of Commerce particular to this
point. The law therefore which they have here, to put all persons in
arrestation born in any of the Countries at war with France, is, when
applied to Citizens of America born in England, Ireland, Scotland,
Germany, or holland, a violation of the treaties of Alliance and of
Commerce, because it assumes to make a distinction of Citizens which
those Treaties and the Constitution of America know nothing of. This is
a subject that officially comes under your cognizance as Minister, and
it would be consistent that you expostulated with them upon the Case.
That foolish old man Vadier, who was president of the Convention and of
the Committee of Surety general when the Americans then in Paris went
to the Bar of the Convention to reclaim me, gave them for answer that
my being born in England was cause sufficient for imprisoning me. It
happened that at least half those who went up with that address were in
the same case with myself.

As to reclamations on the ground of Patriotism it is difficult to know
what is to be understood by Patriotism here. There is not a vice, and
scarcely a virtue, that has not as the fashion of the moment suited
been called by the name of Patriotism. The wretches who composed the
revolutionary tribunal of Nantz were the Patriots of that day and the
criminals of this. The Jacobins called themselves Patriots of the first
order, men up to the height of the circumstances, and they are now
considered as an antidote to Patriotism. But if we give to Patriotism a
fixed idea consistent with that of a Republic, it would signify a strict
adherence to the principles of Moral Justice, to the equality of civil
and political Rights, to the System of representative Government, and an
opposition to every hereditary claim to govern; and of this species
of Patriotism you know my character. But, Sir, there are men on the
Committee who have changed their Party but not their principles. Their
aim is to hold power as long as possible by preventing the establishment
of a Constitution, and these men are and will be my Enemies, and seek to
hold me in prison as long as they can. I am too good a Patriot for them.
It is not improbable that they have heard of the strange language held
by some Americans that I am not considered in America as an American
citizen, and they may also have heard say, that you had no orders
respecting me, and it is not improbable that they interpret that
language and that sil