swer to all those who
affect to say or to believe that I am French Citizen. A Citizen without
Citizenship is a term non-descript.

After the two preceeding paragraphs you ask--"If it be my wish that you
should embark in this controversy (meaning that of reclaiming me)
and risque the consequences with respect to myself and the good
understanding subsisting between the two countries, or, without
relinquishing any point of right, and which might be insisted on in
case of extremities, pursue according to your best judgment and with the
light before you, the object of my liberation?"

As I believe from the apparent obstinacy of the Committees that
circumstances will grow towards the extremity you mention, unless
prevented beforehand, I will endeavour to throw into your hands all the
lights I can upon the subject.

In the first place, reclamation may mean two distinct things. All the
reclamations that are made by the sections in behalf of persons detained
as _suspect_ are made on the ground that the persons so detained are
patriots, and the reclamation is good against the charge of "suspect"
because it proves the contrary. But my situation includes another
circumstance. I am imprisoned on the charge (if it can be called one)
of being a foreigner born in England. You know that foreigner to be a
citizen of the United States of America, and that he has been such since
the 4th of July 1776, the political birthday of the United States,
and of every American citizen, for before that period all were British
subjects, and the States, then provinces, were British dominions.--Your
reclamation of me therefore as a citizen of the United States (all other
considerations apart) is good against the pretence for imprisoning me,
or that pretence is equally good against every American citizen born
in England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, or Holland, and you know this
description of men compose a very great part of the population of the
three States of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and make also a
part of Congress, and of the State Legislatures.

Every politician ought to know, and every civilian does know, that the
Law of Treaty of Alliance, and also that of Amity and Commerce knows no
distinction of American Citizens on account of the place of their birth,
but recognizes all to be Citizens whom the Constitution and laws of the
United States of America recognize as such; and if I recollect rightly
there is an article in the Treaty