MESSAGE from the PRESIDENT to CONGRESS.

Gentlemen of the Senate, and

Gentlemen of the House of Reprefentatives,

I NOW tranfmit to Congrefs the Dispatch, Number 8, from our Envoys Extraordinary to the French Republic, which was received at the Secretary of State's office, on Thurfday the fourteenth day of this

WE herewith transmit you the copy of a letter written to us by the Minifter of Foreign Affairs, dated the 28th Ventofe, (18th March) and purporting to be an answer to our memorial of the 17th of January.

We alfo fend you in this inclosure a copy of our reply, which has been prefented this morning. As foon as we certainly know what steps the French government mean to purfue in confequence of this reply, you shall be informed of them.

We remain, with great refpect and esteem,

Your most obedient fervants,

CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY,
J. MARSHALL,

E. GERRY.

The Minister of Foreign Relations of the French Republic, To Mers. CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, J. MARSHALL, and E. GERRY.

THE under figned Minister of Foreign Relations of the French Republic, has laid before the Executive Directory, the memorial which the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary of the United States of America have tranfmitted to him, under the date of 28th Nivofe last,

[17th January, 1798] and it is in execution of the intentions of the Directory, which defires to convince the United States of the true dispofitions which animate it with refpect to them, that the undersigned communicates to the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary the following obfervations.

The first thing which muft excite attention, in the memorial of the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary, is the method which they have thought proper to purfue in the expofition and in the difcuffion of the points which are in difpute between the two ftates. The Executive Directory, animated with difpofitions the most conciliatory, and penetrated with the interests which should draw the two nations together, as well as eager to concur in the well known wish of the two people, to maintain a perfect intimacy, had reafon to expect, that the Envoys would have brought, in the name of their government, difpofitions entirely fimilar, and a temper previoufly prepared by the fame views and the fame defires. What must be, after this, the furprize of the Executive Directory, when the undersigned rendered it an account of a memorial, in which the Commiflioners and Envoys Extraordinary, reverfing the known order of facts, have aimed to pafs over, as it were in filence, the juft motives of complaint of the French government, and to disguise the true caufe of the misunderstanding, which is prolonged between the two Republics! So that it would appear, from that expofition, as partial as unfaithful, that the French Republic has no real grievance to fubftantiate, no legitimate reparation to demand, whilft the United States foul alone have a right to complain, fhould alone be entitled to claim fatisfaction.

The defigns, which have induced a preference of this courfe to every other, have not escaped the Executive Directory; and it is as well from a juft fentiment of the dignity of the Republic, whofe interefts are confided to it, as to provide eventually against the views, which may be contemplated by fuch conduct, that it has charged the underfigned to difpel thefe empty appearances, which indeed cannot exist when facts fhall be re-eftablished, and the true intentions of the Directory fhall be folemnly made to appear, in oppofition to those which can be attributed to it only gratuitoufly, and by taking advantage of its filence.

An inconteftible truth, and one which has been entirely paffed over in the memorial of the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary, is, that the priority of grievances and complaints belonged to the French Republic; that these complaints and thefe grievances were as real as numerous, long before the United States had the leaft grounded claim to make, and confequently before all the facts, on which the Envoys reft with fo many details, had exifted.

Another truth, not lef's inconteftible, is, that all the grievances which the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary exhibit, with the exceptions, which the undersigned was ready to'difcufs, are a neceffary confequence of the measures which the prior conduct of the United States had juftified on the part of the French Republic, and which its treaties with the faid United States authorized in certain cafes, which it depended upon the General Government of the Union to create or not to create. It would be foreign to the purpose to enter into an enumeration of the complaints which the French government had room to make against the Federal government, fince the commencement of the war, excited

against the French Republic, by a power jealous of its profperity and its regeneration. Thefe details are contained in the numerous official communications, made at Philadelphia by the Minifters of the Repub, lic, and have been recapitulated by the predeceffor of the underfigned, in a note addreffed, under the date of 19th Ventofe, in the 4th year, [9th March, 1796] to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, and very particularly detailed in the official note of Citizen Adet, dated at Philadelphia, on the 25th, Brumaire, in the 5th year [15th November, 1796]. Complaint was made in the above note of the inexecution of the treaties concluded in 1778, in the only claufes in which France had ftipulated fome advantages, in return for the efforts which the engaged to make for the common benefit, and against the infults offered to the dignity of the French Republic.

In fact, from the commencement of the war, the American tribunals have claimed the right to take cognizance of the validity of prizes carried into the ports of the United States by French cruizers. It has refulted from this pretenfion, contrary to the letter of the treaty of commerce of 1778, that the property of citizens of the Republic has been unjustly detained, and that French cruizing has been totally difcouraged in the American feas against an enemy, who revived the most barbarous laws of that mode of warfare, to destroy and infult the American commerce, even under the eyes of the Federal government.

That government did not confine itself to favour the enemies of the French Republic in a point fo effential, a point on which in truth fome abufes night arife, but which the French government manifefted itself difpofed to prevent; it even went fo far as to permit enemy's veffels, contrary to the literal meaning of the above treaty, to put into the ports of the United States, after having captured the property or fuips belonging to French citizens. Soon afterwards a national corvette, at anchor in the port of Philadelphia,* was feized by order of the government, and this arreft was afterwards extended even to her commander. The American tribunals, in like manner, arrefted the perfon of the ex-governor of Guadaloupe, for acts of his administration; and it was neceffary that the Executive Directory fhould threaten to make reprisals to put this affair in the course prescribed by the law of nations.

During the whole fpace of time which has been juft reviewed, the French government made fruitless efforts to induce the government of the United States, to procure for the agents of the Republic, the legal means of carrying into effect the claufes of the confular convention of 1788, which granted to our navigation and commerce, privileges whofe principle was confecrated by the treaties of 1778; and nothing could ever be obtained in this respect but fruitless references to the tribunals. In general, all matters, which, with intentions fincerely conciliatory, should have been terminated by means of negociation, were habitually, referred to the judicial authorities; and thefe, whether they were or were not fubject to a fecret influence, in the end either deprived the Republic of rights founded upon treaties, or modified their exercife as fuited the fyftem of the government.

Such was the true ftate of things in the month of Auguft, 1795, the period when the ratification of the Treaty of Amity, Navigation and

* Seizure of the Caffius, in August, 1795.

Commerce, figned at London in the month of November preceding, between the United States and Great-Britain, filled the measure of the grievances of the republic.

What had been, until then, the conduct of the French government towards the United States? The undersigned, in order to contraft it with that of the faid States, will content himself with recalling facts, which cannot however have been forgotten.

Occupied with the moft preffing cares in Europe, the republic did not direct her attention to the United States, but in order conftantly to give them new proofs of the molt fincere friendfhip and intereft, and the left it to her agents, amicably to discuss with the Federal government, the controverfies which have juft been sketched, and which, had they been handled on both fides in the true spirit of conciliation, could not have altered their good understanding to the prefent degree. The republic was hardly conftituted, when a minister was fent to Philadelphia, whofe first act was to declare to the United States, that they would not be pressed to execute the defenfive clauses of the Treaty of Alliance, although the circumftances, in the leaft equivocal manner, exhibited the cafus fæderis. Far from appreciating this conduct, the American government received it as the acknowledgment of a right; and it is in this fpirit alfo, that the Commiffioners and Envoys Extraordinary have met this question in the beginning of their memorial. The Minifter of the republic at Philadelphia, having given uneafinefs to the American government, was readily recalled, even with circumstances of extreme rigour. His fucceffor carried to the United States every defirable reparation, as well as declarations the most friendly and fincere.

Nothing equals the fpirit of conciliation, or rather of condefcenfion, in which his inftructions were drawn, relatively to all the points which caufed any uneafinefs in the Federal government. The citizen Adet again enforced, in the name of the National Convention, thofe expreffions of good will; and that affembly itself received, with the effufion of an unbounded confidence and security, the new Minifter, whom the Prefident of the United States fent to it, with the apparent intention of fincerely correfponding with the difpofitions which the republic had not ceafed to profefs.

What might appear incredible is, that the republic, and her alliance, were facrificed at the moment when fhe thus redoubled her regards 'for her ally; and that the correfponding demonstrations of the Federal government, had no other object, but to keep her, as well as her government, in a falfe fecurity.-And yet it is now known, that, at this very period, Mr. Jay, who had been fent to London, folely, as it was then faid, to negociate arrangements relative to the depredations committed upon the American commerce, by the cruifers of Great-Britain, figned a Treaty of Amity, Navigation and Commerce, the negociating and figning of which had been kept a profound fecret at Paris and at Philadelphia. This Treaty was avowed to our Minifter Plenipotentiary only at the laft extremity; and it was communicated to him only for form's fake, and after it had received the ratification of the Senate. When the agents of the republic complained of this myfterious conduct, they were anfwer. ed by an appeal to the Independence of the United States, folemnly fanctioned in the Treaties of 1778-a ftrange manner of contefting a grievance, the reality of which was demonftrated by the diffinnlation to

which recourfe was had-an infidious fubterfuge, which fubftitutes for the true point of the queftion, a general principle, which the republic cannot be fuppofed to difpute, and which deftroys, by the aid of a fophifm, that intimate confidence, which ought to exift between two allies, and which, above all, ought to exist between the French republic and the United States.

If it be difficult to find in this conduct what ought to be expected from a friend, what must be thought of the treaty itfelt, and of its provifions? This Treaty is now known to all Europe; and the small majority by which it paffed the two Houfes, as well as the multitude of impofing wishes which were expreffed by the nation against fuch an act, bear honorable teftimony in favour of the opinion which the French government has adopted concerning it. The undersigned will not repeat, with refpect to this Treaty, what his predeceffor has faid of it, in his note of the 19th Ventofe, before cited, and in that of the 19th Meffidor following, nor what the Minifter Plenipotentiary of the republic at Philadelphia has fet forth, at great length, in his official note of the 25th Brumaire. He will content himself with obferving, fummarily, that in this Treaty, every thing having been calculated to turn the neutrality of the United States to the diladvatage of the French republic, and to the advantage of England; that the Federal government having in this act made to Great-Britain conceffions, the most unheard of, the most incompatible with the interests of the United States, the moft derogatory to the alliance which fubfifted between the faid States and the French republic; the latter was perfectly free, in order to avoid the inconveniencies of the Treaty of London, to avail itself of the prefervative means with which the law of nature, the law of nations, and prior Treaties, furnished it.

Such are the reafons which have produced the decrees of the Directory, of which the United States complain, as well as the conduct of its agents to the Weft-Indies. All these measures are founded on the 2d article of the Treaty of 1778, which requires, that, in matters of navigation and commerce, France fhould always be, with refpect to the United States, on the footing of the moft favoured nation. The Executive Directory cannot be arraigned, if, from the execution of this eventual claufe, fome inconveniences have refulted to the American flag. As to the abuses which may have fprung from that principle, the undersigned again repeats, that he was ready to difcufs them in the moft friendly manner.

From this faithful expofition of facts, which have progreffively led to the present misunderstanding between the two States, it refults, as the underfigned has faid, in the beginning of this anfwer, that the priority of grievances belongs to the French republic; and that fuch of its measures as may have occafioned the complaints of the United States, are, with fome exceptions, the natural confequence of a fiate of things, which it depended upon them to create or not create.

If the underfigned fhould terminate the expofition of the grievances of the republic with the Treaty of London, he would imperfectly fulfil his task-It is his duty to carry his views further. From the moment that the Treaty in queftion was put into execution, the government of the United States feemed to think itself freed from the neceffity of keeping any mcafures with the republic; notwithstanding the