bted, I mean the acquisition of citizenship in
France, and I confess you have said much to show that it has not been
made. I really suspect that this was all that the gentleman who wrote
to you, and those Americans he heard speak upon the subject meant. It
becomes my duty, however, to declare to you, that I consider you as
an American citizen, and that you are considered universally in that
character by the people of America. As such you are entitled to my
attention; and so far as it can be given consistently with those
obligations which are mutual between every government and even a
transient passenger, you shall receive it.

"The Congress have never decided upon the subject of citizenship in
a manner to regard the present case. By being with us through the
revolution you are of our country as absolutely as if you had been born
there, and you are no more of England, than every native American is.
This is the true doctrine in the present case, so far as it becomes
complicated with any other consideration. I have mentioned it to make
you easy upon the only point which could give you any disquietude.

"Is it necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen, I
speak of the great mass of the people, are interested in your welfare?
They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the
difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its
several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain,
our national character. You are considered by them as not only having
rendered important service in our own revolution, but as being, on a
more extensive scale, the friend of human rights, and a distinguished
and able advocate in favour of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas
Paine, the Americans are not, nor can they be, indifferent.

"Of the sense which the President has always entertained of your merits,
and of his friendly disposition towards you, you are too well assured
to require any declaration of it from me. That I forward his wishes
in seeking your safety is what I well know, and this will form an
additional obligation on me to perform what I should otherwise consider
as a duty.

"You are, in my opinion, at present menaced by no kind of danger.
To liberate you, will be an object of my endeavours, and as soon as
possible. But