_Proposed Draft of a Letter to Count de Vergennes._

"Sir,

"The question, whether we ought to exchange copies of our respective
commissions with Mr Oswald, and proceed to business with him under
his, is not only important and consequential in itself, but derives an
additional degree of weight from the variance subsisting between your
Excellency's sentiments and our own on that subject.

"The respect due to your Excellency's judgment, our confidence in the
friendship of our good and great ally, and the tenor of our
instructions from Congress, all conspire to urge us to lay before your
Excellency a full state of the facts and circumstances, which create
our objections to treating with Mr Oswald under the commission in
question.

"We flatter ourselves, that in the course of this discussion, some
light will be cast upon the subject, and it gives us pleasure to
reflect, that our objections will be reviewed by a Minister, possessed
of candor to acknowledge their force on the one hand, and talents to
detect and discover to us their fallacy on the other.

"It appears to us unnecessary to premise, that on the 4th day of July,
1776, the representatives of the then late Thirteen United Colonies,
in Congress assembled, did in the name and by the authority of the
good people of those Colonies, and for the reasons in that act
specified, 'solemnly publish and declare, that the said United
Colonies were and of right ought to be _free and independent States_,
that they were absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connexion between them and the State of Great
Britain was and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as _free and
independent States_, they had _full power_ to levy war, _conclude
peace_, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other
acts and things, which independent nations might of right do. And for
the support of that declaration, with a firm reliance on the
protection of Divine Providence, they did mutually pledge to each
other their lives, their fortunes, and their _sacred honor_.'

"This declaration was immediately ratified by legislative acts of the
different States, all of whom have ever since so uniformly abided by
it, that the authority of the King of Great Britain has never from
that day to this extended over more ground in that country, than was
from time to time under the feet of his armies.

"The United States also bound themselves to each ot