. I have the honor
now, to return you the letter you had been so good as to enclose to me.
About the same time of Liston's conversation with you, similar ones were
held with me by Mr. Eden. He particularly questioned me on the effect
of our treaty with France, in the case of a war, and what might be our
dispositions. I told him without hesitation, that our treaty obliged
us to receive the armed vessels of France, with their prizes, into our
ports, and to refuse the admission of prizes made on her by her enemies;
that there was a clause by which we guarantied to France her American
possessions, and which might, perhaps, force us into the war, if these
were attacked. 'Then it will be war,' said he, 'for they will assuredly
be attacked.' I added, that our dispositions would be to be neutral, and
that I thought it the interest of both those powers that we should be
so, because it would relieve both from all anxiety as to the feeding
their West India islands, and England would, moreover, avoid a heavy
land war on our continent, which would cripple all her proceedings
elsewhere. He expected these sentiments from me personally, and he knew
them to be analogous to those of our country. We had often before had
occasions of knowing each other: his peculiar bitterness towards us
had sufficiently appeared, and I had never concealed from him, that I
considered the British as our natural enemies, and as the only nation
on earth, who wished us ill from the bottom of their souls. And I am
satisfied, that were our continent to be swallowed up by the ocean,
Great Britain would be in a bonfire from one end to the other. Mr.
Adams, as you know, has asked his recall. This has been granted, and
Colonel Smith is to return too; Congress having determined to put an end
to their commission at that court. I suspect and hope they will make no
new appointment.

Our new constitution is powerfully attacked in the American newspapers.
The objections are, that its effect would be to form the thirteen States
into one; that, proposing to melt all down into one general government,
they have fenced the people by no declaration of rights; they have not
renounced the power of keeping a standing army; they have not secured
the liberty of the press; they have reserved the power of abolishing
trials by jury in civil cases; they have proposed that the laws of the
federal legislatures shall be paramount the laws and constitutions of
the States; they have abandone