minions.--Your
reclamation of me therefore as a citizen of the United States (all other
considerations apart) is good against the pretence for imprisoning me,
or that pretence is equally good against every American citizen born
in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or Holland, and you know this
description of men compose a very great part of the population of the
three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and make also a
part of Congress, and of the State Legislatures.

Every politician ought to know, and every civilian does know, that the
Law of Treaty of Alliance, and also that of Amity and Commerce knows no
distinction of American Citizens on account of the place of their birth,
but recognizes all to be Citizens whom the Constitution and laws of the
United States of America recognize as such; and if I recollect rightly
there is an article in the Treaty of Commerce particular to this
point. The law therefore which they have here, to put all persons in
arrestation born in any of the Countries at war with France, is, when
applied to Citizens of America born in England, Ireland, Scotland,
Germany, or holland, a violation of the treaties of Alliance and of
Commerce, because it assumes to make a distinction of Citizens which
those Treaties and the Constitution of America know nothing of. This is
a subject that officially comes under your cognizance as Minister, and
it would be consistent that you expostulated with them upon the Case.
That foolish old man Vadier, who was president of the Convention and of
the Committee of Surety general when the Americans then in Paris went
to the Bar of the Convention to reclaim me, gave them for answer that
my being born in England was cause sufficient for imprisoning me. It
happened that at least half those who went up with that address were in
the same case with myself.

As to reclamations on the ground of Patriotism it is difficult to know
what is to be understood by Patriotism here. There is not a vice, and
scarcely a virtue, that has not as the fashion of the moment suited
been called by the name of Patriotism. The wretches who composed the
revolutionary tribunal of Nantz were the Patriots of that day and the
criminals of this. The Jacobins called themselves Patriots of the first
order, men up to the height of the circumstances, and they are now
considered as an antidote to Patriotism. But if we give to Patriotism a
fixed idea consistent with that of a Republic, it wo