they could not enter. The payment of money here, to
be employed by their own agents in purchasing the produce of our soil,
is a desirable thing. We are informed by the public papers, that the
late constitution of France, formally notified to us, is suspended, and
a new convention called. During the time of this suspension, and while
no legitimate government exists, we apprehend we cannot continue the
payments of our debt to France, because there is no person authorized
to receive it and to give us an unobjectionable acquittal. You are
therefore desired to consider the payment as suspended, until further
orders. Should circumstances oblige you to mention this (which it is
better to avoid if you can), do it with such solid reasons as will occur
to yourself, and accompany it with the most friendly declarations
that the suspension does not proceed from any wish in us to delay the
payment, the contrary being our wish, nor from any desire to embarrass
or oppose the settlement of their government in that way in which their
nation shall desire it; but from our anxiety to pay this debt justly and
honorably, and to the persons really authorized by the nation (to whom
we owe it) to receive it for their use. Nor shall the suspension
be continued one moment after we can see our way clear out of the
difficulty into which their situation has thrown us. That they may
speedily obtain liberty, peace, and tranquillity, is our sincere prayer.

*****

I have the honor to be, with great respect and esteem, Dear Sir, your
most obedient and most humble servant,

Th: Jefferson.

LETTER CXXII.--TO M. DE TERNANT, October 16,1792

TO M. DE TERNANT.

Philadelphia, October 16,1792.

Sir,

I am to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 9th instant,
proposing a stipulation for the abolition of the practice of
privateering in times of war. The benevolence of this proposition is
worthy of the nation from which it comes, and our sentiments on it have
been declared in the treaty to which you are pleased to refer, as well
as in some others which have been proposed. There are in those treaties
some other principles which would probably meet the approbation of your
government, as flowing from the same desire to lessen the occasions and
the calamities of war. On all of these, as well as on those amendments
to our treaty of commerce which might better its conditions with both
nations, and which the National Assembly of France has likew