild customs and fixt laws for the security of person and property, which could not easily be violated; yet there, as in all other countries where a vast population, and its certain consequence great inequality of conditions, have taken place, there were great numbers, who pos­sessing little, and obliged to gain their subsistance by constant labour, would naturally look with an eye of discontent on the wealth and privileges of the superior classes. It was by this description of people that France meant to work. It was by exciting them to insurrection, that the persons who then directed her affairs, had en­slaved [Page 83]slaved their own country, after overturning a govern­ment established by free and general consent; and it was by the same engine that they intended to subjugate Germany, having first subverted and trampled under foot those governments whereby her force had been united and directed.

Those who had nothing, were to be the instruments abroad, as they had been at home; and they were to be set to work by pointing to the plunder of those who had something. Their exertions were to be aided by large bodies of French troops drawn to the frontiers, and held in readiness to profit by circumstances. To repel some small assemblages of French emigrants, whom the Emperor himself had compelled to disperse, was the pretext for these armaments; meanwhile every ex­pedient of fraud and dissimulation was used to lull the vigilance of the German states, and enflame their re­sentments and jealousies against each other. ^*

[Page 84] The king of Prussia, however, and the emperor, [...]reatened alike by this common and formidable danger, resolved to suspend their animosities, and unite in measures for their common defence. France required them to relinquish those measures, to disarm while she was encreasing her forces on their frontiers; and when they refused, she immediately declared war against them. Her minister at Vienna, at that time declared, that the emperor was disposed for peace. Her minister for Foreign Affairs declared the same thing, and a proof [Page 85]of it is, that ^* three months elapsed after this declaration, before the Austrians and Prussians were able to collect an army on the frontiers of France sufficient for offen­sive operations.

The Emperor's dominions in Belgium, being at a great distance from his other territories, and in the close [Page 86]neighbourhood of France, were exposed to an imme­diate and easy attack. They were also thought more obnoxious to the weapon of insurrection than any other country; for tho' they enjoyed the freest constitution of any people on the continent of Europe, except the Swiss and Dutch, some invasions of their rights at­tempted by a former Emperor, had planted deep the seeds of discontent and distrust. These attempts had been given up by Austria, but the jealousy and resent­ment inspired by them, were far from being extinguish­ed. These sparks it was the care of France to fan by emissaries and promises; and when her armies entered the country, they were preceded by declarations that they came as the friends of the people, to assist them in breaking the chains of their ancient tyrants.

We have already seen what kind of friendship it was which they had for the Belgians, and how the chains of this deluded people have been broken. They have been plundered of every thing they possessed to replenish the treasury of France, drained of all their resources to support her armies, and are now subject to a military government.

England for a while was let alone: It was not the season yet for attacking her, till Austria and Prussia should be exhausted, Holland subjugated, and Belgi­um annext to France. The maritime coalition, moreover, had not yet been formed; consequently the plan against England was not yet ripe. Correspondence in the mean time was kept up with the revolutionists in England and Ireland, open encouragement was held out to them, and their deputations had public audiences from the French convention.

The British government was alarmed at these mea­sures. It also took umbrage at the proceedings in Bel­gium, and the attacks made on Holland, with which last it was in alliance. It complained of these attacks, and of the decrees whereby the Convention had made a formal promise of support to the insurgents of every country. The Convention justified the attacks on Hol­land, and assured England that the decrees had been misunderstood; that they meant nothing at which any [Page 87]government ought to be offended, and were only to be executed in cases where a whole people having resolved to change their government, should call for the assistance of France. On the same day when these assurances were made, the Convention sent commissioners into Belgium to execute those decrees, with instructions to ‘treat as enemies all persons, and even whole countries, which should refuse to alter their governments accor­ding to her will.’

England in the mean time, justly considering these explanations as deceptive and unsatisfactory, went on with her preparations for the defence of herself and her ally. France required her to desist; and when she refused, and sent away a minister who employed himself in exciting sedition, war was declared against her. This war many of the politicians of France condemned because it was declared too soon: and yet they confessed that France had begun to arm for it, three months be­fore England. ^†

[Page 88] In the course of the war, means were found to de­t [...]ch the king of Prussia by working on his avarice, excit­ing his ancient rivalship and resentment against the House of Austria, and tempting him with the prospect of a share in its spoils. The price of this defection lay long concealed in the secret articles of the treaty of peace: and the king of Prussia remained quiet, being kept in awe by the Empress of Russia who threatened him in case he should make any attempts against the House of Austria or the Germanic body.

[Page 89] The Empress however being lately dead and her succes­sor having adopted some measures from which it was thought that weakness of character and incapacity might be inferred, if not a disposition favourable to the views of France, the secret articles have come to light, and the king of Prussia has assumed a very threat­ening tone and aspect towards Austria. The Em­peror of Russia however, it is said, has given him to understand that he must be quiet, or expect an attack from the whole force of the Russian empire. Thus much is certain, that his hostile movements have abated; and thus the plan of turning the force of Germany against itself, has once more been defeated.

Belgium has in the mean time been over-run, and Holland has been subdued, partly by force and partly by division: for France openly and avowedly raised up and supported a party against the government in the bosom of the country, which was powerfully instru­mental in promoting her views. Spain also, too feeble and spiritless to defend itself, sunk under the arms of France, and has been compelled to join her in the war.

In this situation France finding her schemes opposed only by the vast maritime power of England, and the unbroken courage and constancy of Austria, formed the resolution of destroying the commerce of England, thereby to cut of her pecuniary resources, and sap the foundation of her naval strength. This plan rendered the co-operation of the United States more important to her than ever; for she considers us as one of England's best customers, and consequently as the nation which contributes most to the support of her commerce, her [Page 90]manufactures, and her wealth. Our situation too in the neighbourhood of the West Indies, our abundance of provisions and of warlike and naval stores, and the great number of our ships and seamen, would enable us to be very hurtful to England in war, as well as very useful in peace. By such a war indeed we should suffer great­ly, but that is no part of the care of France.

Accordingly she has unceasingly renewed, and pressed with greater and greater eagerness, her indirect attempts to bring us into the war. Foreseeing that her hopes of success would be greatly lessened, if not wholly destroy­ed by the treaty, she opposed it with all her might and in all its stages. Even the unconstitutional opposition to it in the House of Representatives, she aided by every mean in her power. Finding all her attempts fi­nally frustrated, her vexation and ill humour no longer knew any bounds, and she resolved to try different means for effecting what she had in vain essayed to bring about by intrigue.

That this is the true spring of her conduct, that her anger at the British treaty does not arise from any of its particular provisions, but from its general tenden­cy to preserve peace between this country and Great Britain, is proved in the most manifest manner by the conduct she pursues at this moment towards other neutral nations who have made no treaties with En­gland. She has long threatened Portugal with invasion by the Spaniards, unless she will shut her ports against the English. She has lately required Hamburg and Bremen to break off all commerce with England, and on their refusal has recalled her minister from Hamburg. She has made the same demand on Denmark; and even required the Danes to block up the mouth of the Elbe, a river not in their territories, against the English. We have not heard the pretext for these demands, which Denmark has pointedly refused; but no doubt they were founded on the French construction of the laws of neutrality; the same laws whereby, according to France, the Swiss were bound to drive the emigrants from their territories, and we to permit her to raise armies, equip ships of war, and sell prizes in ours.

[Page 91] That such is the real project of France and the true source of her anger at the British treaty, is further prov­ed by the testimony of General Pinckney, who having travelled thro' a great part of France, and continued near two months in Paris, had the best means of pene­trating their views. In his letter from Paris of Feb. 1st. 1797, he says, ‘I most ardently wish that we would banish all party distinctions and foreign influence; and think and act only as Americans—for all parties in this country (France) unite in thinking that we ought to act as if we were altogether their dependants, and indebted to them solely, and not to our own exertions, for our liberty and independence. Hence, our treaty with Great Britain is here generally exe­crated; and our having any kind of commercial connec­tion with that country, even if the treaty had not been made, would I believe, have been disliked. They wish to destroy the trade of England, and they look upon us as one of her best customers; and to obtain their object they care not what we suffer.’

This is the testimony of a man remarkable for the warmth of his good wishes towards France, and who, if he did not dislike the British treaty, certainly never said a word in its favour. From his testimony, as well as the evidence of their own conduct, it manifestly ap­pears that their dislike to the treaty does not proceed, as they pretend, from any stipulations in it injurious to them, but from its tendency to preserve an amicable intercourse between us and England.

The united force of all these considerations, drawn from the instructions to the ministers of France in this country and their conduct here, from the plain and direct tendency of the measures which she wished us to adopt, from the nature of her plans in Europe, and from her recent conduct towards the neighouring pow­ers, establish in the most incontrovertable manner the opinion, that her object always has been to draw us into the war. This point is still further confirmed by another event. It has been proposed thro' the Dutch, to our minister at Holland, as appears by his letter of [Page 92]Nov. 4th 1796, that we should make common cause with France and Holland against England, in order to compel her to relinquish the right of taking her ene­mies goods on board of neutral ships, and ‘to restore peace to the two Hemispheres.’

This leads us to enquire what are the motives of her present conduct; and gives us also the clue whereby they may be discovered.

It is impossible to suppose that the measures lately adopted by France can mean no more than retaliation for the injuries which she pretends to have received. Admitting those injuries to have taken place, and many of them she knows never did take place, admitting all her pretensions to be well founded, and many of them she knows not to be well founded, still those injuries and pretensions could never have authorized her present proceedings. The detention of a few privateers, and the restoration of a few prizes by our courts, even if illegal as she pretends; the privileges said to be ceded to Britain, even had they been ceded; the prohibition to arm vessels and sell prizes in our ports, had she pos­sessed a right to do so; the suffering a few British ships of war to violate our neutrality, even had we suffered it; more especially considering that all these pretended in­juries were much more than counter-ballanced by real ones from her; could never have occasioned, much less authorized, the universal capture and condemnation of our property, the imprisonment, and in many cases which may occur, the death of our citizens, and the ex­pulsion from her territory of a minister sent to conciliate. Some other cause must be sought for aggressions such as these.

Still less can it be believed that mere anger and vexa­tion at the disappointment of her views, could have giv­en rise to them. They may, and no doubt, have been much aggravated by this cause, but it could not have produced them.

Nor can it in my opinion, be supposed that a design to drive us into a serious quarrel with her, can have given birth to these measures. She too well knows the consequences of such a quarrel to herself, and its neces­sary [Page 93]effect in counteracting her most favourite scheme, to force it upon us. Her most favourite scheme is to undermine the naval power of England, by destroying the commerce whereby it is nourished and supported. Hence her requisitions to Denmark and the Hanse Towns; hence the precipitation wherewith she forced Holland and Spain into the war against England; hence her threats to Portugal; hence the violence wherewith in contempt of every right and every engagement she seized Leghorn, a neutral port, in which England car­ried on an extensive trade; hence her oppressions at Genoa; and hence too her unwearied efforts to work up the discontents between us and Britain into an open rupture. The direct and even the avowed object of all these measures has been to sap the very foundations of the English power, by excluding its commerce from every port. But France well knows that a quarrel be­tween her and this country would of necessity bring us nearer to England. She knows that having then a common interest with England against her, this com­mon interest would beget an union of means, and a co­operation of measures. She knows that our commerce armed for its own defence would float safely into the ports of England, under convoy of the British flag. She knows that Britain would gain our ports as stations for her ships, would be permitted to recruit her marine among our seamen, and to draw supplies of all sorts from our country, while she herself would be excluded from all these advantages. She knows that as a consequence of these united measures, her colonies and those of Spain and Holland, which she justly considers as her own, would be instantly deprived of all supplies, and must sink under the arms of the two countries. She knows that the American market, already so great, and increa­sing with a rapidity so incalculable, must in that case be secured almost exclusively to England, and wholly shut to herself and her associates. She knows that by a war with her we should be compelled to call forth our resources for the formation of a marine, which would place us in a situation to be still less in fear of her power or in need of her assistance. She knows, in sine, that a [Page 94]war against her, in which we must co-operate with En­gland, would have a powerful tendency to restore that union of interests, of means, and of good will between the two countries, which for half a century past has been the object of her jealousy and dread, and which she has undertaken two wars to break. Her policy, as profound as it is attrocious, will not be confined to the present time only, but looks forward to the period, not a remote one, when the United States must, in the ne­cessary course of nature, become the most numerous, the most opulent and the most powerful nation on earth.

I cannot therefore be persuaded, that France intends to quarrel seriously with this country. To think so I must suppose that her counsels are guided by passion and not policy, of which I have perceived no appear­ance. I have observed much wickedness in her plans, but no folly. I have observed a determination in her to oppress where she thought it advantageous, and to deceive where she could not oppress; to drive or se­duce every nation into her measures, in order to crush by their assistance those whose power she dreaded, and and on whose vigilance she could not impose; in fine, to sacrifice without remorse to her ambition, all those whom she found weak enough to became her instru­ments under the name of allies: but I have not ob­served a neglect of the means whereby her schemes were to be promoted, much less a system of measures calculated to defeat them; and I firmly believe, that nothing could so obviously and strongly tend to defeat her schemes against England as that close union of measures and interests between the two countries, which a quarrel between us and herself must produce.

The very anxiety which she has discovered to place the vast weight of this country in her own scale, is a security that she does not intend to throw it into the scale of her adversary.

Her measures therefore, I believe, have a different and indeed an opposite object. Having failed to se­duce, she now is attempting to drive us into her schemes. The means which she employs for effecting this pur­pose, [Page 95]though most unjust and attrocious, are wise ac­cording to the information on which she acts. By this information she has been wholly deceived: we know that she has been deceived, in what manner and to what extent, and this knowledge gives us the true key to her present conduct.

In the first place she has been deceived by the mea­sures of our government. She has seen in them a moderation and forbearance, a desire of peace, and a patience under her numberless acts of insult and in­jury, which she has construed into a mean, spiritless, and submissive disposition. Having no idea herself of justice, good faith, or moderation, she cannot conceive of them in others; and the acts which they produce, she attributes to avarice, weakness, or fear.

To the same motives has she imputed the spirit of peace and conciliation which our government has dis­played towards England.

She has been deceived by the conduct of that party in our government, whereby the measures of which she complains, have been opposed. Observing that this party had always expressed very warm good will to her, and a strong attachment to her cause, and had advocat­ed a system of measures much more conformable to her views, than that which was finally adopted, she took up an opinion that they were actuated, not by a desire to promote what they believed to be the good of their own country, but by a blind devotion to her interests. She believed, and still does believe, this to be a French party, ready to go all lengths in assisting her projects, and sufficiently powerful, if not to direct the govern­ment according to her will, at least to prevent it from taking effective measures against her. It must be con­fessed, and a painful confession it is, that there are some individuals whose conduct has given too much reason for this opinion; but it is also most certain that France has fallen into an utter mistake about the views and principles of this description of our fellow citizens in general. They, like the rest, advocated certain mea­sures not because they were thought desireable to any foreign power, but from a belief that they were calculat­ed [Page 96]to promote the good of this country: and France should she push her experiment, will find that howev­er the Americans may differ in opinion about the best method of conducting their own affairs, there will be but one mind and one spirit among them on the question of repelling foreign aggression and foreign interference.

France has also been deceived by the conduct of the people in this country. At the commencement of her revolution she saw them every where display the strong­est proofs of attachment to her cause, and good wishes for her success. She saw her minister, on his arrival in the country, received with the warmest cordiality. She heard the whole American people exultingly hail the birth of a new republic, in a nation which they fondly called their ally and friend, and to which they were proud to acknowledge their obligations and their grati­tude. Far from ascribing these generous effusions to their true source, she regarded them as proofs of a blind and slavish attachment to her interests; and when she saw the government repel her attempts, and steadily re­fuse to come into her measures, she supposed that it acted in opposition to the wishes of the people, by whom in ease of [...] struggle, it would not be supported.

She has observed also a strong and universal resent­ment, excited throughout this country, by the aggressions of England; and this she construed into a deadly and lasting hatred to the British nation, which would at all times incline the people to war with it, and render any co-operation or union of measures between the two countries, difficult if not impossible,

In these two points, she mistakes as widely as in the former. We were delighted with the French revolu­tion, because we thought that it would bestow liberty and happiness on a great people. We felt affection to France because we considered her as our ally and our friend. We felt grateful for her assistance, because it had been highly useful to us. But when these services are made the pretence for the most inadmissible demands, when, instead of an ally and a friend, we find her a proud and unjust assailant, we seel a resentment pro­portioned to the injury, and strengthened by the re­flection, [Page 97]that this injury comes from a quarter, where we had given friendship and expected to receive it.

So, with respect to England, when her injuries ceased and an honourable reparation was agreed to, we thought our resentment ought also to cease.

In these mistakes there can be no doubt that France has been greatly fortified by her emissaries in this coun­try, and by some of our citizens both here and in Eu­rope. They have confirmed her in the idea, to adopt the expression of general Pinckney, in his letter of Dec. 20th, 1796, ‘that our government acts upon princi­ples opposed to the sentiments of a large majority of our people; that we are a people divided by party, the mere creatures of foreign influence, and regard­less of our national character, honour and interest.’

Believing therefore, that the government, torn by party, is too feeble to resist her: that thwarted in its operations by the affections, the sentiments, and the wishes of the people, it will be unable to oppose any effectual exertions against her attacks; that a powerful party in the government, and a great majority of the people, will take part with her against the government itself, or at least will withhold from it all effectual support; that the people, wholly immersed in the pur­suits of gain, have lost that martial spirit whereby they were distinguished in the late war, and will submit to any indignities or injuries, rather than risk their persons and wealth in a contest; she has come to a resolution to attack and pillage us, to mal-treat us in every man­ner, and to refuse all intercourse with us, in the firm persuasion that the government, however unwillingly, will be obliged to yield, and that we shall submit to her terms, as the price of her forbearance.

These terms, in substance and necessary effect, are a rupture with Britain and the exclusion of her com­merce from our ports; and such a construction of the treaty with France, as shall permit her to arm vessels, inlist crews, and sell prizes in our country, free from the interference of our courts of justice.

Should she even fail in this, still she has no doubt that we, from our desire of peace, will always be ready to [Page 98]make an accomodation, and to relinquish our claim to in­demnity as the price of deliverance from further aggression. In the mean time she will accomplish, she thinks, two very important objects; she will wound the commerce of England thro' our sides; and by plundering us, she will not only acquire some aid to her treasury, but also give employment and support to great numbers of her people. A third object and of no small importance, will be the destruction, in part, of our resources; where­by we should be rendered more dependant on her as al­lies, and less formidable as enemies.

Such in my opinion, my fellow citizens, are the ob­jects of France in her present measures towards this country; and I am firmly persuaded that the only me­thod of inducing her to abandom those measures, is to convince her by our conduct that they will not be effec­tual: to convince her by firm united and vigorous mea­sures, that her opinions respecting us are erroneous; and that we are determined, at all hazards and under any possible sacrifice, to maintain our rights, repell unjust attacks, and seek reparation for injuries wantonly com­mitted: that we are not a feeble, pusillanimous or divided people, opposed to our own government, and ready to acquiesce in or aid the interference of foreigners in our affairs. We ought to shew them at the same time, that while we are resolved to repel injury, we are willing to make every reasonable advance towards a just accomo­dation: that while we prepare firmly and vigorously for war, we are desirous of cultivating peace, as long as any hope of preserving it remains: that altho' we mean to appeal firmly to the sword if driven to that extremity, we shall make the appeal with reluctance and regret.

This is the system recommended by the President in his speech to both Houses at the opening of Congress. He declares his resolution to make another attempt to negociate and recommends that this attempt should be fortified and seconded by serious preparations at home. This will give weight to our complaints, and should re­dress be refused, will place us in a situation to meet the unfavorable event with energy and success. I perfectly concur in these sentiments and shall give my voice for [Page 99]supporting them in the House in the most efficacious manner. The subject is now under discussion, and I have reason to believe, that the system recommended by the President will be adopted.

This system is exactly conformable to that which was formerly adopted respecting Britain. When Bri­tain, after repeated remonstrances on our part, continu­ed her depredations on our commerce, though in so do­ing she broke no treaty, though she did not recal her minister or drive away ours, we resolved to prepare for resistance, but in the meantime to make another attempt by negociation; and fortunately the attempt was suc­cessful. Britain gave up her measures, and agreed to make restitution for the past. Should France be induc­ed to act in the same manner, we shall once more have the satisfaction of seeing our rights vindicated by that union of moderation and firmness which has heretofore redounded so much to the honour and advantage of our country. Should she refuse and war prove necessary, the recollection that we have done all in our power to avoid it, will enable us to support the struggle with una­nimity and fortitude.

Should the system recommended by the President be adopted, it is impossible to foresee what particular mea­sures of preparation will be preferred. As to the person to be sent to France, there can be no doubt that it will be general Pinckney. The firmness, good sense, and moderation which he displayed while in Paris, reflect honour on himself and the country, and have received universal approbation here. It is agreed by all parties, that our honour and interests can be no where safer than in his hands.

Such, my fellow citizens, is the system of measures towards France, which in my opinion, ought to be adopted. I am persuaded that they intend not to make war upon us, but to scourge and frighten us into sub­mission: and that the only possible method of making them desist from the attempt, is to convince them, not merely by declarations, but by effectual preparations for war, that we are not frightened, and will not submit to be [Page 100]scourged. When they understand this, I am fully per­suaded that they will abandon their project. Our ne­gociation I believe will be successful, but the foundati­ons of its success must be laid in the House of Repre­sentatives; and those foundations must be vigorous and effectual preparations for war. We must confider our­selves as in the presence of a bully, who can be prevent­ed from striking us in no manner but by shewing him that we are able and resolved to return the blow.

Should I however mistake in all this, still the same system will be right. Should the views of France be different from what I have supposed; should the plan of French aggrandizement, to borrow the words of an eloquent speaker in the house of representatives, require America to be driven into the war, war we shall have, in spite of all our peaceable endeavours to avert it: and in that case, the sooner we set about serious preparati­ons, the better we shall be able to repel and retort the attack.

Thus in either case, our course must be the same. Whether France intends to make war upon us, to bully us, or under pretence of "just displeasure" to continue her depredations on us for the purpose of injuring Eng­land, as long as we will submit to them, still our wis­dom lies in speedy and effectual preparation.

Should any ask, what are the sacrifices we must in­cur by a war, and what are our means of becoming formidable to France? I would answer that as to sa­crifices the greatest we can make is that of our rights and our independence; that war is an evil always to be avoided, but infinitely less than national degradation, and submission to the will of a foreign power; that every possible loss of property and lives may be repaired by time and industry, if we preserve our honor and our government, but that these, once lost, can never be res­tored; in fine that a nation which weighs its purse against its rights, never fails in the end to lose both one and the other.

To shew that we will submit to injuries, for fear of loss, amounts to bribing foreign nations with our own money, to insult and attack us.

[Page 101] I would answer that we magnanimously resolved to resist the power of Britain more than twenty years ago, when our resources were infinitely less than at present, and our situation for employing them far more disad­vantageous, and that this resolution created the means of resistance. I would answer that we possess a popu­lation probably little short of six millions; a country abounding with every thing necessary for the subsistance and arming of troops; more ships and sailors than any nation on earth except England; an extensive revenue not felt by the people, and capable of very great increase without oppression; an union among our­selves, cemented by habit, mutual interest, and affec­tion; a martial spirit and enterprize, which so gloriously displayed itself in the war for our independence; expe­rienced officers formed in that war, and still ready to bleed for their country; a wise government possessing our confidence, and capable of uniting and directing our exertions; in a word, that steady persevering cou­rage, that lofty unconquerable spirit of independence, wherein the true strength of nations consists, more than in population, in wealth, in fleets, in armies, or in gene­rals; and which, wherever it exists, finds all other means or makes them.

I would answer that we still possess WASHINGTON, the Hero and Patriot, who conducted us with so much glory thro' our former struggle, and whose martial figure, which age has rendered more venerable with­out impairing its strength, would again be seen at the head of our armies,

I would answer that with not half our numbers, few of our other advantages, and in a situation far more contiguous and more exposed, the Swiss have coura­geously and successfully maintained their rights, and preserved their tranquility, by those measures which we now recommend, by proving to all parties: that though desirous of peace they were prepared for war; were prepared to place their houses, their families, and the bones of their fathers, under the protection of their swords, and to stake the last drop of their blood on the success of the contest.

[Page 102] I would answer that if driven into a war we can buy at a price cheap to ourselves, the full co-operation of the British navy: that our numerous merchant ships can speedily be converted into ships of war: that by with­holding supplies from France and her allies in the West Indies, we can most effectually aid the operations of her enemies: tha [...] Britain being thus enabled to call home a great part of her present force in the West Indies, will encrease still more her internal safety, and the superiority of her navy in Europe: and that New Orlea [...] and the Floridas must fall into our hands, whereby we shall secure the navigation of the Mississippi, free our­selves from a troublesome neighbour, and obtain com­pleat controul over the southern Indians.

I would answer in sine, in the words of a celebrated writer, that where courage is not wanting, all other means will be found or created.

I might conclude this long address my fellow citizens, by an exhortation to summon up your fortitude, and prepare bravely to meet the attacks which may be made on our country. The subject supplies ample materials for an appeal to all the feelings which distinguish the Patriot and the Hero. But I know it is not necssary. The men who fought at King's-Mountain and the Cow­pens, do not need an exhortation, to bleed for their country should she be forced to call for their assistance: and I know that, in case of that awful event which we so anxiously desire to avert, America will again sind the sons of ninety six district among the bravest of her defend­ers.

Philadelphia May 25th. 1797.