The gazette (Portland, Me.), 1799-02-18 00:00:00

The Gazette.
[NUMBER 43.]
By ELEZER ALLEY JENKS, Portland, Maine.
[VOLUME 1.]
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1799.
Valuable State Paper.
On the 21st of January, the President communicated the following Message to Congress:
Gentlemen of the Senate, and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives,
ACCORDING to an intimation in my Message of Friday last, I now lay before Congress a report of the Secretary of State, containing his observations on some of the documents which attended it.
JOHN ADAMS.
January 21, 1799.
To THE PRESIDENT of the United States.
THE Secretary of State respectfully submits the following report on the transactions relating to the United States and France since the last communications to Congress on that subject.
TIMOTHY PICKERING.
Department of State, Jan. 18, 1799.
REPORT of the Secretary of State, on the Transactions relating to the United States and France, since the last communications to Congress on that subject.
THE points chiefly meriting attention, are the attempts of the French government,
I. To exculpate itself from the charge of corruption, as having demanded a douceur of Fifty Thousand Pounds sterling (222,000 dollars) for the pockets of the Directors and Ministers, as represented in the dispatches of our Envoys.
II. To detach Mr. Gerry from his colleagues and to inveigle him into a separate negotiation; and
III. Its design, if the negotiation failed, and a war should take place between the United States and France, to throw the blame of the rupture on the United States.
1. The dispatches of the Envoys published in the United States, & republished in England, reached Paris towards the last of May; and on the 30th of that month, the French Minister, Mr. Talleyrand, affecting an entire ignorance of the persons designated by the letters W, X, Y, and Z—calling them intriguers, whose object was to deceive the Envoys—writes to Mr. Gerry and “prays him immediately to make known to him their names.”
Mr. Gerry, in his answer of the 31st, wishes to evade Mr. Talleyrand's request; and with reason, for he and his colleagues had “promised Messrs. X and Y that their names should in no event be made public.” Mr. Gerry in his letter of October 1st in noticing the repetition of Mr. Talleyrand's request for those names, states as an objection to giving them up “that they could be otherwise ascertained;” and that Mr. Talleyrand's messenger, admitting the fact that they were already known, immediately mentioned their names. Mr. Gerry nevertheless certified in writing the names of X Y and Z with the reserve “that they should not be published on his authority;” and besides formally certifying to Mr. Talleyrand the names of his own private agents , added that “they did not produce, to his knowledge, credentials or documents of any kind.”—“Credentials” in writing were certainly not to be expected to be produced by agents employed to make corrupt propositions; but Mr. Gerry had Mr. Talleyrand's own assurance that Mr. Y was acting by his authority. It is recited in the Envoys dispatches, and upon Mr. Gerry's own report to his colleagues, that on the 17th December, 1797, Mr. Y “stated to him that two Measures which Mr. Talleyrand proposed, being adopted, a restoration of friendship between the republics would follow immediately; the one was a gratuity of fifty thousand pounds sterling ; the other a purchase of thirty two millions of Dutch rescriptions,” and after conversing on these topics, Mr. Gerry and Mr. Y rode to Mr. Talleyrand's office, where “Mr. Gerry observed to Mr. Talleyrand, that Mr. Y had stated to him that morning some propositions as coming from Mr. Talleyrand, respecting which, Mr. Gerry could give no opinion,” And after making some other observations, Mr. Talleyrand answered “that the information Mr. Y had given him (Mr. Gerry) was just and might always be relied on.”—This declaration flamps with the Minister's authority , all the communications made by Mr. Y to the Envoys, and Mr. Y himself, who is Mr. Bellamy, of Hamburg, in his public vindication, declares, that “he had done nothing, said nothing, written nothing, without the orders of citizen Talleyrand.” The same may be asserted in regard to Mr. X, for he first introduced Mr. Y to the Envoys; and his separate communications were substantially the same with those of Y, and both together were present with the Envoys when the communications were more than once repeated.
It also deserves notice, that in stating the preliminary demands of the French government the private agents X and Y and the minister, use a similar language. The agents declare, that the Directory are extremely irritated at the speech of the President, and require an explanation of some parts of it, and reparation for others; that this must give pain to the Envoys; that the Directory would not dispense with it:
And that as to the means of averting the demand concerning the President's speech, the Envoys must search for them, and propose them themselves. Being asked to suggest the means, the answer is “ money ”—the purchase of the Dutch rescriptions, and “the fifty thousand pounds sterling, as a douceur to the Directory.”
The Minister told the Envoys that the Directory were wounded by the President's speech; and in his conversation with Mr. Gerry on the 28th of Oct. said “the Directory had passed an arrest, which he offered for perusal, in which they had demanded of the Envoys an explanation of some parts, and a reparation for others, of the President's speech to Congress of the 16th of May, 1797; that he was sensible that difficulties would exist on the part of the Envoys relative to this demand; but that by their offering money he thought he could prevent the effect of the arrest.—Mr. Z (the “interpreter”) at the request of Mr. Gerry, having stated that the Envoys have no such power, Mr. Talleyrand replied, they can in such case take a power on themselves; and proposed that they should make a “ loan .” But this “ loan ” as will presently appear, did not mean the “ money ,” which would “prevent the effect of the arrest.” Mr. Gerry then making some observations on the powers of the Envoys—that they “were adequate to the discussion and adjustment of all points of real difference between the two nations; that they could alter and amend the treaty; or if necessary form a new one;” added “that as to a loan , they had no powers whatever to make one, but that they could send one of their number for instructions on this proposition, if deemed expedient:”—“That as he [Mr. Talleyrand] had expressed a desire to confer with the Envoys individually, it was the wish of Mr. Gerry that such a conference should take place, and their opinions thus be ascertained.” “Mr. Talleyrand in answer, said he should be glad to confer with the other Envoys, individually, but that this matter about the money must be settled directly without sending to America; that he would not communicate the arrest for a week; and that if we could adjust the difficulty respecting the speech, an application would nevertheless go to the United States for a LOAN .” Now this matter of the money that must be settled directly , could only refer to the douceur ; for a loan in the purchase of millions of Dutch rescriptions, or in any other form, could only be the subject of a stipulation to be afterwards fulfilled by the United States ; but the douceur of fifty thousand pounds sterling, was a sum within the immediate reach of the Envoys; for their credit would certainly command it; in fact, a mercantile house had offered to answer their drafts; and this, Mr. Talleyrand unquestionably well knew; for it was a member of the same house who first introduced the Minister's agent, Mr. X, to Gen. Pinckney, in the manner stated in the envoys dispatches. A collateral evidence that in “this matter of the money that must be settled directly,” Mr. Talleyrand referred only to the douceur , arises from this circumstance: The very next day (Oct. 29) Mr. X. called on the envoys and said “Mr. Talleyrand was extremely anxious to be of service to them, & had requested that one more effort should be made to induce us to enable him to be so.” After a great deal of the same conversation which had passed at former interviews had been repeated, the envoys say—“the sum of this proposition was, that if we would pay by way of fees (that was his expression) the sum of MONEY demanded for PRIVATE USE, the directory would not receive us, but would permit us to remain in Paris as we now were; and we should be received by Mr. Talleyrand, until one of us could go to America and consult our government on the subject of a LOAN.”
Although the envoys' dispatches, and the facts and circumstances herein before stated, cannot leave a doubt that X as well as Y and Z was well known to Mr. Talleyrand, it will not be amiss to add, that on the second of Dec. X, Y, and Z, dined together at Mr. Talleyrand's, in company with Mr. Gerry; and that after rising from the table, the money propositions, which had before been made, were repeated, in the room, and in the presence, tho' perhaps not in the hearing of Mr. Talleyrand. Mr. X put the question to Mr. Gerry in direct terms, either, “whether the envoys would give the douceur ,” or “whether they had got the money ready .” Mr. Gerry, very justly offended, answered positively in the negative, and the conversation dropped.
Mr. Z, who has avowed himself to be Mr. Hauteval, was the person who first made known to the envoys the minister's desire to confer with them individually on the objects of their mission: He it was who first introduced Mr. Gerry to Mr. Talleyrand, and served as the interpreter of their conversations: And in his letter to Mr. Talleyrand, at the close of Mr. Gerry's document, No. 35, he announces himself to be the agent of the minister, to make communications to the envoys.
Mr. Hauteval declares “his sensibility must be much affected on finding himself, under the letter Z, acting a part in company with certain intriguers, whose plan (he says) it doubtless was to take advantage of the good faith of the American envoys, and make them their dupes:” yet this person, the avowed agent of
the French minister, apparently so anxious to screen himself from the suspicion of an agency, in soliciting the bribe required by Mr. Talleyrand, did himself urge a compliance with that corrupt proposition.*
The sensation which these details irresistibly excite, is that of astonishment, at the unparalelled effrontery of Mr. Talleyrand in demanding of Mr. Gerry the names of X Y and Z; after Y had accompanied him on a visit to the minister, with whom the conversation detailed in the printed dispatches then passed; and who then assured Mr. Gerry “that the information Mr. Y had given him was just, and might always be relied on.”—After Z had in the first instance introduced Mr. Gerry to the minister, and served as their mutual interpreter, and when the conversation between them had also been stated in the dispatches: and after X Y and Z had dined together with Mr. Gerry at Mr. Talleyrand's table, on rising from which X and Y renewed the proposition about the money ! The very circumstance of Mr. Talleyrand's being continued in office after the account of these intrigues had been published to the world, is a decisive proof that they were commenced and carried on with the privy and by the secret orders of the directory. It was to accomplish the object of these intrigues that the American envoys were kept at Paris unreceived, six months after their credentials had been laid before the directory: and it was only because they were superior to those intrigues, and that no hopes remained of wheedling or terrifying them into a compliance, that two of them were then sent away—and with marks of insult and contempt.
2. The fact that the French government attempted to inveigle Mr. Gerry into a separate negotiation will not be questioned: at first it was made privately and under an injunction of secrecy towards his colleagues: it was afterwards plainly insinuated by the minister, in his letter of the 18th of March, 1798, in which he tells the envoys that the executive directory was disposed to treat with one of the three; and that one he openly avowed, in his letter of the 3d of April, to be Mr. Gerry. The pretence for selecting him was that his “opinions, presumed to be more impartial, promised in the course of the explanations, more of that reciprocal confidence which was indispensable.” But when, before, have their “ opinions ” been stated as a justifiable ground for rejecting the ambassadors of peace? Ambassadors too, of established probity, whose characters were of the first distinction in their own country, and whose demeanor towards the government to which they were deputed, was decent and respectful? Who had, with a frankness which the candor of their instructions warranted, communicated the important points which they contained? and who unremittingly, and with the most anxious solicitude, entreated that the negotiations might be commenced? What more proper or more honourable qualities ought ministers deputed to negotiate with a foreign nation to possess?—But why should a foreign government question the opinions of the ambassadors sent to negotiate with it on subjects of difference between the two nations? If wisely chosen, and faithful to the interests of their own country, they must of course possess different opinions from the government to which they are sent; the differing opinions maintained by the two nations on their respective rights and interests, being the cause and objects of the negotiation.—A government really disposed to treat on fair principles would never object to the opinions of foreign ambassadors. It would receive them, and appoint its own ministers, with proper powers, to treat with them, propose its terms, and receive those offered; and discuss both: and if then they could not agree, put an end to the negotiation. The French government did not wish to negotiate, it desired to impose a treaty on the United States. To this practice it had been accustomed towards the minor powers in Europe, whom it has subjected to its will: and it expected equal submission from the U. States. Hence Mr. Talleyrand's secret declaration to Mr. Gerry, “that if he would negotiate they could soon finish a treaty; for the executive directory were not in the habit of spending much time about such matters.” Hence the objections to general Pinckney and general Marshall: they manifested a discernment superior to the intrigues of the French government, and an invincible determination not to surrender the honor, the interest, or the independence of their country. It was necessary then to get rid of them; and seeing that neither despair of negotiating, nor studied indignities, could induce them to quit their posts, passports were sent to them to quit France; it was with difficulty that general Pinckney could obtain permission to stay two or three months for the recovery of his sick daughter, to whom an immediate voyage would probably prove fatal. Unembarrassed
sed by the presence of these envoys, the French government—if it really desired a treaty on any terms—hoped to prevail on Mr. Gerry to negotiate separately, although from the first overture he declined and continued to decline it.—But after the expulsion of his colleagues, it hoped by its seductive arts, to prevail over his scruples and gain his consent to terms which, while they were present, would be rejected, or at all events to retain him with the semblance of negotiating regularly or informally, and thus keep the United States, in the torpor of indecision, without preparation for offence or defence. Unfortunately Mr. Gerry was induced, by the threats of immediate war against the United States, to separate from his colleagues, and stay in Paris; threats which, viewed with their motives, merited only detestation and contempt. Four or five months before the threats of immediate orders to quit France, and the terrors of war in its most dreadful forms, had been held up to all the envoys, to frighten them into a compliance with the groundless, unjust and corrupt demands of the French government: those threats had not been executed, & the unworthy purposes for which they had been uttered had been obvious.
Happily for the United States, the Character of the French gov. as delineated in the official dispatches of all the envoys, and the knowledge of its conduct towards other countries whose government it had overturned, and whose people, in the names of Liberty and Equality, it had enslaved, so operated as not to leave us exposed to all the evils which silence was calculated to produce. Mr. Gerry indeed resisted all the arts of the French Minister to entice him into a formal negotiation, after that government had driven his colleagues from Paris: a negotiation which in its nature would have been a surrender of our Independence, by admitting a foreign government to choose for us the Minister who should represent our country, to treat of our important rights and interests, which that government had itself violated and deeply injured.
The Directory and their Minister Mr. Talleyrand hoped and expected that General Pinckney and General Marshall would voluntarily have quitted France, after the Minister's letter of the 18th of March, in which he made the offensive distinction between them and their colleague, Mr. Gerry, on the pretence that his “ opinions ” were more “ impartial ” than theirs. Accordingly Mr. Talleyrand, in his letter to Mr. Gerry of the third of April, says—“I suppose Sir, that Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall have thought it useful and proper, in consequence of the intimation which the end of my note of the 18th of March last presents, to quit the territory of the Republic.” Yet Mr. Talleyrand had given them neither passports nor letters of safe conduct! The fact is, the French government wished to avoid the odium of sending them away and the blame of a rupture, which Mr. Talleyrand predicted would be the consequence: while it was privately intimated to them that they must leave the country.—The Ministers conduct on this occasion towards Gen. Marshall (as detailed in his journal) was particularly marked with indignities. When it was observed to Mr. Talleyrand that this was not the manner in which a foreign Minister ought to be treated, Mr. Talleyrand replied, that Gen. Marshall was not a foreign Minister, but was to be considered as a private American citizen; and must obtain his passport, like others, through the Consul. To this it was answered, that Gen. Marshall was a foreign minister,* and that the French government could not deprive him of that character, which was conferred upon him, not by Mr. Talleyrand, but by the United States; and tho' the Directory might refuse to receive or to treat with him, still his country had clothed him with the requisite powers, which he held independently of France; that if he was not acceptable to the French government, and in consequence thereof it was determined to send him away, still he ought to have his passports, with letters of safe conduct which would protect him from the cruizers of France. Mr. Talleyrand replied, that if Gen. Marshall wished for a passport, he must give in his name, stature, age, complexion, &c. to the American Consul, who would obtain a passport for him: with respect to a letter of safe conduct, it was unnecessary, as no risk from the cruizers would be incurred.
The result of these conversations was a plain demonstration of the intention of the minister, that in consequence of his intimation at the close of his letter of the 18th of March, that the “ opinions ” of two of the envoys were not agreeable to the government of France, Generals Pinckney and Marshall should appropriate to themselves the character which the minister had drawn generally; the envoys aware of this snare, in their answer of the third of April to the intima-
* Extract of a letter, dated June 15th, 1798, from Mr. King, minister of the United States in London, to the Secretary of State.
“Col. Trumbull, who was at Paris soon after the arrival there of the Commissioners, has more than once informed me that Hauteval told him that both the douceur and the loan were indispensable, and urged him to employ his influence with the American Commissioners to offer the bribe as well as the loan .”
“On the 9th of Oct. 1797 the day after the Envoys had delivered to the minister a copy of their letter of credence, “card of hospitality were sent to them and their Secretaries, in a flye suitable to their official character.” [Dispatches p. 17] And in the minister's letter to them of the 18th of March 1798 he calls them “the Commissioners and Envoys Extraordinary of the United States of America.” [Disp. p. 92]

ton that "the Directory was disposed to treat with one of the envoys" declare to the minister, "that no one of the envoys was authorized to take upon himself a negotiation evidently entrusted to the whole," and "that no two of them could propose to withdraw themselves from the task committed to them by their government, while there remained a possibility of performing it;" but that if "it should be the will of the Directory to order passports for the whole or any number of them," it was desired that such passports might be accompanied with letters of safe conduct, to protect them against the cruizers of France.
These endeavours of the French Government, whether real or affected, to draw Mr. Gerry into a separate negotiation, constitute the substance of the correspondence between him & Mr. Talleyrand. They appear to merit consideration in several points of view.
1. Because if real, it was only in the hope and expectation, that by intrigues and terrors the French government might influence Mr. Gerry to enter into a formal treaty, on the terms which he and his colleagues had repeatedly rejected as incompatible with the interests, honor and independence of their country. For at this time Mr. Talleyrand had not renounced the demands of loans and a douceur as the indispensable preliminaries of a treaty. Accordingly we see Mr. Talleyrand, in his letter of the 3d of April to Mr. Gerry, proposed "to resume their reciprocal communications upon the interests of the French republic and the United States of America." And in his letter of July 12th, to Mr. Gerry, having mentioned the arrival at the Havre of a packet, the Sophia, from the American government, he says, "until then I never supposed you entertained the design of embarking before we had come to an agreement upon the definitive articles to be ratified by your government." 2d. Because if that government had so far succeeded, it would have insisted on its ratification by the President and Senate, on the ground constantly taken by Mr. Talleyrand, that the powers of the envoys being several as well as joint, Mr. Gerry when alone, even after the French Government had ordered his colleagues to leave France, were adequate to the formation of the treaty; and that therefore the public faith would be violated, if it were not ratified. 3. Because under such circumstances, the French government doubtless calculated at least on a division of the public opinion in the United States in favor of the ratification of such a treaty; by means of which it might enforce the ratification, or effect still greater mischief. 4. But these endeavours to draw Mr. Gerry into a formal negotiation are chiefly remarkable because they were persevered in during near five months, against his constant, direct and positive refusal to treat separately: Mr. Talleyrand asserting and Mr. Gerry denying the competency of his powers.
We have seen the envoys, from the 6th of October, 1797, the date of their first letter to the French minister, to the 3d of April 1798, when their last was delivered to him, expressing their earnest desire to enter upon and prosecute the great business of their mission; we have seen them during that long period patiently enduring neglect and indignity, to which an ardent zeal to re-establish harmony & peace could alone induce freemen to submit: We have seen them while held in suspense—neither received nor rejected—yielding to the importunities of private agents of the French government, and hearing and discussing their propositions, insulting as they were, in the hope that when these should be shown to be utterly inadmissible, others founded in reason and equity, and in the usual course of diplomatic negotiation, might be brought forward. Doubtless they also wished, when their astonishment at the first overtures had subsided, by listening still longer to such dishonorable propositions, to ascertain the true character of the French government. We have seen them, after waiting five weeks from the presentation of a copy of their letters of credence, entirely unnoticed, "solicit an attention to their mission," and solicited in vain.—Thus denied an official hearing, they hoped by an unusual step to excite the attention of that government: they determined to transmit to the minister a letter representing the views of their own government in relation to the subjects in dispute with France. This letter dated the 17th was delivered the 31st of January, 1798. Waiting near a month without any answer, & "still being anxious to hear explicitly from Mr. Talleyrand himself, before they sent their final letter, whether there were no means, within their powers of accommodating our differences with France, on just and reasonable grounds,—on the 27th of February they desired "a personal interview on the subject of their mission;" and afterwards a second interview. They remark on what passed at these meetings, "that the views of France with regard to the United States, were not essentially changed since their communications with its un-official agents in the preceding October."
At length they received Mr. Talleyrand's letter of the 18th March, 1798, in answer to theirs of the 17th January. The minister's letter represented the complaints of France; as usual, charging the American Government with the inexecution of the treaties with France—with dissimulation—insinuating that our tribunals were subject to a secret influence—holding up the British treaty as replete with evil and injury, & "the principal grievance of the republic"—accusing the American government of a wish to seize the first favorable occasion to consummate an intimate union with Great Britain, and suggesting that a devotion and partiality to that power have long been the principle of the conduct of the federal government.
To this letter of the French minister, the envoys sent their reply on the third of April.—This reply and their former letter detect the sophisms and erroneous statements of the minister—expose his naked assertions—relate his arguments—repel his calumnies—and completely vindicate the fidelity, the justice and, as a neutral power, the impartiality of the government of the United States; and, at the same time, exhibit the weighty and well-founded complaints of the United States against the French republic.
Hitherto, instead of a desire to obtain a reconciliation, we can discover in the French government only empty professions of a desire to conciliate; while it haughtily refused to receive our envoys, and during six months disregarded their respectful and ardent solicitations to negotiate: And after one of them, whom it induced to remain in France, had declared that "he had no powers to treat separately, that the measure was impossible," then the Directory expelled the other Two!
If now we survey Mr. Gerry's individual correspondence, we shall find no solid evidence of any change in the disposition of the French government.
In his first letter to Mr. Gerry, Mr. Talleyrand's artifice is visible: he addresses him as "Envoy Extraordinary of the United States of America, to the French Republic;" & proposes to him to "resume their reciprocal communications." Mr. Gerry, apprehended that the minister intended to draw him into a negotiation, repeats what he had often before declared, that for him to treat separately was impracticable; and that he can only confer with him informally.
On the 20th of April, Mr. Gerry addresses a letter to the minister, and presses him to come forward with propositions for terminating all differences, restoring harmony, and re-establishing commerce between the two nations. He receives no answer. On the 28th he confers with the minister, who says he cannot make propositions, because he does not know the views of the United States in regard to a treaty.—Mr. Gerry gives him the information. He then promises in three or four days to deliver Mr. Gerry the project of a treaty: This promise was never performed. On the 12th of May, the new instructions of March 23d, sent by the Sophia packet reached Mr. Gerry; and he gave immediate notice to the minister that he should return to America in the Sophia, as soon as she could be fitted for sea.
"On the 25th of May the minister sent his principle secretary to inform Mr. Gerry, that his government did not wish to break the British Treaty; but expected such provisions as would indemnify France, and put her on a footing with that nation." Yet that treaty had been made, by the French government, its chief pretence for those unjust and cruel depredations on American commerce which have brought distress on multitudes and ruin on many of our citizens; and occasioned a total loss of property to the United States of probably more than twenty millions of dollars; besides subjecting our fellow citizens to insults, stripes, wounds, torture and imprisonment. And Mr. Talleyrand, in his letter of the 18th of March to the envoys, declared that treaty to be "the principal grievance of the republic." But now, instead of breaking that treaty, France desires, to be put on the same footing. This the United States would at any time have done; and the envoys were now explicitly instructed to do; and seven months before, all the envoys, in their conversation with Mr. Bellamy (Y) the confidential and authorized agent of the French minister, told him "that he might be assured that their powers were such as authorized them to place France on equal ground with England, in any respects in which an inequality might be supposed to exist at present between them, to the disadvantage of France."
The Secretary also mentioned the claims of the American citizens on the French republic; he said if the latter should be unable to pay them, when adjusted, & the United States would assume and pay them, France would reimburse the amount thereof. This has the semblance of candor: but on the 4th of March, when the envoys were in conference with Mr. Talleyrand, and they disclosed their principal instructions, "General Pinckney and Mr. Gerry told him they were positively forbidden to assume the debt to our own citizens, even if we were to pay the money directly to them." And doubtless it was, because the proposition was already known to be inadmissible that it was now renewed.
The Secretary and Mr. Gerry had also some unimportant conversation about the Consular Convention. And it is plain that the whole object of the Secretary's visit was to amuse, by keeping alive Mr. Gerry's hopes of some pacific arrangements.
On the 26th of May, Mr. Gerry had a conference with the minister; pressing on this, as on former occasions, the necessity of sending a minister to the United States, with powers to negotiate; to which, he says, the minister acceded; but afterwards explained himself to mean a minister to reside there after the ratification of the talked of treaty.
Such are the proceedings of the French government, by its minister, Mr. Talleyrand, before the arrival of the printed dispatches of the envoys. We discover nothing but a proposition for treating with Mr. Gerry alone—which he had repeatedly declared to be impossible—and on terms which Mr. Gerry himself, as well as the other envoys had long before pronounced to be utterly inadmissible, because directly repugnant to their instructions. We shall now see, by an examination of Mr. Gerry's subsequent communications,
that the publication of the envoy's dispatches, far from causing a discontinuance of negotiations with him, or any change in the disposition of the French government more unfriendly to the United States incomparably greater zeal for negotiating was exhibited afterwards than before.
On the 30th May, the minister announces to Mr. Gerry the publication of the envoy's dispatches: In his letter of the 27th of June, he says this incident only "for a moment suspended the principal object"—the negotiation with Mr. Gerry: and in his letter of June 10th, he declares, that "the French Government superior to all the personalities, to all the manoeuvres of its enemies, perseveres in the intention of conciliating with sincerity all the differences which have happened between the two countries." On the 11th of June the minister sends him a plan for conducting the negotiation; for the first time states the "three points" on which he says "all negotiations between France and the United States must essentially rest;" and "gives (what he calls) a large development" of them; concluding by pressing him to remain at Paris, to accelerate the negotiation—"the drawing together of those ties which the French Republic and the True Americans have regretted to see relaxed."
On the 27th of June, the minister again writes to Mr. Gerry, and in language the most importunate, such as had never before been used, urges him not to withdraw, "when the French government, superior to all resentments, and never listening to any thing but justice, manifests itself anxious to conclude a solid and mutually satisfactory agreement." The minister even observes that the first of the "three points" mentioned in his preceding letter (respecting amicable declarations about mutual recriminations) might be postponed—that the third about the examination of reciprocal damage would doubtless experience no difficulty on either side, after the second should be amicably settled. That it was to the second therefore, they should first attend; it being so much the more important, as it embraced the source of all the differences between the two nations. And on the 22d of July, the minister renounces all demands of "loans and explanations on the subject of speeches;" and even affects to be hurt that Mr. Gerry should have mentioned them; although both he and his private agents had, before, so long and so obliquely persevered in demanding them of the envoys, as the indispensable preliminaries to a negotiation. And doubtless it is partly owing to the publication of their dispatches, thereby exposing to the world those shameless demands; with the scandalous proposition of the douceur, that they are now relinquished.
In adducing these circumstances to shew the increased zeal of the French government, since the publication of the dispatches, to negotiate on its differences with the United States, it is not to be understood, that they afford a shadow of evidence of its sincerity. But as professions, verbal or written furnished the only ground on which Mr. Gerry could form his opinion, "that before the arrival of the dispatches of the envoys, the minister was sincere and anxious to obtain a reconciliation," much more, professions stronger and more importunate, afterwards made, afford proportionably higher evidence of sincerity. But the present details demonstrate that all those professions were merely ostensible. In the minister's last mentioned letter, after saying that his "second point to fix the meaning of the treaties between the two countries" was most important, "as it embraced the source of all the differences," and that to this they should first attend, he purposely passes by the most interesting questions which it involves, and sends Mr. Gerry a note on the Consular Convention, of all possible subjects in difference the most insignificant; as it would have expired by its own limitation in two years and a half; within which time, the commerce of France, judging from its present state of annihilation, would probably not furnish a single ship to visit the ports of the United States. In his next letter, dated July 6th, he pursues his speculations on the Consular Convention, and sends Mr. Gerry two more notes upon it, complaining that he had not transmitted to him his opinion upon his first note, and recommending the two last to his attention; although Mr. Gerry had repeatedly and positively declined a formal discussion, such as the minister now urged in writing. Mr. Gerry states also, that this first note of the minister on the Consular Convention, was sent six weeks after he had demanded his passport, and when his baggage was actually on board the Sophia!
In a word, the more clearly the impossibility of entering on a formal negotiation appeared, the more was it pressed by the French minister. Mr. Gerry, in his letter to Mr. Talleyrand of July 20th, as justly as pointedly exposes the boasted zeal of the minister—"You was the first, you affirm, to press seriously the negotiation: you will agree with me that the merit would have been greater, had the measure itself been feasible." Again he says to the minister—"You frequently remind me of your exertions [to negotiate] which I am disposed as much as possible to appreciate, regretting at the same time their circuitous direction."
From this detail of facts, the following are the necessary conclusions.
That by the exclusive attentions of the minister to Mr. Gerry, the French Government intended to excite the jealousy of his colleagues, to promote dissensions between them, to separate him from them, and induce him to remain in France: expecting either to seduce him into a formal negotiation of a treaty, on terms exclusively advantageous to France, and injurious
and dishonourable to the United States; or failing in this to hold the U. S. in suspense, and prevent any measure for our security; in the event of a war; while we, amused and deluded by warm but empty professions of the pacific views and wishes of France and by "informal conferences," might wait in spiritless torpor, hoping for a peaceful result: and
That by this course of proceeding—this ostentatious display of zeal to adjust differences, and restore harmony and a friendly intercourse between the United States & France, the French government intended, in case of rupture, to throw the blame on the former.
It is necessary to make a few observations on the decree of the Executive Directory of the 31st July, 1798.
This decree was sent after Mr. Gerry to Havre, and he supposes that the official impediments which for several days prevented his sailing, are to be ascribed to the minister's desire of sending the decree by him. The minister introduces it as "a part of the measures which he had announced to Mr. Gerry on the 22d of July." In his letter of that date to Mr. Gerry, the minister says "By information which the government has just received, it indeed learns that violences have been committed upon the commerce and citizens of the U. S. in the West Indies, and on their coasts. Do it the justice to believe that it needs only to know the facts to disavow all acts contrary to the laws of the republic and its own decrees." A remedy is preparing for it, and orders will soon arrive in the West Indies, calculated to cause every thing to return within its just limits." This "remedy" is the decree of the 31st of July.
1. The first article of this decree confines to the special agents of the Directory, the right of issuing commissions to cruizers; and requires them to conform themselves to all the laws relative to cruising and prizes, and especially to those of the 1st of October, 1793. Although the injunction to conform to all the laws of the Republic relative to cruising was omnis, as the laws most recently promulgated and best known were themselves the sources of the depredations and evils of which we complained; yet not imagining that a decree introduced with so much solemnity, of which one copy was sent to Mr. Gerry, another to the American Consul General at Paris, and a third to Mr. Letombe, late Consul General of France—all to be communicated to the Executive of the United States, and all of which have been received—could be a mere parade of words, I was disposed to conclude that the law of the 1st of Oct. 1793, to which all cruizers were specially enjoined to conform, might contain regulations that would afford some relief from French depredations. By the favour of Mr. Letombe, I obtained a copy of that law; and to my astonishment found its object, conformably to its title, was "To determine the mode of dividing prizes made by French vessels on the enemies of the Republic." And the only restriction, in this lengthy law of six-and-forty articles, imposed on the individuals, officers and all others, composing the crews of their armed vessels, is, "that they shall not sell beforehand their eventual shares of prizes."
2. The second article declares that all commissions granted by the agents in the French colonies in America, to fit out vessels for cruizers, or for war and commerce, shall be void in thirty days after the publication of the decree in those colonies.
It has been supposed that by this regulation the agents may gather a fresh harvest of fees for new commissions; and that this would be its only effect. The agents however, had before taken care of this; they had been accustomed to limit the duration of privateer's commissions; and if they continued to cruise after their expiration, such privateers should have been considered as destitute of commissions, and consequently if they made any captures, as pirates.—but the agents knew their interest better: they did not punish the piratical captor—they did not declare their captures void, and restore the property to the neutral owners—but, declaring such captors to have no title to the captured vessels and cargoes, took the whole to themselves. A remarkable instance occurred in the last year, in the case of the Eslandia ship Newyear, belonging to Philadelphia, to redeem which, the owners have paid to General Herouville, Special Agent of the Executive Directory in St. Domingo, upwards of two hundred thousand dollars in cash. Whether any, and what portion of such prize money goes into the chest of the Republic, I am not informed.
3. The third article declares that all agents and other deputies in the neutral possessions, appointed to decide there on the validity of prizes taken by the French cruizers, and who shall be suspected of having a direct or indirect interest in the cruizers, shall be immediately recalled.
It is remarkable that this article, apparently designed to correct the monstrous abuse of public officers sitting in judgment in their own causes, should be limited to such of the agents and their deputies as were appointed to reside in neutral places. I do not know that an instance of the kind exists. For although the French privateers and their prizes find asylums in the Swedish and Danish islands, yet the papers are carried thence to Guadalupe and there the captured vessels receive their doom under the superintendence of another special agent of the Executive Directory, Victor Hugues. And even the captured American vessels carried into the West India ports of Spain and Holland, do not there receive sentence: these cases are decided by the agent or his deputies, or other French tribunals, established in the island of St. Domingo, frequently, if not generally, in the absence of the masters and supercargoes. The French agents and judges find no difficulty in this mode of proceeding; justice being administered with more facility and dispatch when only one of the parties is present at the trial; especially when the agents or other judges are interested in the privateers; and this the present decree impliedly allows; the penalty of "recall" being applicable, as above suggested, to such agents only as reside in neutral places, if any such there be.
It is also remarkable, that this decree, which was to give the United States a proof of the justice of the French government (a government Mr. Talleyrand says "never listened to anything but justice") and of its desire of a reconciliation with the United States, should be limited to the West Indies, when as a general rule not as numerous abuses were practiced by French agents & tribunals in Europe, and even in France itself as in her remote possessions. This too many of our citizens well know. For
"Decree of the Convention Nationale du 18 bre 1793, l'an 2d de la Republique Francaise. Que determine le mode de Reparation des prizes faites par les vaisseaux Francais sur les ennemis de la Republique."

captures and condemnations are not the less allegations , because made under the color of municipal laws and decrees which directly violate treaties, the law of nations and the plainest principles of justice. At present I shall only mention, that in a report made by Major Mountmore, chancellor of the American consulate at Paris, to Gen. Pinckney in December 1796, and which was laid before Congress in May 1797, he states, "that the tribunals of commerce in every port of France, take cognizance, in the first instance, of every matter relative to the captures at sea," and their tribunals (he adds) are chiefly composed of merchants, and in all of them are, directly or indirectly, more or less interested in the sitting out of privateers; and therefore are often concerned in the controversies they are to determine upon."
4. The fourth article requires the special agents of the Executive Directory at Cayenne, St. Domingo, and Guadalupe, studiously to take care, that the interests and property of vessels, belonging to neutrals and allies, be scrupulously respected.
We have too long witnessed the studious and scrupulous care of these gentlemen respecting the property of neutrals and allies, and experienced its ruinous consequences; and as the same laws which authorized that "care" remain in force, and with a fresh injunction of a strict conformity to them, we can expect only a continuance of the same abuses.
5. The fifth article confers the special agents of the Executive Directory, Consuls and all others invested with powers for that purpose, to cause to be arrested and punished all who shall contravene the provision of the present decree. Unfortunately these special agents, consuls and their deputies, are themselves the aggressors , and justify their proceedings under the laws of the Republic and the decrees of the Executive Directory.
This analysis of the present decree manifests its futility; and, with some remarks on its preamble, will demonstrate it to be a bold imposture; intended to mislead the citizens of the United States, into a belief that the French government was going to put an end to the depredation of French cruisers on American commerce; while the means proposed are so gross as to be an insult on our understanding.
The Preamble to the decree sets forth, "that information, recently received from the French colonies and the continent of America, leaves no room to doubt that the French cruisers or such as call themselves French, have infringed the laws of the republic relative to cruising and prizes;" and "that foreigners and pirates have abused the latitude allowed at Cayenne and the West India islands, to vessels fitted out for cruising or for war and commerce, in order to cover with the French flag their extortions and the violation of the respect due to the law of nations, and to the persons and property of allies and neutrals." And Mr. Talleyrand in one of his letters before noticed dated the 22d of July last, speaks of this information as having been "just received."
But what has been more notorious than French depredations on neutral, and especially on American commerce, in violation of treaties and the law of nations? These have been coeval with the existing war in Europe, but were multiplied under the loose decree of the Executive Directory (issued July 2, 1796, declaring that "the flag of the French republic will treat neutral vessels, either as to confiscation, to searchers, or to capture, in the same manner as they shall treat the English to treat them.")
This decree committed the whole commerce of neutrals, in the first instance, to the rapacity of French privateers, and then to the discretion of their agents, consuls and tribunals. These had only to say, truly or falsely, that the English treated neutrals in any given way, and then they were to treat them in the same manner. Accordingly we have seen Santhonax and Raimond, commissioners of the French government in St. Domingo, in their adjudication of an American vessel, on the 10th January, 1797, declare "That the resolution (or decree) passed by the Executive Directory on the 2d July, 1796, prescribes to all the armed vessels of the republic, and the armed vessels belonging to individuals, to treat neutral vessels in the same manner as they suffer the English to treat them;" and that it is in consequence of the above resolution of the Executive Directory, and in consequence of the manner in which the English government in the Antilles treats neutral vessels, that the commission passed their resolution of the 7th January, by which they declare all neutral vessels bound to or from English ports, to be legal prizes." From these facts and the tenor of the decree itself we can form but one conclusion, That it was framed in such indefinite terms, as purpose to give scope to arbitrary constructions and consequently for unlimited oppression and extortion.
But without waiting for this decree, the Commissioners of the French government at St. Domingo began their piracies on the commerce of the United States; and in Feb. 1797, wrote to the minister of marine (and the extract of the letter appeared in the official journal of the Executive Directory of the 5th of June) "That having found no recourse in the finance, and knowing the unfriendly dispositions of the Americans, and to avoid perishing in distress, they had armed for cruising; and that already 87 cruisers were at sea; and that for three months preceding the administration had subsisted, and individuals been enriched with the product of those prizes;" "That the decree of the 2d July was not known by them until five months afterwards. But (say they) the shocking conduct of the Americans, and the indirect knowledge of the intentions of our government, made it our duty to order reprisals, even before we had received the official notice of the decree;" "They felicitate themselves that American vessels were daily taken; and declare that they had learnt, by divers persons from the continent, that the Americans were perfidious, corrupt, the friends of England, and that therefore in all vessels no longer entered the French ports, unless carried in by force."
After this recital before the council of 500, Postoret makes the following remark & reflection:
"On reading this letter, we should think that we had been dreaming; that we had been transported into a savage country, where men, still ignorant of the empire of morals and of laws, commit crimes without shame and without remorse, and applaud themselves for their robberies, as Paulus Æmilius or Cato would have pleased themselves for an eminent service rendered to their country. Cruisers armed against a friendly nation! Reprisals, when it was we ourselves who attacked! Reprisals against a nation that has not taken a single vessel of ours! Riches acquired by the confiscation of the ships of a people to whom we are united by treaties, and whom no declaration of war had separated from us!" "The whole discourse of the agents may be reduced to these few words: 'Having nothing wherewith to buy, I seize: I make myself amends for the property which I want by the piracy which enriches me: and then I flatter that whom I have pilaged.' This is robbery justified by selfishness and calumny." Yet Santhonax, one of these "robbers," and the chief of those Directorial agents continued in office, and going a few months afterwards from Saint Domingo to France, was received as a member into one of the Legislative Councils.
Postoret also adverts to a letter from Merlin, then Minister of Justice, and now a member of the Executive Directory, to Mr. Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, which also appeared in the Journal of the Directory; and quotes the following passage: "Let your government break the in-inevitable treaty which it concluded on the 19th November 1774, with our most implacable enemies; and immediately the French Republic will cease to apply in its own favour the relations in that treaty, which favour England to the injury of France; and I warrant you that we shall not see an appeal to those regulations in any tribunal, to support unjust pretensions." "Have I (says Postoret) read this rightly? Unjust pretensions! Could it be possible that
they should thus have been characterised by the minister, who is himself their agent and defender?"
After all, this "inconceivable British Treaty," was itself but a pretext to countenance the "unjust pretensions," as Merlin himself calls them, used by the French government in its tribunals, for the purpose of condemning American vessels. The details I have already given to prove it, I beg leave to adduce other evidence. It is the testimony of Mr. Barlow, an American by birth, but for several years past a citizen of France, a man of acknowledged discernment, and talents, devoted to the French Republic, and intimate with her leading men. Mr. Barlow has long resided at Paris, and cannot have mistaken the views of the French government, nor the motives of its conduct. Mr. Barlow's letter dated at Paris the first of March 1798, to his brother-in-law, Mr. Baldwin, has doomed the writer to infamy; yet when it describes the principles and conduct of the French Republic, it merits attention. He says, "that act of submission to the British government commonly called Jay's treaty, is usually considered, both by its friends and enemies, as the sole cause, or at least the great cause of the present hostile disposition of the French Republic towards the United States. This opinion (says he) is erroneous." He then proceeds to an enumeration of a variety of matters which he says have influenced the conduct of France. But the most provoking, and the most unpardonable of all the offences of the United States against France, was, fortunately, not an act of the government, but an act of the people. The freemen of the United States, "the true Americans," dared to exercise their independent rights, and contrary to the wishes of the French government and the endeavours & practices of its minister Adet, elected Mr. Adams to the office of President. Mr. Barlow's observations on this event further develop the character and the principles of that government. He says, "when the election of Mr. Adams was announced here, it produced the order of the 3d of March," which was meant to be little short of a declaration of war: "the government here was determined to flace you of your property, to a sufficient degree to bring you to your knees in the only service in which it was presumed your sensibility lay, which was your pecuniary interest." And what was this "feeling" to produce? The answer is obvious— Submission to the will of the French government . The mystery of French politics is here unveiled. The United States did not flatter , Hence the non-receipt of her envoys, and their haughty treatment: Hence the insulting demands of tribute as a preliminary even to their reception; and hence the expulsion of two of them from France. But to return to the decree of the Executive Directory of the 31st of July last.
I have already shown that the mass of depredations on the commerce of the United States, under the French flag, of which we so justly complain, are not those committed, as the Directory in their preamble insinuate, by "foreigners and by pirates," but by French armed vessels commissioned by the government or its agents; or whether commissioned or not, whose acts in capturing American vessels receive the sanction of French Consuls, of French Tribunals, and of the special Agents of the Directory. I have shown that the laws of France and the Directorial Decrees, are themselves the sources of those violations of treaties and the law of nations, which have caused such immense losses to the citizens of the United States. And to the proofs already offered, that the information of such aggressions and abuses particularly in the West Indies, and on the coast of America, was not, as the preamble suggests, but "recently received," I may add, that their "special agents" authorized those depredations and violations of the law of nations by decrees assuming the laws of the Republic, or the acts of the Executive Directory for their basis—by decrees printed and published, and undoubtedly from time to time reported by those agents to the Directory itself. Further, these outrages on the American commerce have for years past been the theme of every tongue, and filled columns in our newspapers: those newspapers which Barlow calls, "the office of Foreign Affairs (at Paris) regularly receives." I will conclude this point with the testimony of Mr. Letombe, late Consul General of the French Republic, and still residing in Philadelphia. He has long since, and repeatedly assured me, that he collected all those depredations and outrages committed by French privateers, and transmitted them to his government at Paris.
In relation to the depredations and outrages committed by the French on the commerce of the U. States, I have laid that as great, if not as numerous, as were practiced by the French in Europe, and even in France itself, as in her remote possessions: and that this fact was but too well known to our citizens, who had felt severely their effects. Among these we have seen the case of the ship Hare, Captain Haley; but never in all its disgusting features. With this I will close my observations on the preamble of the directorial decree of the 31st July.
Extract of a letter from Rufus King, Esq. Minister of the United States in London, dated September 3, 1798, to the Secretary of State of the United States.
"The pretence for this arrest (the decree of the directory of July 31st) is of a piece with the vindication of Talleyrand respecting X, Y and Z, and the justice and sincerity of the Directory should be ascertained not by their word, but by the following cotemporaneous fact.
"Haley, an American citizen, master of the American ship Hare, lying in the port of London, laden with a rich cargo, the property of Americans, and bound to New York, went with my passport from London to Paris, where, in a personal interview, not with the agents of the minister of marine, but with the Minister himself , he disclosed his plan of bringing the ship Hare and her cargo into France; and to enable him to receive the profits of the fraud, without risking the punishment of piracy, he demanded and received from the minister of marine, a commission naming him the commander of a privateer that did not exist; with which in his pocket he returned to London; and soon after carried the ship Hare and her cargo as a prize into France.
"The ship and cargo were both claimed by the American owners: and upon the unveiling of this infamous proceeding before the lower tribunals, the judges hesitated; and finally refused to sanction so unheard of a fraud; though instead of restoring the property to its lawful owners, they on some frivolous pretence adjudged both ship and cargo to be good prize to the French ! Lately the tribunal in the last resort, upon the appeal of Haley, has reversed the judgment of the lower court, and "decreed the ship and cargo to be condemned as good prize to this renegado."
"If a transaction more grossly corrupt and infamous has occurred in the West Indies—I have not heard of it; and yet with this case of unequalled infamy and corruption before them, sanctioned by the highest tribunals of the nation, the Directory expect to amuse us with a disavowal of the conduct of a few subaltern agents, in a remote part of their dominions! !!!"
Besides the communications from Mr. Gerry, I have received from Fulwar Skipwith, Esq. Consul General of the United States at Paris, three letters dated the 4th, 8th and 22d of August, copies of which and of the papers therein referred to are herewith presented, excepting the decree of July 31st, which appears among the communications from Mr. Gerry. Mr. Skipwith's letter of August 22d with its inclosures, was delivered to me
* It will be recollected that this is the decree of the executive directory, ordering the capture and condemnation of American vessels not having a role d'équipage —that fruitful source of plunder to Frenchmen, and of ruin to American citizens; and which declared all American vessels, making a part of the crew of enemies vessels, when put on board them by force, to be prizes, and directed them to be treated as such.
by Dr. Logan; I had previously received the original, which had been brought over by Mr. Woodward of Boston.
Doctor Logan having been the bearer of the last mentioned communications from the French government, and his embassy having not only engaged the attention of the public, but been made the subject of debate in Congress, I trust it will not be deemed improper to introduce into this report some circumstances respecting it.
On the 12th of November the Doctor came to me at Trenton—he advanced with eagerness, and handed me the packet from Mr. Skipwith. On examining its contents, I told the doctor that I already possessed the same papers. I made some remarks on the decree of the directory of the 31st July, to show that it was only ostensible and illusory ; and that it would not give any relief to the commerce of the United States. The doctor, not concealing my arguments or opinion, said that more was intended to be done; but that the directory could not accomplish it of themselves; seeing it depended on the laws which the Legislative Councils alone could change. I answered that this was easy to be done—that as the directory on the 18th Fructidor (Sept. 4, 1797) had garbled the two councils, and banished some and dismissed others of the best members—all who were firmly opposed to their views, and as on the new elections to supply the vacancies and the new third of the councils, the directory sent home every new member who was not agreeable to them—every body must see that the directory had but to declare its will and it would be obeyed. The doctor said that the directory was very well disposed towards the United States, and desired a reconciliation; that they would promote the revision in regard to privateering, so as to put the rights of neutral nations on a just footing; but that it would take some time to bring it about. "the peuple concerned in privateering having gained a very great influence in the two councils!"
[For the residue, see next page.]
THE GAZETTE.
Monday, February 18, 1799.
MR. PICKERING'S REPORT.
Is this day given entirely to the readers of the Gazette. Esteeming it too valuable and interesting to divide or curtail, I feel justified in omitting a great variety of matter until next week, to give it room.
Communication—Such This is Are—The residue of Mr. Coffin's Vindication of Europe—A Lover of Humanity—Etc. shall be inserted in my next. ADVERTISEMENTS shall also be attended to.
When Mr. Pickering's able and spirited paper was read in the House of Representatives, Mr. Sewall moved for the usual number of copies to be printed.
"If ever any thing written by man (says Porcupine) deserved to be printed, this report certainly deserved it; yet was there found, in that House, a man with brafs enough to oppose it . This was Macon , of the ancient dominion, who said, that the report was of a very novel nature; that it was the first time that the Heads of departments had thought it necessary to make a comment on facts laid before the House . He said it was a complete satire on the members of the House and be called upon gentlemen to reflect before they voted."
They did not take much time to reflect, for Mr. Sewall's motion was carried 46 to 35, and the perspicacious Macon was obliged to sit down under his disappointment.
Reader, have you carefully perused Mr. Pickering's Report? If you have, can you conceive how any American, after having heard it through, could possibly object to its being printed? It is a complete history of the duplicity, the villainy of the French Directory towards these States; it unravels all their infernal intrigues, and exposes them in their monstrous deformity, to the indignation of the people whom they have insulted and injured, and whose total ruin and subjugation they had planned. I make not a single exception, when I say, that this report contains more useful information, than anything ever published in America; and, as a State paper, it does infinite honour to the gentleman who wrote it, and to the country that has had the wisdom to avail itself of the aid of his talents and his integrity. Yet, this valuable production founded harshly in the ears of patriotic Macon ; he wished to keep it out of print; but he will not fail, when occasion serves, to boast of its adoration of the sovereign people, and of their right to be fully informed on every subject."
Extract of a letter from a member of Congress—31st Jan. '99.
The symptoms of insurrection discovered in Virginia, and excited by the legislature of that State, have been alarming: But those who best know the character of that people are confident, that no other battle than that of words will be fought. The handsome check given to this disorganizing spirit by those States in which they expected the warmest support, is a happy circumstance for the United States. The Carolinas, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New-Jersey, have rejected the resolutions, about the alien and sedition bills, with the contempt they deserve. A most infamous manifesto has issued from the legislative body of Virginia, exciting the people by inflammatory arguments, and by ill founded jealousies and fears, to rise against the federal government. It is said that the people of that State are not in sentiment with their redoubtable assembly, in which every thing is carried by art and intrigue; and it is also certain that the minority, composed of about one third of the legislature, represent more property and more free men than the mad majority. They have likewise passed a law, authorizing the State Judges by way of Habeas Corpus , to release any person who may be imprisoned by the United States under the alien and sedition laws. This is pretty open war.
Legislature of the Union.
HOUSE, &c.—Jan. 30.
Several bills and petitions were read and committed. JAN. 31.
The bill for amending the Stamp Act was again discussed, and several alterations made.
FEB. 1. Bills relative to the navy, dock yards, purchase of timber, &c. were read and committed. The amendment to the stamp act passed to be enacted. A bill was received from the Senate, to authorize the President to augment the military force in case of war, or imminent danger.
FEB. 4. Some petitions were disposed of, and the Naval Appropriation bill for 1799, was reported and committed.
FEB. 5. The Speaker being indisposed and unable to attend the duties of the chair, the House adjourned.
In the Legislature of Massachusetts, the Report of the joint Committee of both Houses, on the Virginian Kentucky resolutions, was finally agreed to on Tuesday last.—In the Senate, Yeas 28—Nays 1.—In House, Yeas 116—Nays 29. [This report shall appear next week.]
The Hon. Simon FAYE, Esq. is appointed Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, for the county of York, vice Hon. Mr. Chadbourn, resigned.
In December last, the President dispatched letters to F. Skipwith, J. Fenwick, and N. Cutting, dismissing them as American Consuls in France. There now remain S. Cathalan, at Marcellles, J. C. Barnett, at Bourdeaux, and P. F. Dobre, at Nantz.
Tuesday last arrived, brig Mary Caroline, Capt. Robinson, 22 days from St. Kitts. Left there, sloop President, Hodge, and Schooner —, of Kennebunk; taken by the French and re-leafed.
Capt. R. informs, that the new French agent at Guadalupe, has called in all the French privateers, and allowed none to go out, except government vessels!—and had ordered all the negroes from on board the privateers to return to the plantations.
[What are these "government vessels" but more formidable pirates than the picaroons!]
A ship belonging to Messrs. Kotterell & Cavender, of Damariscotta, from St. Ubes, loaded with salt, went on a ledge at the mouth of D. river—the crew got off again with the loss of her masts, and one third of her cargo.
Jamaica papers say, the people of St. Domingo are divided into three parties, Heudonville's Toussant's, and Rigaud's; that several cruel murders have been committed; Rigaud ordered all Emigrants to depart, Toussant invited them to stay, and this had produced some fighting.
The English have taken a Schooner commanded by a Lieutenant of one of the frigates lately from France at Guadalupe; who laid Victor Hugo having escaped, it was supposed he had gone to St. Domingo whither he was bound in pursuit of him—Also to know the state of the Island.
From a late Philadelphia paper.
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS. It has been very industriously reported, by those who wish to see the amicable views of the two governments, frustrated, that there has been a dispute between the British and American Commissioners, which has produced a secession on the part of the latter, and, of course a suspension of the transactions of the board.
It has been reported by the same persons, and with the same malignant intentions, that the Board has already awarded forty or fifty thousand dollars to British claimants, which the people of America will have to pay.
I assure my readers that both these reports are totally false and groundless. Neither of the Commissioners has ever seceded; the sitting of the board has never been interrupted; it sits five days a week. And, as to the awards awarded it is the grossest falsehood that ever was uttered. There is not a single award yet offered ; consequently there is not a sixpence yet awarded.
The failure of the Bank, at Paris, of which M. Meneron was the head, has, it is said by letters from Paris, occasioned more longitudinal plizes at the Luxembourg, than the destruction of the Toulon fleet by Lord Nelfon. It is a shock which will be felt to the extremities of the Republic.
A London paper of Nov. 20th informs, that in consequence of the application of the government of the U. S. demanding that such American seamen as are on board the English fleet be discharged; the Lords of the Admiralty have given orders that they shall be discharged from the British service."
From Hamburg—Dec. 8.
The united Turkish and Russian squadrons have taken Cerigo, Zante, and Cephalonia, and the harbour of Corfu with all the French shipping there.
The French at Malta, made a sortie on the 14th October; but after a hard fought battle were defeated.—Lord Nelson has reinforced the blockading fleet at Malta.
The Grand Seigneur has sent an army against BUONA-PARTE;—CATARRE is the commander in chief. Two Russian frigates with six Turkish ships, and ten bomb ketches, have been sent to reinforce the British division before Alexandria; which consists of three 74's and several frigates. The French have 34 armed vessels in the inner harbour of Alexandria.
The Foreign News,
Is so imperfect and contradictory as to afford nothing certain or satisfactory as to present or future operations. The last news from the continent of Europe, leaves every thing enveloped in darkness, and the most important events are mentioned without authority. Something authentic, it is hoped, will shortly transpire to clear up our doubts.
Of Buonaparte, although letters have been received at Hamburg as late as November 7, from Constantinople, nothing certain can be learnt either as to his position, or his actual or intended operations.—One account states his army to be encamped near Cairo, surrounded by Arabs, while another asserts that having driven the beys and mamelukes into Abyssinia! he is making rapid strides, some say for Constantinople, others for the Tygris, and that the khans of Persia viewing his rapid march, have offered him men and necessaries to overthrow the British possessions in the east! What the real operations and intentions of this would be Alexander may eventuate in, time only can reveal.
Let us therefore leave him, and turn our attention to Europe. But even of it nothing can be found in the papers which gives the least ray of intelligence—nothing of the probability of peace or war—nothing of the final issue of the deliberations at Rastadt—nor any thing new whereby we can see the dispositions of the different powers of that agitated quarter of the globe.
MARRIED—At Weymouth, Mr. Henry Hobart editor of the Wiltshire Telegraph , to Miss Abigail Whittier, youngest daughter of Ebenezer Whittier. Esq. of the place. At Dorchester, Mr. Edward Nutkin to Miss Coffin.

— Is it necessary to inquire how this "very great influence" has been obtained! are the leading members owners of privateers? Or do they receive their shares of prize money from those who are? Do the legislative councils really act independently of the Directory? Or does the same "influence" actuate both? — The printed dispatches of our envoys under the date of Oct. 29, 1797, state, on the information of Mr. Talleyrand's private agent X, that Merlin, one of the members, and now or late President of the Directory, was to receive no part of the douceur demanded of the envoys, because he was paid by the owners of privateers, and in respect to the loan then demanded, on which subject it was suggested that one of the envoys should go to America to consult the government, the envoys "asked Mr. X, if in the mean time the directory would order the American property not yet passed into the hands of the privateers to be restored? He said explicitly that they would not. The envoys asked him whether they would suspend further depredations on our commerce? He said they would not: — but Mr. Talleyrand observed that on this subject we could not sustain much additional injury, because the winter season was approaching when few additional captures could be made." Here we see our envoys enquiring — not whether the two councils would suspend those depredations — but whether the Directory would do it: and Mr. Talleyrand's agent X, without intimating that the Directory wanted power , or that they could only "endeavor to provoke in the legislature, a revision of their maritime laws" — answered peremptorily, that the DIRECTORY would not suspend the depredations . The truth is, that it was an act of the Directory alone (their decree of the 2d of March 1797) which authorised and produced more extensive depredations on the commerce of the United States than any other decree or law of the French Republic. To effect a repeal of that decree, no applications to the legislative councils could be necessary. They could also have repealed another of their own decrees, that of the 2d of July 1796, which subjected neutral property, and particularly that of American citizens, to the discretion of the consuls and cruisers in the European seas, as well as of their privateers and agents in the West Indies, and on which these agents have founded other numerous decrees, which have occasioned those shocking depredations and abuses there and on the coast of the United States, which the directory by their decree of the 31st July last acted to restrain.
When the French Directory wished to enlarge the field of depredations on neutral commerce, and on the 4th Jan. 1798, proposed to the two councils, the project of the iniquitous law "to declare to be good prize every vessel & her cargo to subsequenter belonging , if any part of the cargo came from England or her possessions" — there was a ready obedience. "The directory think it urgent and necessary to pass the law." The plan of a decree is reported to the council of Five Hundred on the 11th; and "urgency" being declared is immediately and unanimously adopted. It goes to the council of Ancients — that council approves the act of "urgency;" and on the 18th January the project of the Directory becomes a law.
This law was necessary for the French government: so many American vessels had been entrapped by the Directory's decree of March 2, 1797, requiring the role d'équipage , that the residue were now generally provided with that paper: Some new pretext was therefore required for "seizing" the people of the United States of their property; and an ordinance of one of the kings of France, made near a century past, having declared lawful prize, the vessels and their cargoes, in which were found English merchandise "belonging to enemies" — the directory declare that the provisions of this ordinance ought to be extended , to comprehend the vessels and cargoes of friends; that is, of allied and neutral nations. The directory knew that the United States whose inhabitants were chiefly cultivators, required a greater supply of English manufactures than any other neutral country of equal population; and those manufactures too, were, from the course of American commerce combined with almost all our mercantile operations, and pervaded entirely our great coasting trade. Hence it is evident that this law was chiefly aimed at them .
It will be remembered also, that this law was passed while our three envoys were at Paris, where they had passed three months unheeded by the French government, except by its indignities — and when they had in vain solicited to be heard on the just claims of our citizens, plundered and ruined under the former decrees of the republic. This time was preferred, in order to add insult to injury. The envoys had firmly resisted her demands of loans and douceurs ; and when speaking of their country , dared to intimate, that it was independent : it was therefore requisite, on the French system, to "chastise," as well as to "fleece" it.
In closing this subject, it will be proper to notice an assertion of Mr. Talleyrand in a conversation with the envoys on the 2d of March, 1798. In reply to some observations of his respecting the proofs of friendship required by France from the United States, Gen. Pinckney observed that the envoys being in France was a proof of the friendly disposition of our government; and that while they were there the French government had passed a decree for seizing neutral vessels having on board any article coming out of England: which in its operation would subject to capture all our property on the ocean. Mr. Talleyrand replied, that this was not particular to us, but was common to all neutral powers." This assertion of Mr. Tal-
leyrand is not true. Although the decree in its terms is general , and applicable to all the neutral powers, yet in its operation, it was not designed to be, and has not been so applied — it has not touched a vessel of Prussia. The motives to this exemption are obvious: France wished not by irritating Prussia to add so powerful a nation, and one so near at hand, to the number of her enemies, while her peace with Austria remained precarious. But this exemption of Prussian vessels from the operation of a general law , merits particular notice. It demonstrates that there exists in the French republic a despensing power — a power above the laws — a power which can prevent their execution : and it is alike demonstrable that this sovereign controlling power can exist, and in fact does exist, in the Executive Directory . It might then if the Directory desired it, be exercised in the exemption of American as well as Prussian vessels: But the directory do not desire it; we have not yet been sufficiently "fleece'd" and "chastised."
Mr. Skipwith's letter of the 4th of August inclosed the Decree of the Executive Directory already noticed, passed the 31st of July, respecting French depredations in the West Indies and on the coast of the United States. His letter of the 8th of August inclosed Mr. Talleyrand's letter to him of the 6th, respecting that decree in which it is plain that the Minister supposed the world, and particularly the United States, will be amused by that illusory device, and imagine that it was intended to stop abuses, and give security to neutral commerce.
Mr. Skipwith's letter of the 22d August covering another letter from Mr. Talleyrand, dated the 20th of August, in which he encloses copies of two letters from the minister of marine respecting American seamen who had been imprisoned. When in July last an embargo was laid on the American merchant vessels in the ports of France, the agents of the Marine took out their crews and threw them into prison; thus hazarding the loss of the vessels and injuring the men by confinement and the bad provisions of their jails. These seamen were ordered to be released. The other letter from the minister of marine required that no injury should be done to the safety and liberty of the officers and crews of American vessels found to be in order , nor to passengers and other citizens of the United States having passports and protections.
The same letter from Mr. Skipwith inclosed the copy of a decree of the Directory passed the 16th of August, for taking off the embargo, laid a month before on American vessels.
The decree itself occupies but two lines: but its preamble is extended for the purpose of insulting the government of the United States, when an act of common justice was done to some of their citizens; by insinuating that the government was "abandoned to the passions of the British Cabinet." This, however, is but the repetition of a calumny familiar in French diplomacy, respecting other nations as well as our own. — Barras, President of the Directory , in his valley address to Mr. Monroe, declared that "France would not abase herself by calculating the consequences of the condescension of the American government ; to the suggestions of her former tyrants": professing at the same time great "esteem for the American people ." Mr. Adet had before charged the American government , with a "perfidious condescension to the English;" and after making his last communications to the government , he by their immediate publication under his orders, appealed from the government to the people of the United States.
Yet Mr. Talleyrand says, that the French government has indeed "complained of the American government , but to the government itself ?" meaning to have it understood, though carefully avoiding the expression, that it had complained to the government alone . With the like sophistry he attempts to evade our well founded allegations, that the French government has made reproachful and injurious distinctions between the government and people of the United States, endeavoring to separate the latter from the former. He says "it is utterly false, notwithstanding the public and private insinuations which have been made in private writings and in solemn acts, that the French government has ever sought to detach the people of the United States from the Constitution they have given themselves ." Such a charge against the French government has not, that I know, ever been made by the American government: but we have accused them, and truly , with endeavors to detach the people of the United States from the government chosen by themselves to administer that Constitution : and this the minister does not attempt to deny. The Directory would perhaps be contented that the people should retain the forms of "the Constitution they have given themselves," and to which they are attached, provided they would elect to administer it, men devoted to France and ready to obey the intimations of her will. And because the people have not been thus obsequious, but have dared to make a different election — the French government has expressed its "terrible" resentment. Mr. Barlow has assured us, in the passage already cited from his letter, that for this single act of the people of the United States, in exercising freely their right of election the Directory passed a decree "which was meant to be little short of a declaration of war;" by which it "was determined to fleece the people of their property;" certainly in expectation that by touching their feelings in that "nerve," they would be induced, in order to save their property , to submit implicitly to the government of France. Failing in this attempt the French government made another, in the decree of the 18th January, 1798, which, though general in its terms, I have shown to have been levelled directly and chiefly at the commerce of
the United States . And this, at the time, as I have before remarked when three envoys extraordinary were waiting month after month; and most respectfully soliciting to be heard, and to enter on the discussion of all the subjects of difference between the two countries; and among these, on the French depredations on our commerce. Yet Mr. Talleyrand has the confidence to assert, and to Mr. Gerry too, one of those envoys, that the French government "never refused and never will refuse to enter into discussion upon every proper subject of discussion." Does the minister mean that those depredations are not "a proper subject of discussion?" Yes, with respect to a vast proportion of them. — Mr. Y. his private agent, explicitly told our envoys, that the condemnations of vessels for want of the role d'équipage were not to be questioned; "that being a point on which Merlin while minister of justice had written a treatise , and on which the Directory were decided ."
It is fit here to recollect another and a peremptory refusal of the French government, "to enter into discussion" upon the subject of difference between France and the U. States.
General Pinckney, appointed a minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to the French Republic, went to Paris in the autumn of 1796. There was at first (as in the case of the envoys Extraordinary in 1797) a show of receiving him; but soon the scene was changed; and he was not only refused a hearing, and after bearing a thousand indignities, ordered to leave France; but the predecessor of Mr. Talleyrand, Charles De La Croix, in a letter to Mr. Monroe, intended to be communicated to General Pinckney, declared (being special y charged to do so by the Directory , and Mr. De La Croix repeated the declaration to General Pinckney's Secretary) "That it will not acknowledge nor receive another minister Plenipotentiary from the United States, until after the redress of the grievances demanded of the American government, and which the French Republic has a right to expect from it." To this resolution we have seen the Directory adhere; and we have also seen, in the demands it made to our envoys Extraordinary, as the indispensable preliminaries to any negotiation, what it meant by a "redress of grievances" prior to the reception of a minister from America; it consisted in a douceur for the pocket of the Directors and ministers — in the purchase at par of thirty-two millions of Dutch Securities , then worth but half that sum, and in Loans as immense and indefinite as their depredations on our commerce.
The same letter from the French minister De La Croix to Mr. Monroe, affords another proof of the aim and endeavours of the French Government to separate the People from the Government of the United States. In the sentence next following the above quoted passage, De La Croix says, "I pray you to be persuaded, citizen minister, that this determination having become necessary, allows to subsist between the French Republic and the American People the affection founded upon former benefits and reciprocal interests."
If I were to allow myself to make any further reflections on the conduct of France towards the United States, it would be to illustrate the truth of Mr. Barlow's assertion, That the French Government determined to Fleece us . If the French Government "listened (as Mr. Talleyrand says it does) to nothing but justice," & really desired a reconciliation, it would have proposed to fix some measure of satisfaction , for the injuries it said it had received. Or if too proud to propose to us, at least it would have preferred to itself , some limit to repraisals : or at any rate, it would not have spurned us from its presence, when we respectfully presented ourselves, sought a reconciliation, and offered to make a just satisfaction for every injury we had committed. And if (as Mr. Talleyrand) asserts "the French government has not ceased to offer the exact justice it demands," it also would have permitted us to state our claims. But it would have been so easy to ascertain all the damages we had done; & their amount would have been so small, even if we agreed to pay for all English, Spanish & Dutch vessels brought by French cruisers, into our ports, while all those nations were at war with France — a few of which the justice of the Federal courts, in vindication of the sovereignty of the United States, refused from the hands of the French Consuls, Agents and Privateersmen; and if to that amount we also added ten times the value of the miserable corvette Le Cassius , a vessel which had been unlawfully fitted out for war in the United States, but which has been the burthen of every note from Adet's in 1795, to De La Croix's and Talleyrand's in 1796 and 1798, the amount of the whole, it was known, would be so small; the French Government did not choose to have it ascertained: for then the injuries done by the French to the commerce of the United States must also have been examined and adjusted: and when adjusted, payment must have been made or stipulated: but in this, the French government, doubtless thought, "it would find only a real disadvantage:" the amount of its own demands deducted from those of America, would hardly seem to have diminished the latter.
Such a mutual adjustment would also have been accompanied with a settlement of all questions and disputes about the construction of treaties, and all other subjects of difference: But in this also the French government, upon its own system, "would have found a real disadvantage" For it would have vastly reduced the field for privateering in the European seas, and in the West Indies it would have been nearly annihilated: for there, for every vessel taken from the enemies of France, her cruisers have probably captured twenty belonging to the U-
nited States. But the French government by always abstaining from making specific demands of damages — by refusing to receive our ministers — by at length proposing to negotiate in a mode which it knew to be impracticable, — with the person who had no power, and who therefore constantly refused to negotiate — and thus wholly avoiding a negotiation — it has kept open the field for complaints of wrongs and injuries, in order, by leaving them undefined to furnish pretences for unlimited depredations. — In this way "it determined to fleece us ." In this way it gratified its avarice and revenge — And it hoped also to satiate its ambition . After a long series of insults unresented, and a patient endurance of injuries, aggravated in their nature and unexampled in their extent — that the government expected our final submission to its will. Our resistance has excited its surprise; and as certainly increased its resentment. — With some soothing expressions is heard the voice of wounded pride. Warmly professing its desire of reconciliation, it gives no evidence of its fidelity ; but proofs in abundance demonstrate that it is not sincere. From standing erect, and in that commanding attitude requiring implicit obedience — cowering, it renounces some of its unbounded demands. But I hope we shall remain "THAT THE TYGER CROUCHES BEFORE HE LEAPS UPON HIS PREY."
Timothy Pickering.
Department of State, January 18, 1799.
Take Notice.
THE proprietors or owners of the several lots of unimproved lands in the town of Gray, county of Cumberland and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, heretofore mentioned, are hereby notified that the same are taxed in bills committed to me the subscriber, collector of said town, for the year 1798, to collect in the following sums, viz.
   First Division Lots. Fourth Division Lots.   No. No. Acres. Tax. No. No. Acres. Tax.     6 69 23 2 1 107 27 6   18 69 23 2 3 107 27 6   44 69 23 2 4 107 27 6   SECOND DIVISION. 5 107 27 6   107 69 23 2 11 107 27 6   109 69 23 2 30 107 27 6   THIRD DIVISION. 32 107 27 6   2 51 1/2 26 5 37 107 27 6   53 103 53 1 46 107 27 6   57 103 53 1 53 107 27 6   58 53 27 3 58 107 27 6   63 103 53 1 63 107 27 6   64 107 27 6  
If no person shall appear to discharge said taxes and all necessary intervening charges, on or before Tuesday the second day of April next, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, so much of the said lots of land as shall be sufficient to discharge the same will then be sold at Public Auction, to the highest bidder, at the dwelling house of Mr. Joseph Lobb, landholder in said Gray.
Joseph Pennell, Collector.
Gray, Feb. 9, 1799.
To AMOS HARSEY, Clerk of the Proprietors of a tract of Land lying in the town of Poland, in the county of Cumberland, confirmed to JOHN B. BODDICK, and the s. by a Referee of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on the first day of February, 1793.
WE the subscribers, being five of the proprietors, judging a proprietors meeting to be necessary, do hereby request you to call a meeting of said proprietors to be held at the house of Capt. JONATHAN NASH in said Poland, on Monday the eleventh day of March next, at nine o'clock in the forenoon, to act on the following articles, viz.
 1. To choose a Moderator for said meeting.  2. To agree upon a method of coming to a division of the unseated lands in said grant.  3. To see if they will choose some person as agent to commence such law suits as shall be judged necessary, for and in behalf of said proprietors.  4. To raise such sum or sums of money as they shall judge necessary to defray the charges which have arisen or may arise in said propriety. 
JAMES HARSEY, NOAH HARSEY, BENJAMIN BEAL, SAMUEL POOL, JONATHAN NASH.
In pursuance of the foregoing application, to me directed, I do hereby notify the proprietors of the above described tract of land to meet at the time and place mentioned in the foregoing application, and for the purposes therein expressed.
Dated at Poland, the sixteenth day of January, A. D. 1799. AMOS HARSEY, Clerk.
Justices' Blanks, for sale at this Office.
   ALMANACK.   FEBRUARY. S. P. M. H.W.     Monday, 18 6 46 6 4 13 8 5   Tuesday, 19 6 44 6 16 10 39   Wednesday, 20 5 43 6 18 11 32 Moon Full.   Thursday, 21 6 41 6 7 morn.   Friday, 22 6 39 6 8 23 0 29 Washington   Saturday, 23 6 38 6 9 41 1 26 [Born, 1732   SUNDAY, 24 6 36 6 11 1 2 23  
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