relative to the vexations of American commerce committed by
the officers and cruisers of the belligerent powers. It was
made from materials collected in an inquiry which had been
instituted by the President before the meeting of congress.
In this report, after detailing the numerous complaints
which were made against Great Britain, the secretary
proceeded to notice those which were brought against other
nations. Against France, he said, it was urged that her
privateers harassed the American trade no less than those of
the British. That their courts of admiralty were guilty of
equal oppression. That they had violated the treaty between
the two nations. That a very detrimental embargo had
detained a number of American vessels in her ports, and that
the government had discharged a specie contract with
assignats. The effect of this report seems to have been to
excite a suspicion that the secretary of state was not
sufficiently attached to liberty and to France.]

On the fourth of April, before any decision was made on the several
propositions which have been stated, the President laid before
congress a letter just received from Mr. Pinckney, the minister of the
United States at London, communicating additional instructions to the
commanders of British armed ships, which were dated the eighth of
January. These instructions revoked those of the sixth of November;
and, instead of bringing in for adjudication all neutral vessels
trading with the French islands, British cruisers were directed to
bring in those only which were laden with cargoes the produce of the
French islands, and were on a direct voyage from those islands to
Europe.

The letter detailed a conversation with Lord Grenville on this
subject, in which his lordship explained the motives which had
originally occasioned the order of the sixth of November, and gave to
it a less extensive signification than it had received in the courts
of vice admiralty.

It was intended, he said, to be temporary, and was calculated to
answer two purposes. One was, to prevent the abuses which might take
place in consequence of the whole of the St. Domingo fleet having gone
to the United States; the other was, on account of the attack designed
upon the French West India islands by the armament under Sir John
Jarvis and Sir Charles Grey; but it was now no longer necessary to
continue the regulations