Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

Latest Foreign Intelligence.

FROM A LONDON PRINT OF JUNE 16.

Received by the Jane of New-York.

FRANCE AND AMERICA.

A French paper. The Bien Informe, of the 9th of June, contained a detailed account of the steps which the French minister of foreign affairs has taken to justify himself from the imputations which the publication of the documents relative to the American negotiation at Paris had thrown upon him. This complicated account-consists of a correspondence between Talleyrand Perigord and Mr. Gerry, on the subject of the publication, and the mystical characters alluded-to therein, under the titles of W X Y and Z. This correspondence is preceded by a laboured defence of the conduct of the French government with respect to America, and an endeavour to refute the charges which the American documents contain.

It is impossible for us at present to go further into this voluminous article, than to extract two or three passages from it, by which it will appear that the main object of the French minister of foreign affairs is, to shake from his own shoulders the disgrace of having been privy to any propositions of a corrupt nature. How he has succeeded in this, our readers will judge from the following extract :-

" Such is the situation of the man, who- ever he may be. who is placed at the head of this department, that he is obliged to receive and to listen to a number of persons who are far from enjoying any share of his confidence, without his having any means of preventing the abuse they make of these un- meaning and insignificant visits, of which they avail themselves with heedless inexperience, in order to promote their own interested views.

" In the publication which the American government has given of the account of its commissioners, the names of unacknowledged- persons are designated by an initial letter. The minister impatient to discover their names, peremptorily required they should be given up to him, and at length succeeded in obtaining the desired communication, which he immediately deposited in proper hands. It will be learned with pleasure that they are foreigners, and it will be easily be- lieved that they have been forward in doing justice to themselves by hastening to quit the territories of the republic. Only one of these letters designates a Frenchman, who was not backward in declaring himself. The language used by him is irreproachable : he is announced as having sometimes acted as an interpreter, but it is evident that he interpreted none but honourable propositions.

" But as to the foreigners, who make a figure in this negotiation, it appears · that the whole object of their intrigues was to obtain from the Americans a sum of twelve hundred thousand livres in order to be distributed for purposes of corruption. From hence arise, and here terminate all the bustle, all the insinuations, all the reports, o minutely detailed in the account of the A- merican commissioners."

Citizen Talleyrand having surmounted, as he thinks, one of his greatest difficulties, proceeds to, compliment in most fulsome terms, Mr. Gerry, who, he says, was not imposed upon by these intriguers—and for this clear reason, it was artfully managed that no corrupt propositions should be advanced in his hearing; by this manoeuvre one part of the American embassy was playing off against the other in such a way as to keep the different members of it at variance as to the apparent conduct of the French minister, and even at a loss in respect to their own ultimate object in the negotiation.

It is evident, however, that citizen Talleyrand was not prepared for such a statement as the American commissioners have laid open to the world by the following passage, which precedes his declamatory conclusion.

" The whole of these facts offers such a tissue of incongruities and contradictions, that the mind is bewildered in them. One is at a loss how to state with precision the reproaches that ought to be made to the American commissioners.

But it may be clearly seen and understood, that they have been most strangely deceived, if they have believed, and that they are the more perfidious if they have not be- lieved, what they have related. In the expression of these reproaches which are torn from indignation, we must not ludicrously ex- clude Mr. Gerry who, doubtless, may have been deceived both by the foreign intriguers, and perhaps even by his own colleagues ; or in him no suspicion of bad faith or insincerity can attach."

All this flattery of Mr. Gerry is easily accounted for : he was not so alive to the insults offered his country, as his associates. He can see a very smooth road of negotiation yet open between the two republics !—

But to come to the curious conclusion of the French minister's defence :

" There were doubtless great objects in view which made them (the French and A. merican ministers) hazard holding out, as discoveries of the highest importance, the incoherent tales. of two foreign intriguers connected with France. Perhaps they supposed that the citizens of the United States of America would form an idea of the French government from these caricatures, and that the French government would be irritated by so pointed a provocation.--They calculated the effect of the insult from the malignity of the intention, and not from the littleness of the means. In a word, they flattered themselves with exciting indignation instead of pity. They wished for war; they wished that France, insulted, should declare war against the people whose cause he had defended, and that the people should through their own efforts, be replaced un- der the dominion of England.

" By means of that war the British cabi-
net would gain an ally who would labor for its interest -who would second its projects against the French and Spanish colonies and retard the moment of its humiliation By means also of that war the British cabinet accelerates the execution if a plan of which it had never lost sight.

" It is well known that as soon as it despaired of re-uniting to the triple crown the States whose independence it was compelled to acknowledge, it at least endeavoured to revive in their minds prejudices favourable to limited monarchy; that they endeavoured to fortify by the analogy of constitutional forms, the habitudes that were common to the English and American people. and that they took to keep for a length of time in the vicinity of the United States, one of the sons o George III. Can it then be conceived to be true that, to the degradation of the human mind, there shall be found a number of American citizens seriously inclined to the English form of gov- ernment ? Can it be true that men, called by the public confidence to the head of the government of the United States, should have written in favour of the British con- stitution, merely in order to prepare the adoption of it in their own country ? Can it be true that a thirst for honours, that a greediness for wealth. that a desire of con- tinuing in power should have already matured this conspiracy against the cause of free- dom ?

It were henceforward superfluous to dissemble--Such are the criminal attempts of the English cabinet-such is the blind in- clination of a government which it influences.

The correspondence which M. Talleyrand attaches as a kind of evidence to character, and which we do not think fair to abridge, is as follows :

Here follows in the London print, the correspondence between Mr. Gerry and Mr. Talleyrand, which we re·published on Thursday.]