liam Vans Murray,
esq., our minister resident at The Hague, to be envoys extraordinary and
ministers plenipotentiary to the French Republic, with full powers to
discuss and settle by a treaty all controversies between the United
States and France.

It is not intended that the two former of these gentlemen shall embark
for Europe until they shall have received from the Executive Directory
assurances, signified by their secretary of foreign relations, that
they shall be received in character, that they shall enjoy all the
prerogatives attached to that character by the law of nations, and
that a minister or ministers of equal powers shall be appointed and
commissioned to treat with them.

JOHN ADAMS.

MARCH 2, 1799.

_Gentlemen of the Senate and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives_:

Judging it of importance to the public that the Legislature should be
informed of the gradual progress of their maritime resources, I transmit
to Congress a statement of the vessels, with their tonnage, warlike
force, and complement of men, to which commissions as private armed
vessels have been issued since the 9th day of July last.

JOHN ADAMS.

PROCLAMATIONS.

[From C. F. Adams's Works of John Adams, Vol. IX, p. 172.]

PROCLAMATION.

MARCH 6, 1799.

As no truth is more clearly taught in the Volume of Inspiration, nor any
more fully demonstrated by the experience of all ages, than that a deep
sense and a due acknowledgment of the governing providence of a Supreme
Being and of the accountableness of men to Him as the searcher of hearts
and righteous distributer of rewards and punishments are conducive
equally to the happiness and rectitude of individuals and to the
well-being of communities; as it is also most reasonable in itself that
men who are made capable of social acts and relations, who owe their
improvements to the social state, and who derive their enjoyments from
it, should, as a society, make their acknowledgments of dependence
and obligation to Him who hath endowed them with these capacities and
elevated them in the scale of existence by these distinctions; as it is
likewise a plain dictate of duty and a strong sentiment of nature that
in circumstances of great urgency and seasons of imminent danger earnest
and particular supplications should be made to Him who is able to defend
or to destroy; as, moreover, the most precious interests of the people
of the United States are still held in jeopardy by