FRANCIS DANA.

* * * * *

_Mr Dana's Communication of his Mission to Count Ostermann._

St Petersburg, March 7th, 1783.

Sir,

I have the honor to inform your Excellency, that the United States of
America, assembled in Congress, having thought fit to appoint a
Minister to reside near her Majesty, the Empress of all the Russias,
have furnished me with their letter of credence for that purpose.

Convinced of the justice of their cause, and confiding entirely in
that exact neutrality, which her Imperial Majesty had been pleased to
declare, with a dignity becoming her character, she would make the
invariable rule of her conduct, unless compelled to depart from it in
maintenance of the rights of her Imperial Crown and of her subjects,
the Congress, my Sovereign, have expressly commanded me to delay the
communication of my mission till the course of events should prepare
the way for it, without the least infraction upon the system adopted
by her Imperial Majesty, by which she has acquired so much glory to
herself. In the sentiment that that moment has now arrived, I take the
liberty to request the honor of an audience of your Excellency, to the
end, that I might present to you a copy of my letter of credence to
her Imperial Majesty.

I have the honor to be, &c.

FRANCIS DANA.

* * * * *

TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.

St Petersburg, March 7th, 1783.

Sir,

I have time only, by the post of this day, to acknowledge the receipt
of yours of the 7th of November last, and of a letter of the same date
from Mr S. R. Morris, one of your Secretaries, enclosing a bill for
666,13 livres tournois, and also to inform you, that I have this day
communicated my mission to the Vice Chancellor, Count Ostermann, by a
letter of which the enclosed is a translation, the original being in
French. I have taken this step without being advised to it by my
correspondent, the Marquis de Verac, but not before I had received
assurances directly from the private Cabinet of her Imperial Majesty,
that the way was perfectly clear. You will readily conjecture the
reason why I have chosen to mention my last instructions so
particularly in this communication, and placed them in so strong a
light.