mencement, the Count de Vergennes received private
intelligence that it was contemplated in the cabinet of London to
offer to the United States an acknowledgment of their independence as
the condition of a separate peace. He immediately communicated this
intelligence to the American ministers, requesting them to lose no
time in stating to congress that, though war was not declared in form,
it had commenced in fact; and that he considered the obligations of
the treaty of alliance as in full force; consequently that neither
party was now at liberty to make a separate peace. Instructions of a
similar import were given to the minister of France in the United
States.

[Sidenote: Information received of treaties of alliance and commerce
being entered into between France and the United States.]

The despatches containing these treaties were received by the
president on Saturday the second of May, after congress had adjourned.
That body was immediately convened, the despatches were opened, and
their joyful contents communicated.

In the exultation of the moment, the treaty of alliance, as well as
that of commerce and friendship was published; a circumstance which,
not without reason, gave umbrage to the cabinet of Versailles; because
that treaty, being only eventual, ought not to have been communicated
to the public but by mutual consent.

From this event, which was the source of universal exultation to the
friends of the revolution, the attention must be directed to one which
was productive of very different sensations.

Among the various improvements which struggling humanity has gradually
engrafted on the belligerent code, none have contributed more to
diminish the calamities of war, than those which meliorate the
condition of prisoners. No obligations will be more respected by the
generous and the brave; nor are there any, the violation of which
could wound the national character more deeply, or expose it to more
lasting or better merited reproach.

In wars between nations nearly equal in power, and possessing rights
acknowledged to be equal, a departure from modern usage in this
respect is almost unknown; and the voice of the civilized world would
be raised against the potentate who could adopt a system calculated to
re-establish the rigours and misery of exploded barbarism. But in
contests between different parts of the same empire, those practices
which mitigate the horrors of war yield, too frequently, to the
ca