oubt their
sincerity upon this matter. There is not a British Minister, a British
merchant, or a British agent or sailor in America, that does not
anxiously wish the same thing. The treaty with France serves now as
a passport to supply England with naval stores and other articles of
American produce, whilst the same articles, when coming to France, are
made contraband or seizable by Jay's treaty with England. The treaty
with France says, that neutral ships make neutral property, and thereby
gives protection to English property on board American ships; and Jay's
treaty delivers up French property on board American ships to be seized
by the English. It is too paltry to talk of faith, of national honour,
and of the preservation of treaties, whilst such a bare-faced treachery
as this stares the world in the face.

The Washington administration may save itself the trouble of proving to
the French government its _most faithful_ intentions of preserving
the treaty with France; for France has now no desire that it should be
preserved. She had nominated an Envoy extraordinary to America, to make
Mr. Washington and his government a present of the treaty, and to
have no more to do with _that_, or with _him_. It was at the same time
officially declared to the American Minister at Paris, _that the French
Republic had rather have the American government for an open enemy
than a treacherous friend_. This, sir, together with the internal
distractions caused in America, and the loss of character in the world,
is the _eventful crisis_, alluded to in the beginning of this letter, to
which your double politics have brought the affairs of your country. It
is time that the eyes of America be opened upon you.

How France would have conducted herself towards America and American
commerce, after all treaty stipulations had ceased, and under the sense
of services rendered and injuries received, I know not. It is, however,
an unpleasant reflection, that in all national quarrels, the innocent,
and even the friendly part of the community, become involved with the
culpable and the unfriendly; and as the accounts that arrived from
America continued to manifest an invariable attachment in the general
mass of the people to their original ally, in opposition to the
new-fangled Washington faction,--the resolutions that had been taken
in France were suspended. It happened also, fortunately enough, that
Gouverneur Morris was not Minister at this time.