PREFACE. IN fubmitting to the Public the Seventh Volume of this Collection, the Editor flatters himself that it will be found to include documents of equal, perhaps of fuperior importance, to any of those contained in the preceding volumes. As he has been fingularly fortunate in procuring a confiderable number of State Papers, which, he trufts, have never yet been published in England, he thinks it neceffary to direct the attention of the Public in a more particular manner to them. Of the negotiation at Paris between the United States of America and the Republic of France no complete account had hitherto been collected; the Editor therefore obtained from America an official copy of the proceedings printed by order of Congrefs. The very detailed letter from the American minifters* upon the differences between the two nations, and upon the conduct of France towards the United States, has never yet been published in this country. The fame affertion may be made with refpect to the answer of the American minifterst to the letter of the French minifter for foreign affairs. But the Editor has alfo been able to render the narrative of the negotiation still more complete even than the official publication of the American government. That publication concludes with the departure of General Pinckney and General Marshall from Paris. From the French official papers the Editor has extracted all the fubfequent correfpondence between Mr. Gerry and the French minifter to the departure of the former from France, and the final rupture of the negotiation. Hitherto the Public have only feen a fhort and unfatisfactory account of those disturbances at Vienna which led to the departure of the French ambaffador Bernadotte from that capital. The reader will here find an official account of the event by Bernadotte * Page 222 to 265. † Page 399 to 426. 2 2 himself, himself, which the Editor has tranflated from the German papers. The changes which have taken place in the government of the cantons of Switzerland, the deftruction of the Papal power, the negotiations at Raftadt, and the expedition of Buonaparte to Egypt, have engaged the attention of all Europe. It has therefore been the fedulous attention of the Editor to procure every official document relative to thofe important events. The affairs of Ireland, and the recent rebellion in that country, promoted and encouraged by the French government, come naturally within the scope of a publication whofe profeffed object is to collect every ftate paper that relates to the war with France. The Editor has inferted all the Proclamations published during the progrefs of that rebellion, together with the very interesting Reports upon it prefented to both Houfes of the Irish Parliament : to these are added the able and satisfactory Report on the treatment of French prisoners in England, a document highly gratifying to the national character. he It has hitherto been ufual to arrange the Proclamations, Correfpondence, and Papers relative to Neutral Powers, under distinct heads. That arrangement having been found inconvenient, all the papers in this volume have been claffed under one general head but as a very copious Index has been added, no perfon can experience the fmalleft difficulty in finding any paper 'may want, whether it relates to the neutral or belligerent powers. In the preceding volumes, the Appendix, containing the history of the war from the Gazettes, has always been brought down to as late a period as poffible. In the prefent volume that rule has been depart`ed from, for two reafons: 1ft, the fize of the volume was already fufficiently large; and, 2dly, the Editor had every reason to believe that its publication was impatiently expected. The Appendix therefore has only been completed to the beginning of March. The remainder of the Gazettes are referved for the fucceeding volume. • Page 291. |