ot be blind to the obvious truth that the road to those
blessings had been mistaken. It was expected by his enemies that the
correspondence which was asked for would disclose something which
might be deemed offensive to the rulers of the republic, and
consequently furnish additional matter for charging the administration
with unfriendliness to France.

The resolution requesting all the correspondence, not even excluding
that which the president might think proper to withhold, involved
considerations of some delicacy, respecting which it was proper that
the rights of the executive should be precisely understood. It was,
therefore, laid before the cabinet, and, in conformity with their
advice, the President sent a message to the senate informing them that
he had examined the correspondence they requested, and had caused it
to be copied, except in those particulars which in his judgment, for
public considerations, ought not to be communicated; which copies he
transmitted to them. The nature of these papers, he added, manifested
the propriety of their being received as confidential.

* * * * *

NOTE--No. IX. _See Page 164._

This opinion derived fresh confirmation from a notification
transmitted in August, 1794, by the governor of Upper Canada to
Captain Williamson, who was establishing a settlement on the Great
Sodus, a bay of lake Ontario, about twenty miles from Oswego, and
within the state of New York. Captain Williamson not being at the
place, Lieutenant Sheaff, the bearer of the message, addressed a
letter to him, in which he said, that he had come with instructions
from the lieutenant governor of Upper Canada to demand by what
authority an establishment had been ordered at that place, and to
require that such a design be immediately relinquished for the reasons
stated in the written declaration accompanying the letter.

The written declaration was in these words:

"I am commanded to declare that, during the inexecution of the treaty
of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and until the
existing differences respecting it shall be mutually and finally
adjusted, the taking possession of any part of the Indian territory,
either for the purposes of war or sovereignty, is held to be a direct
violation of his Britannic majesty's rights, as they unquestionably
existed before the treaty, and has an immediate tendency to interrupt,
and in its progress to destroy that good und