The New Hampshire Gazette

The Ministers Plenipotentiary and Envoys Extraordinary,
From the United States of America to the French Republic:
To the Minister of Exterior Relations.

(Concluded from our last.)

Your second allegation is "that the journals known to be indirectly under the control of the cabinet, have redoubled their invectives and calumnies against the Republic, its Magistrates and its Envoys; and that pamphleteers openly paid for by the Minister of Great-Britain have re-produced, under every form, those insults and calumnies without having ever drawn the attention of the government to a state of things scandalous, and which it might have repressed."

The genius of the Constitution and the opinions of the people of the United States cannot be overruled by those who administer the Government. Among those principles deemed sacred in America. Among those sacred rights considered as forming the bulwark of their liberty, which the government contemplates with awful reverence, and would approach only with the most cautious circumspection, there is no one of which the importance is more deeply impressed on the public mind than the liberty of the press. That this liberty is often carried to excess, that it has sometimes degenerated into licentiousness, is seen and lamented: but the remedy has not yet been discovered. Perhaps it is an evil inseparable from the good with which it is allied; perhaps it is a husk which cannot be stripped from the Stalk without wounding vitally the plant from which it is grown. However desirable those measures might be which might correct without enslaving the press; they have never yet been devised in America. No regulations exist which enable the government to suppress whatever calumnies or invectives any individual may choose to offer to the public eye; or to punish such calumnies and invectives otherwise than by a legal prosecution in courts which are alike open to all who consider themselves as injured. Without doubt this abuse of a valuable privilege is matter of peculiar regret when it is extended to the government of a foreign nation. The undersigned are persuaded, it never has been so extended with the approbation of the government of the U. States. Discussions respecting the conduct of foreign powers, especially on points respecting the rights and interests of America, are unavoidably made in a nation where public measures are the results of public opinion, and certainly do not furnish cause of reproach; but it is believed that calumny and invective have never been substituted for the manly reasoning of an enlightened and injured people, without giving pain to those who administer the affairs of the Union. Certainly this offence, if it be deemed by France of sufficient magnitude to be worthy of notice, has not been confined to this republic. It has been still more profusely lavished on its enemies and has even been bestowed with an unsparing hand on the Federal Government itself. Nothing can be more notorious than the calumnies and invective with which the wisest measures and the most virtuous characters of the U. States have been pursued and traduced. It is a calamity incident to the nature of liberty, and which can produce no serious evil to France. It is a calamity occasioned neither by the direct or indirect influence of the American Government. In fact, that government is believed to exercise no influence over any press. You must be sensible, citizen minister, with how much truth the same complaint might be urged on the part of the United States. You must know well what degrading and unworthy calumnies against their government, its principles and its officers, have been published to the world, by French journalists, and in French pamphlets. That government has even been charged with betraying the best interests of the Nation, with having put itself under the guidance of, nay more, with having sold itself to a foreign court. But these calumnies, atrocious as they are, have never constituted a subject of complaint against France. Had not other causes infinitely more serious and weighty, interrupted the harmony of the two Republics, it would still have remained unimpaired, and the mission of the undersigned would never have been rendered necessary.

3dly, You complain of the speech of the President made to Congress in May last. It denounces, you say, the Executive Directory, as seeking to propagate anarchy and division in the United States. The Constitution of the United States imposes on the President this important duty. "He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union." It having been deemed proper to recall the Minister from the United States to this Republic, and to replace him by a citizen; the objects of whose mission, as expressed in his letters of credence, were "to maintain that good understanding which from the commencement of the alliance had subsisted between the two nations; and to efface unfavorable impressions, banish suspicion and to restore that cordiality which was at once the evidence and pledge of a friendly union," the President of the Directory addressed the recalled Minister in the following terms.

"In presenting to-day to the Executive Directory your letters of recall, you give to Europe a strange spectacle. France rich in her liberty, surrounded with the train of her victories. Strong in the esteem of her allies, will not abase herself by calculating the consequences of the condescensions of the American government to the suggestions of its ancient tyrants. The French Republic hopes moreover, that the successors of Columbus, Raleigh and Penn, always proud of their liberty, will never forget that they owe it to France. They will weigh in their wisdom the magnanimous good will of the French people with the crafty caresses of certain perfidious persons who meditate to bring them back to their ancient slavery. Assure, Mr. Minister, the good American people, that like them we adore liberty, that they will always have our esteem, and that they will find in the French people, that Republican generosity which knows as well how to grant peace as to cause its sovereignty to be respected."

The change of a minister is an ordinary act for which no government is accountable to another, and which has not heretofore been "a strange spectacle" in France or in any other part of Europe. It appears to be a measure not of itself calculated to draw on the government making such change the strictures or the resentments of the nation to which the Minister is deputed. Such an effect produced by so inadequate a cause could not fail to command attention, while it excited surprise.

This official speech addressed by the government of France, to that of the United States, through its minister, charges that government with condescensions to the suggestions of the ancient tyrants of his country, speaks of the crafty caresses of certain perfidious persons who meditate to bring back the successors of Columbus, Raleigh and Penn to their ancient slavery, and desires the Minister to assure, not his government, but the good people of America, that they will always have the esteem of France and that they will find in the French people, that republican generosity which knows as well how to grant peace as to cause its sovereignty to be respected.

That a Minister should carry any assurances from a foreign government to the people of his nation, is as remarkable as the difference between the manner in which his government and his people are addressed. His government is charged with condescensions to the suggestions of the ancient tyrants of his country, but the people are considered as loving liberty, and they are to be assured of the perpetual esteem of France. This esteem they are to weigh against the crafty caresses of those perfidious persons who meditate to bring them back to their former slavery.

When this Speech thus addressed directly to the government and people of the United States, in the face of Europe and the world, came to be considered in connexion with other measures, when it came to be considered in connexion with the wide spreading devastation to which their commerce was subjected, with the cruel severities practiced on their seamen, with the recall of the Minister of France from the United States, and the very extraordinary manner in which that recall was signified by him both to the government and people, with the refusal even to hear the messenger of peace, deputed from the United States for the sole purpose of conciliation-it could not fail to make on the American mind a deep and a serious impression. It was considered as a fact too important to be held from the Congress by the department of the government which is charged with the duties of maintaining its intercourse with foreign nations, and of making communications to the legislature of the Union. The President therefore did communicate it in the following words+ "with this conduct of the French Government it will be proper to take into view the public audience given to the late minister of the United States on his taking leave of the Executive Directory. The Speech of the President discloses sentiments more alarming than the refusal of a minister, because more dangerous to our independence and union, and at the same time studiously marked with indignities towards the government of the United States. It evinces a disposition to separate the people of the United States from the government : to persuade them that they have different affections, principles and interests from those of their fellow citizens whom they themselves have chosen to manage their common concerns, and thus to produce divisions fatal to our peace. Such attempts ought to be repelled with a decision which shall convince France and the world that we are not a degraded people, humiliated under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority-fitted to be the miserable instruments of foreign influence, and regardless of national honor, character and interest. "I should have been happy to have thrown a veil over these transactions, if it had been possible to conceal them : but they have passed on the great theatre of the world, in the face of all Europe and America, and with such circumstances of publicity and solemnity that they cannot be disguised, and will not soon be forgotten--they have inflicted a wound in the American breast. It is my sincere desire however, that it may be healed."

It is hoped this communication will be viewed in its true light, that it will no longer be considered as a denunciation of the Executive Directory, but as the statement of an all important fact by one department of the American government to another, the making of which was enjoined by duties of the highest obligation.

The undersigned have now, Citizen Minister, passed through the complaints you urge against the government of the United States. They have endeavored to consider those complaints impartially, and to weigh them in the scales of justice and of truth.-- If any of them be well founded, France herself could not demand more readily than America would make reparation for the injury sustained. The President of the U. States has said--"If we have committed errors, and those can be demonstrated, we shall be willing to correct them; if we have done injuries, we shall be willing on conviction to redress them." These dispositions on the part of the government have been felt in all their force by the undersigned, and have constantly regulated their conduct.

The undersigned will not resume, Citizen Minister, the painful task of re-urging the multiplied injuries which have been accumulated on their country, and which have been in some degree detailed in their memorial of the 17th January last. They cannot however, decline to remonstrate against a measure which has been announced since that date. The Legislative Councils of the French Republic have decreed that. The condition of ships in every thing which concerns their character as neutrals or enemies, shall be determined by their cargo, consequently every vessel found at sea, laden in whole or in part with merchandise coming out of England or its possessions, shall be declared good prize, whoever may be the proprietors of such commodities or merchandise. No foreign vessel, which in the course of its voyage shall have entered into an English port, shall be admitted into any port of the French Republic, but in the case of necessity, in which case the vessel shall be obliged to depart from such port as soon as the cause of entry shall have ceased.

This decree too deeply affects the interests of the United States to remain unattended to by their ministers. They pray you therefore, Citizen Minister, to receive their respectful representations concerning it. The object of the decree is to cut off all direct intercourse between neutrals and Great-Britain or its possessions, and to prevent the acquisition, even by circuitous commerce, of those articles which come from England or its dominions.

The right of one nation to exchange with another the surplus produce of its labour, for those articles which may supply its wants or administer to its comfort, is too essential to have been ever classed among those admitted to be in any degree doubtful. It is a right in ceding which a nation would cede the privilege of regulating its own interests and providing for its own welfare. When any two nations shall choose to make a war on each other they have never been considered, nor can they be considered as thereby authorizing themselves to impair the essential rights of those who may choose to remain at peace. Consequently these rights the free exercise of which is essential to its interests and welfare, must be retained by a neutral power, whatever nations may be involved in a war.

The right of a belligerent to restrain a neutral from assisting her enemy by supplying him with those articles which are defined as contraband, has been universally submitted to ; but to cut off all intercourse between neutrals and an enemy, to declare that any single article which may have come from the possessions of an enemy, whoever may be its owner, shall of itself be sufficient to condemn both vessel and cargo, is to exercise a control over the conduct of neutrals which war can never give, and which is alike incompatible with their dignity and their welfare.

The rights of belligerents are the same. If this might be exercised by one so might it be exercised by every other. If it might be exercised in the present, so it might be exercised in every future war. This decree is therefore on the part of France, the practical assertion of a principle which would destroy all direct or circuitous Commerce between belligerent and neutral powers, which would often interrupt the business of a large portion of the world, and withdraw or change the employment of a very considerable portion of the human race.

This is not all. It is the exercise of a power which war is not admitted to give, and which therefore may be assumed in peace as well as war. It materially affects the internal economy of nations, deranges that course of industry which they have a right to pursue and on which their prosperity depends. To acquiesce therefore, in the existing state of things, under a principle so extensive and so pernicious, is to establish a precedent for national degradation which can never cease to apply, -and which will authorize any measures which power may be disposed to practice.

France therefore will perceive that neutral governments, whatever may be their dispositions towards this republic, are impelled by duties of the highest obligation, to remonstrate against a decree which at the same time invades their interests and their independence, which takes from them the profits of an honest and lawful industry, as well as the inestimable privilege of conducting their own affairs as their own judgment may direct.

It is hoped that the remonstrances of the U. States on this subject will derive additional force from their subsisting engagements with France, and from a situation peculiar to themselves.

The twenty-third article of the treaty of amity and commerce of the 6th of Feb. '78, is in these words :-"It shall be lawful for all and singular the subjects of the most christian king, and the citizens, people and inhabitants of the U. States, to sail with their ships with all manner of liberty and security, no distinction being made who are the proprietors of the merchandise laden thereon, from any port to the places of those who now are, or hereafter shall be at enmity with the most christian king or the U. States. It shall likewise be lawful for the subjects and inhabitants aforesaid, to sail with the ships and merchandizes aforementioned, and to trade with the same liberty and security from the places, ports and havens of those who are enemies of both or either party, without any opposition or disturbance whatsoever, not only directly from the places of the enemy before mentioned to neutral places, but also from one place belonging to an enemy to another place belonging to an enemy,whether they be under the jurisdiction of the same prince or under several. And it is hereby stipulated, that free ships shall also give a freedom to goods, and that every thing shall be deemed to be free and exempt which shall be found on board the ships belonging to the subjects of either of the confederates, although the whole lading or any part thereof should appertain to the enemies of either ; contraband goods being always excepted. It is also agreed in like manner that the same liberty be extended to persons who are on board a free ship, with this effect, that although they be enemies to both or either party, they are not to be taken out of that free ship unless they are soldiers, and in actual service of the enemy."

The two nations contemplating and providing for the case when one may be at war, and the other at peace, solemnly stipulate and pledge themselves to each other, that in such an event the subjects or the citizens of the party at peace may freely trade with the enemy of the other, may freely sail with their ships in all manner of security, to and from any port or place belonging to such enemy.-Not only goods coming from the hostile territory, but the very goods of the enemy himself may be carried with safety in the vessels of either of the contracting parties.

You will perceive Citizen Minister, without requiring the undersigned to execute the painful task of drawing the contrast, how openly and entirely the decree of the councils opposes itself to the treaty between France and the United States.

In addition to the hitherto unceded right of a sovereign and independent nation, in addition to the right stipulated by compact the undersigned will respectfully submit other considerations growing out of the peculiar situation of the United States, manifesting the particular hardships the decree complained of must impose on them.

In possession of a rich, extensive and unsettled country, the labor of the United States is not yet sufficient for the full cultivation of its soil, and consequently but a very small portion of it can have been applied to manufactures. Articles of the first necessity and comfort are imported in exchange for provisions, and for those raw materials which are the growth of the country, and which its inhabitants are accustomed to raise.

It is at any time extremely difficult, nor is it practicable without great loss, to change suddenly the habits of a whole people and that course of industry in which their population and their real interests have engaged them. An agricultural cannot suddenly and at will, become a manufacturing people ? the United States cannot instantaneously, on the mere passing of a decree, transfer to the manufacture of articles, heretofore imported, such a portion of their labour as will at the same time furnish a market for the surplus commodities and a supply for the wants of the cultivator of the soil.

It is therefore scarcely possible for them to surrender their foreign commerce. Independent of the right they possess in common with others to search for and choose the best markets, it is believed that the supplies they need could with difficulty, in the actual state of the world, be completely furnished without the aid of England and its possessions. It is not pretended that France manufactures, at present for foreign consumption, nor do the undersigned suppose that there exists a market where the citizens of the United States can obtain in exchange the articles they need and are accustomed to consume if those coming out of England and its possessions be entirely excluded. A variety of other considerations, and especially the difficulties individuals must encounter, in suddenly breaking old and forming new connections, in forcing all their commerce into channels not yet well explored, in trading without a sufficient capital to countries . where they have no credit, combine to render almost impossible an immediate dissolution of commercial intercourse between the United States and G. Britain.

If then the decree complained of shall be executed on American vessels, it can only increase grievances already but too considerable, and transfer the carriage of English manufactures, for American consumption, from their own to British bottoms, sailing under the protection of a convoy. Instead of wounding England, it will probably aggrandize its marine, by sacrificing the remnant of that of the United States, and by destroying that system of policy, by which they have heretofore sought to give, their own vessels that portion of their own carrying trade which would otherwise be enjoyed by British merchants.

You have made some general animadversions on the government of the United States, which the undersigned feel themselves bound briefly to notice.

You have charged that government with giving instructions not in the sincere intention of arriving at pacific results, and yet the undersigned have offered to change those clauses in the treaty of 1778, which have become inconvenient to France, and to repair any injuries which may have been committed.

You have charged that government with omitting nothing to prolong and augment the misunderstanding between the two Republics but does not the fact that the undersigned are now in Paris, furnish persuasive evidence to the contrary?

You have charged it with searching to justify, by deceitful appearances, the prejudices with which it surrounds at pleasure the name of the Republic, and the system of exasperation and separation pursued in this respect with the strongest obstinacy: But has not this Republic, in terms the most cordial, been again and again entreated to enter into a candid investigation of the mutual complaints of the two nations ?-. Have not these entreaties been unnoticed, whilst the Ministers deputed to make them, have remained un-accredited ?

You have charged it with wishing to seize the first favourable occasion for consummating an intimate union with a power towards which a devotion and a partiality are professed which have long constituted the principle of the conduct of the Federal government, whilst no devotion or partiality has been expressed for any nation except France, have not the United States made, and are they not still making the most extraordinary efforts to restore the broken relations between the two Republics ?

In a letter discussing the important interests of two Great Nations, the undersigned are unwilling to introduce what relates personally to themselves.

This unwished for task has been rendered a duty by ascribing to them opinions and relations which exist in imagination only, and by adducing those supposed opinions and relations as proofs of an indisposition, on the part of the government which has deputed them, towards that accommodation which has been sought so unremittingly thro' all those difficulties and impediments with which the pursuit has been embarrassed.

You are pleased to add, that these intentions are so little disguised, "that nothing seems to have been neglected at Philadelphia to manifest them to every eye.-It is probably with this view, that it has been judged proper to send to the French Republic, persons whose opinions and relations are too well known to hope from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory."

The opinions and relations of the undersigned are purely American, unmixed with any particle of foreign tint. If they possess a quality on which they pride themselves, it is attachment to the happiness and the welfare of their country ; if they could at will select the means of manifesting that attachment, it would be by effecting a sincere and real accommodation between France and the United States, on principles promoting the interests of both, and consistent with the independence of the latter.

It requires no assurance to convince, that every real American must wish sincerely to extricate his country from the ills it suffers, and from the greater ills with which it is threatened, but all who love Liberty must admit that it does not exist in a Nation which cannot exercise the right of maintaining its neutrality. If "opinions and relations" such as these are incompatible with "dispositions sincerely conciliatory," then indeed has the federal government chosen unfit instruments for the expression of its pacific disposition.

You contrast the conduct observed by the U. States, under analogous circumstances, towards the Cabinet of St. James, with that which is observed towards this Republic. You say that on that occasion there was a solicitude to Send to London, Ministers well known to possess sentiments conformable to the objects of their mission : That the Republic has a right to count upon a similar difference : and that if a like attention has not been observed with respect to it. it is too probable that it must be attributed to the views already indicated.

If unfortunately the cases shall exhibit a contrast, it is not to be found in the characters the U. S. have thought proper to employ or in the conduct of their government, otherwise than by the superior attention manifested towards this Republic, and never shewn to any other nation in deputing to it, with ample powers, three Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary from the three great divisions of the United States.

The Ministers sent to the Cabinet of St. James's greatly deserved the confidence of their country : but they did not possess sentiments more conformable to the objects of their mission than those deputed to this republic. They did not wish more ardently to effect reconciliation ; nor is it believed that any persons who could have been deputed to that cabinet would have submitted to greater sacrifices in order to obtain it.

Had their application for compensation for past injuries, and security against their future commission, been only met by requisitions, a compliance with which would involve their nation in ills of which war perhaps might not be the most considerable ; had all attempts to remove unfavorable impressions failed ; and all efforts to make explanations been rejected, can it be believed that other Ministers would have been more successful?
Ministers (the first having been ordered out of the nation) would have waited 6 months unaccredited, soliciting permission to display the upright principles on which their government had acted, and the amicable sentiments by which it was animated?

The undersigned are induced, Citizen Minister, to pray your attention to these plain truths, from a conviction that they manifest unequivocally the friendly temper of the federal government, and the extreme reluctance with which the hope of an accommodation with France would be relinquished.

The undersigned observe with infinite regret, that the disposition manifested to treat with the Minister who might be elected by this government, is not accompanied with any assurances of receding from those demands of money heretofore made the considerations on which alone a cessation of hostility on American commerce could be obtained. To which the undersigned have not the power to accede, with which the U. States would find it extremely difficult to comply, and a compliance with which would violate that faith pledged for the observance of neutrality, and would involve them in a disastrous war with which they have no concern. Nor do your answer to the applications which have been made for compensation to the citizens of the U. States for property which shall be proved to have been taken contrary to the law of nations and existing treaties, otherwise, than that you are willing to discuss cases where there has been a departure from certain principles, which principles in fact, involve almost every case.

You have signified, Citizen Minister, that the Executive Directory is disposed to treat with one of the Envoys, and you hope that this overture will not be attended on the part of the undersigned with any serious difficulty. Every proposition of the Executive Directory is considered with the most minute and respectful attention.

The result of a deliberation on this point is, that no one of the undersigned is authorized to take upon himself a negotiation evidently entrusted by the tenor of their powers and instructions to the whole: nor are there any two of them who can propose to withdraw themselves from the task committed to them by their government whilst there remains a possibility of performing it.

It is hoped that the prejudices said to have been conceived against the Ministers of the U. States, will be dissipated by the truths they have stated.

If in this hope they shall be disappointed, and it should be the will of the Directory to order passports for the whole or any number of them, you will please to accompany such passports with letters of safe conduct, which will entirely protect from the cruisers of France, the vessels in which they may respectively sail, and give to their persons, suite and property, that perfect security to which the laws and usages of nations entitle them.

They pray you, Citizen Minister, to receive the renewal of their assurances of profound respect and consideration.

(Signed) Charles C. Pinckney,
JOHN MARSHALL,
Elbridge Gerry.

A true copy,
Henry M. Rutledge,
Secretary.