opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils? Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great or powerful nation, dooms the former to be a satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (1 conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of a republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defence against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the fa. vourites, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surren. der their interests.

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engage. ments, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith.-Here let us

are essentially foreign to our con cerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate our. selves by artificial ties in the or. dinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an effifcient government, the period is not far off when we may defy ma. terial injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego, the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, hu mour, or caprice?

'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me be not understood as capable of patro. nising infidelity to existing engage.

ments.

I hold the maxim no less

applicable to public, than to pri. vate affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, there. fore, let those engagements be observed, in their genuine sense. But

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But in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them. Taking care always to keep yourselves, by suitable establish. ments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to tem. porary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences, consulting the natural course of things: diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing, with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a _ staple course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them; conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favours from another: that it must pay with a proportion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favours from nation to mation. It is an illusion which experience must cure; which a just pride ought to discard.

men, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish: that they will controul the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But if I may even flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial be. nefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostors of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude of your welfare, by which they have

been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by the principles which have been delineated, the public records and other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To myself the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of the 22d of April, 1793, is the index to my plan. Sanctioned by your approved voice, and by that of your representatives in both houses of congress, the spirit of that measure has continually governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from it.

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty and interest to take a neutral position,

potentiary, do not permit him to dou, that hey will see in its true light this measure, as far as it may concern the United States; and that they will also feel, that it is dictated by imperious circumstances, and approved by justice.

Great Britain during the war she has carried on against the republie, has not ceased using every means in her power to add to that scourge, scourges still more terrible. She has used the well-known liberality of the French nation to the detri. ment of that nation. Knowing how faithful France has always been in the observance of her treaties; knowing that it was a principle of the republic to respect the flags of all nations, the British government, from the beginning of the war, has caused neutral vessels, and in particular American vessels, to be detained, taking them into their ports, and dragged from them Frenchmen and French property. France bound by a treaty with the United States, could find only a real disadvantage in the articles of that treaty, which caused to be respected as American property English property found on board American vessels. They had a right, under this consideration, to expect that America would take steps in favour of her violated neu. trality. One of the predecessors of the undersigned, in July 1793, applied on this subject to the go. vernment of the United States; but he was not successful. Never theless the national convention, who, by their decree of the 9th of May, 1793, had ordered the sei. zure of enemy's property on board neutral vessels, declaring, at the same time, that the measure should cease when the English should re. spect neutral flags, had excepted, on VOL. XXXVIII.

the 23d of the same month, the Americans from the operation of this general order. But the con. vention was obliged soon to repeal the law which contained this ex. ception so favourable to Americans; the manner in which the English conducted themselves, the manifest intention they had to stop the exportation of provision from Ame. rica to France, rendered it unavoidable.

The national convention by this had restored the equilibrium of neutrality which England had de. stroyed; had discharged their duty in a manner justified by a thou. sand past examples, as well as by the necessity of the then existing moment. They might, therefore, to recall the orders they had given to seize the enemy's property on board American vessels, have wait. ed till the British government had first definitively revoked the same order, a suspension only of which was produced by the embargo laid by Congress the 26th of March, 1794. But as soon as they were informed that, under orders of the government of the United States, Mr. Jay was directed to remonstrate against the vexatious measures of the English, they gave orders, by the law of the 13th Nivose, 3d year, to the ships of war of the republic to respect American ves. sels; and the committee of public safety, in their explanatory resolve of the 14th of the same month, hastened to sanction the same principles. The national convention and the committee of public safety had every reason to believe, that this open and liberal conduct would determine the United States to use every effort to put a stop to the vexations imposed upon their com. merce, to the injury of the French republic;

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republic; they were deceived in this hope; and though the treaty of friendship, navigation, and commerce, between Great Britain and the United States had been signed six weeks before France adopted the measure I have just spoken of, the English did not abandon the plan they had forined, and conti. nued to stop and carry into their ports all American vessels bound to French ports, or returning from them.

The

This conduct was the subject of a note which the undersigned addressed on the 7th Vendemiaire, 4th year (29th September, 1795, O. S.) to the secretary of state. remonstrances, which it contained were founded on the duties of neutrality, upon the principles which Mr. Jefferson had laid down in his letter to Mr. Pinckney, dated the 13th September, 1794.

Yet this note has remained with out an answer, though recalled to the remembrance of the secretary of state by a dispatch of the 9th Germinal, 4th year (29th March, 1796, O. S.); and American vessels bound to French ports, or returning from them, have still been seized by the English. Indeed more; they have added a new vexation to those they had already imposed upon, the Americans; they have impressed seamen from on board American, vesseis, and have thus found the means of strength. ening their crews at the expence of the Americans, without the go. vernment of the. United States having made known to the undersigned the steps they had taken to obtain satisfaction for this violation of neutrality, so hurtful to the in. terests of France, as the under signed hath set forth in his dis

patches to the secretary of state of the 9th. Germinal, 4th year (29th March, 1796, O. S.), 19th Germinal (8th April, 1796), and rst Floreal (20th April, 1796), which have remained without an answer.

The French government then finds itself, with respect to America at the present time, in circumstances similar to those of the year 1795; and if it sees itself obliged to abandor, with respect to them, and the neutral powers in general, the favourable line of conduct they pursued, and to adopt different measures, the blame should fall upon the British government: it is their conduct which the French government has been obliged to follow..

The undersigned minister pleni. potentiary conceives it his duty to remark to the secretary of state, that the neutral governments, or the allies of the republic, have nothing to fear as to the treatment of their flag by the French, since if keeping within the bounds of their neutrality, they cause the rights of that neutrality to be respected by the. English, the republic will respect them. But if through weak. ness, partiality, or other motives, they should suffer the English to sport with that neutrality, and turn it to their advantage, could they then complain, when France, to restore the balance of neutrality to its equilibrium, shall act in the same manner as the English? No, certainly; for the neutrality of a nation consists in granting to bel. ligerent powers the same advan. tages; and that neutrality no longer exists, when, in the course of the war, that neutral nation grants to one of the belligerent

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