Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

[TRANSLATED FOR THE AURORA.]
From the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the American Commissioners,

Paris, 25th Ventose, 6th year (18th March 1798).

THE undersigned minister of the French Republic for Foreign Affairs has laid before the Executive Directory the memorial which he has received from the Commissioners and Envoys Extraordinary of the United States of America, dated the 28th of Nivose last.

The Directory desirous of convincing the United States of the real dispositions with which it is animated in regard to them has directed the undersigned to communicate to the Commissioners and Envoys Extraordinary the following observations:

The first thing with which the mind is necessarily struck in the memorial of the commissioners and envoys extraordinary is the method which they have thought proper to pursue in the statement of the points that are in controversy between the two states.—The Executive Directory, animated with the most conciliatory dispositions, impressed with a sense of the interests that ought to draw the two nations towards each other, and eager to concur in the well known wish of the people of both countries, to maintain a perfect intimacy between them, had reason to expect that the Envoys would have come forward with similar dispositions on the part of their government, with minds actuated with the same views and impressed with the same wishes. How great, after such an expectation, must have been the surprise of the Executive Directory, when the undersigned communicated to them a memorial, in which the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, reversing the known order of facts, have studiously passed over, as it were, in silence the just motives of complaint of the French government and disguised the real cause of the misunderstanding which is prolonging itself between the two republics, so that it should appear from that partial and incorrect statement, that the French Republic has no real grievances to complain of, no just reparations to require, while the United States should alone have a right to complain, alone be entitled to demand satisfaction?

The motives which have induced the preference given to this mode of proceeding have not escaped the Directory. Actuated by a proper sense of the dignity of the Republic, whose interests it is entrusted with, and wishing eventually to guard against the views that might have pointed out such a conduct, it has given it in charge to the undersigned to dispel these delusive appearances, which indeed must vanish before a candid statement of facts and as soon as the real intentions of the Directory shall have been solemnly made to appear in opposition to those views which could only be unjustly attributed to them by taking advantage of their silence.

It is an incontestable truth, which is entirely kept out of view in the memorial of the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, that France is entitled to a priority of complaints and of grievances, that these complaints and grievances were real as well as numerous long before the United States had the least foundation for either, and consequently before any of the facts which the envoys have so elaborately and minutely discussed had taken place.

It is a no less incontestable truth, that all the grievances exhibited by the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, with some exceptions which the undersigned was ready to discuss are a necessary consequence of the measures which the prior conduct of the United States had rendered justifiable on the part of the French republic, and which her treaties with the said United States authorized in certain cases which it depended upon the general government of the Union to bring or not into existence.

It is foreign to my purpose to enumerate the complaints which the French government had reason to make against the federal government since the commencement of the war excited against the French republic by a power jealous of its prosperity and of its regeneration. Those details are contained in the numerous official communications made at Philadelphia by the ministers of the republic; they have been recapitulated by the predecessor of the undersigned, in a note dated the 19th Ventose, 4th year, addressed to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, and particularly detailed in the official note of citizen Adet, dated at Philadelphia, the 25th Brumaire, 5th year. Complaint was made in the above note of the non execution of the only clauses of the treaties concluded in 1778 in which France had stipulated some advantages in return for the efforts which she had engaged to make for the common utility, and of insults which had been offered to the dignity of the French republic.

In fact, from the commencement of the war, the American tribunals claimed the right of taking cognizance of the validity of prizes carried by French cruizers into the ports of the United States. It resulted from this pretension, contrary to the letter of the treaty of commerce of 1778., that the property of the citizens of the republic was unjustly detained; that the French were entirely discouraged from cruising in the American seas against an enemy who was reviving the most barbarous law of that mode of warfare, in order to insult and annihilate the American commerce even before the eyes of the federal government.

Nor was that government satisfied with favoring the enemies of the French republic, in a point of so much importance a point indeed, out of which some abuses might have arisen, but which the French government shewed itself disposed to prevent—they went so far as to grant to the ships of the enemy, contrary to the plain letter of the above mentioned treaty, an asylum in the ports of the United States after having captured property or vessels belonging to French citizens. Soon after, a national sloop of war, at anchor in the port
of Philadelphia, was seized and her commander arrested by order of the government. In like manner the person of the ex-governor of Guadaloupe was arrested by process from the American tribunals, to answer a complaint founded upon facts relative to his administration. and the executive directory were obliged to threaten making use of reprisals before that affair could take the course which was assigned to it by the law of nations. During the whole space of time of which a review has just now been taken, the French government endeavored in vain to determine the government of the United States to procure to the agents of the French republic the legal means of carrying into execution the articles of the consular convention of 1788, which granted privileges to our commerce and navigation, the principle of which was established by the treaties of 1778, and nothing could be obtained in this respect, but fruitless references to the tribunals. In general, all matters which, with a truly conciliatory disposition, might have been settled in the way of negociation were habitually referred to the judicial authorities, who whether they were or not under a secret influence, did in the end either deprive the republic of rights founded upon treaties, or modified the exercise thereof as suited the system adopted by the executive.

Such was the true state of things in the month of August 1795, when the ratification of a treaty of amity commerce and navigation, signed at London in November preceding. between the United States and Great Britain, filled the measure of the grievances of the republic.

What had been till that period the conduct of the French government towards the United States? The undersigned in order to contrast it with that of the federal government, needs only recall to mind certain facts which surely cannot have been forgotten:

Engaged in Europe by the most pressing concerns, the Republic had not directed her attention to the United States unless it was to give them fresh proofs of the most sincere attachment and friendship: she left it to her agents amicably to discuss, with. the federal government, the controversies, a sketch of which has just now been given, and which if they had been met on both sides with a real spirit of conciliation could not have altered, to the present degree, the good understanding of the parties. Scarcely was the Republic constituted when she sent a minister to Philadelphia, whose first step was to declare to the United States, that they should not be urged to carry into execution the defensive clauses of the treaty of alliance, although the existing circumstances were in the most unequivocal manner within the casus foederis. Far from viewing this conduct in its proper light, the American government considered it as the acknowledgment of a right, and in the same spirit the commissioners and envoys extraordinary have met this question in the beginning of their memorial. The minister of the Republic at Philadelphia, having given uneasiness to the American government, was recalled with readiness and his recall was attended with circumstances of extreme severity. His successor carried to the United States all the reparations that could be wished for, accompanied with the sincerest and most friendly declarations. -Nothing can equal the spirit of conciliation. or rather condescension, in which his instructions were drawn up in relation to every point that had occasioned any uneasiness to the federal government. Citizen Adet, in the name of the convention, corroborated those expressions of good-will, and that assembly itself received with the effusion of an unbounded confidence and sincerity, the new minister which the President of the United States sent to them, with the apparent intention of corresponding sincerely with the dispositions which the republic had never ceased to evince.

Yet it will hardly be believed, that the French Republic and her ally were actually sacrificed at the very moment when she was thus giving to her ally increased proofs of her attention and regard, and that the corresponding demonstrations of the Federal Executive had no other view but to lull her and her government into a deceitful security.

It is nevertheless well known, at this day, that it was at that period that Mr. Jay, who had been sent to London, only, it was then said, in order to negotiate arrangements respecting the depredations which were committed by the British cruizers on the American trade, was signing a treaty of amity, navigation and commerce, the negociation and signature of which had been kept a most profound secret at Paris and at Philadelphia.

That treaty was not avowed to our minister plenipotentiary until the last extremity; and it was communicated to him only for form's sake, after it has been sanctioned by the ratification of the Senate. When the agents of the Republic complained of that mysterious conduct they were answered by an appeal to the independence of the United States Solemnly established by the treaties of 1778; a strange mode of defence against a complaint which the dissimulation which was used proves to have been but too well grounded: an insidious subterfuge, which to the real point of the question substitutes a general principle, which the Republic could not be suspected to controvert or deny, and which by means of a sophism destroys that intimate confidence which ought to subsist between two allies, and particularly between the French Republic and the United States.

If it is difficult to discover in this conduct that which ought to be looked for from a 'friend, what shall we think of the treaty itself and of its provisions? That treaty is at .this day known to all Europe; and the small majorities which gave it sanction in both houses, as well as the strong and numerous expressions of the opinion of the People against it, are so many honorable testimonials in support of the view which the french government has taken of it. The undersigned will not repeat the observations made by his predecessor on this treaty. in his note of the 19th Ventose before mentioned and in that of the 10th Nivose following: neither will he repeat what the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republic at Philadelphia set forth much at large in his official note of the 25th Brumaire. He will confine himself to observing summarily, that every thing having been calculated in that treaty to make the neutrality of the United States operate to the disadvantage of the French Republic and to the advantage of England, that the Federal government having, in that instrument, made to Great-Britain concessions, the most unheard of, the most incompatible with the interests of the United States, the most derogatory to the alliance which subsisted between the said States and the French Republic. —the latter has been perfectly free, in order to avoid the inconvenients of the treaty of London, to avail itself of the Means of self-preservation which the laws of nations and prior treaties offered.

Such are the motives which have, prompted the arretes of the Directory of which the United States complain, as well as the conduct of its agents in the West Indies All those measures are founded on the Article II of the treaty of 1778; which provides that as to navigation and commerce France shall always stand in relation to the United, States on the footing of the most favored nation. The Executive Directory cannot be blamed, if the execution of this eventual clause has produced some inconveniences to the American flag. As to abuses, which may have arisen under the operation of that principle, the undersigned again repeats-that he was ready to discuss them in the most amicable manner.

From this faithful exposition of the facts which have progressively led to the present existing misunderstanding between the two Republics, it is evident, as the undersigned observed in the beginning of this answer, that the French Republic were first aggrieved and that such of her measures as may have given rise to the complaints of the United States are, with a few exceptions the natural consequence of a state of things which it was in their power to produce or to avoid.

If the undersigned, in setting forth the complaints of the Republic should confine himself to the treaty of London, he would but partially fulfil his duty, which directs his attention to further objects.

From the moment when that treaty was put into execution, the government of the United States appeared to think itself released from the necessity of having appearances towards the Republic.-Notwithstanding the reiterated assurance which had been given to its ministers, that this treaty should make no change in the pre-existing state of the neutrality of the United States, the French cruizers were notified in the course of the year 1796, that they could no longer, as had been theretofore practiced, be admitted to sell their prizes in the ports of the United States. This decision was made by the Federal Court of Justice, and grounded on the treaty concluded between the United States and Great-Britain.

The newspapers known to be under the indirect controul of the cabinet have, since that treaty, been doubly active in their invective and calumnies against the Republic, and against her principles. her representatives, and agents; libellous publications openly paid for by the Minister of Great-Britain, have brought to view, under every shape, those insults and those calumnies; and such a scandalous state of things never excited the attention of the government, who might have repressed it. On the contrary it was countenanced by the public acts of the government itself. The Executive Directory has seen itself denounced in a speech delivered by the President in the course of the month of May (O. S.) as endeavouring to spread anarchy and divisions in the United States. The new allies which the Republic has acquired, and who are the same who concurred in asserting the independence of the Americans, have also been insulted in official correspondences which have been made public, and in the newspapers. Indeed it is impossible not to discover in the tenor of the speeches, and in that of the publications which have been alluded to, a latent enmity, which only awaits a favorable moment to break out.

Facts being thus placed in their true light, it is disagreeable to be compelled to think that the instructions on which the commissioners have acted, have not been drawn up with the sincere intention to produce a pacific result; since far from grounding their memorial on some acknowledged principles, or uncontested facts, they have inverted and confounded one and the other; so as to be enabled to impute to the Republic all the misfortunes of a rupture, which it appears to be intended to produce by such a line of conduct. It is evident, that the intention unequivocally expressed of maintaining, at every hazard, the treaty of London, which is the principal grievance of the Republic; of adhering to the spirit which has produced that treaty and directed its execution, and of refusing to allow to the Republic any of the modes of reparation which she has proposed through the undersigned, have dictated those instructions. It is equally evident, that there is no hesitation in sacrificing to these foreign feelings, those which the treaties of 1778, and the recollection of the circumstances in the midst of which they were concluded, ought to inspire.

The remote consequences of such a conduct have not escaped the attention of the directory. It is wished, while nothing is omitted which can prolong the misunderstanding, and even increase it, to throw on the republic, in the view of America and Europe, all the odium of such a rupture:

It is endeavored, to justify by delusive appearances, the prejudices which are disseminated at pleasure against the republic, and the system of exasperation and alienation which is pursued, in respect to her, with the most unaccountable perseverance: It is intended, finally, to seize the first favorable opportunity of consummating an intimate union with a power, towards which a devotion and partiality are shewn, which has long been the basis of the conduct of the Federal government,

The intentions which the undersigned attributes to the government of the United States are so little disguised, that nothing seems to have been neglected at Philadelphia, to render them evident to every eye. It was probably with this view, that it was thought proper to send to the French republic, persons whose opinions and connections are too well known to expect from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory. It is painful to the undersigned to be obliged to contrast this conduct with that which has been held towards the cabinet of St. James in analogous circumstances.

The American executive was anxious to send to London ministers well known to possess sentiments suitable to the object of their mission.- This republic might have expected, it would seem, a similar deference: and if the same degree of propriety has not been observed with respect to them, it is but too probable. that it must be attributed to the views above pointed out by the undersigned.

It is impossible to foresee whither such dispositions may lead -The undersigned hesitates not to believe, that the American, like the French, nation beholds with regret such a state of things, and is sorrowfully affected with the idea of its consequences, He thinks the Americans will form a correct opinion, with regard to the prejudices against an allied people which endeavors have been made to instil into them; and, also with regard to the engagements which it seems to be the object to prevail upon them to contract to the injury of an alliance which has so powerfully contributed to place and maintain them in the rank of nations, and that they will discover in those new combinations the only dangers to which their prosperity and national importance can be exposed.

Impressed with the truth of these observations and the consequences which flow from them the executive directory have authorized the undersigned to express himself with all the frankness which becomes the French nation. It was indispensable, that he should, in the name of the executive directory, dispel the mist of illusions with which the complaints of the ministers of the French republic have for five years past been surrounded with a view to weaken, misrepresent or disguise them. He was absolutely bound, by declaring their sentiments in an unequivocal manner, to clear up every doubt and every false interpretation to which they might have been subjected.

It is therefore, solely with a view to smooth the way to discussion, that the undersigned has entered upon the preceding explanations: It is with the same view that he declares to the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, that notwithstanding the kind of prejudice which may have been entertained with respect to them, the executive directory are disposed to treat with that one of the three commissioners whose opinions presumed to be more impartial, promise in the course of explanations a greater share of that mutual confidence which is indispensibly required. The undersigned flatters himself, that this overture will meet with no serious opposition on the part of the commissioners and envoys extraordinary; it is the more natural to expect it, as by the tenor of their powers the said commissioners and envoys extraordinary are authorized to negotiate jointly or separately; so that nothing but the desire of precluding all accommodation could raise any objection against that measure, which moreover is merely pointed out to the commissioners themselves, in order that nothing may on this occasion have an unfavorable appearance, and which evidently has no other object than to secure a happy issue to the negotiation by removing at the first outset every thing that might, in the course of that negotiation, awaken feelings that might eventually compromise it.

The undersigned hopes the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, will soon enable him to inform the executive directory of their determination. Whatever this determination may be, the undersigned flatters himself, that the explanation he has given will have placed the subject in its true light, and may eventually serve to remove, in the eyes of all impartial men, the unfavorable impression, which might be endeavored to be made respecting the intentions of the French republic and her government.

He concludes by renewing to the commissioners and envoys extraordinary, the assurance of his consideration.

(Signed) CH. MAU. TALLEYRAND.