s the most
important that can claim their attention.

Congress have hitherto, in all their acts, both of a public and
private nature, manifested the utmost confidence in the Court of
France. In answer to every communication, they have reiterated their
resolutions on that subject, and so lately as the 4th of October last,
resolved unanimously, "That they will not enter into the discussion of
any overtures of pacification but in _confidence_ and in _concert_
with his Most Christian Majesty;" and directed that a copy of the
above resolution should not only be furnished to the Minister of
France, but be sent to all the Ministers of the United States in
Europe, and published to the world. Yet, Sir, it has unfortunately so
happened, that the Ministers of these States have imagined they had
sufficient grounds to suspect the sincerity of the Court of France,
and have not only thought it prudent to agree upon and sign
preliminaries with Great Britain, without communicating them, till
after the signature, to the Ministers of his Most Christian Majesty,
but have permitted a separate article to be inserted in their treaty,
which they still conceal from the Court of France.

This reduces Congress to the disagreeable necessity, either of making
themselves parties to this concealment, and thereby to contradict all
their former professions of confidence in their ally, made not only to
that ally, but to their own citizens, and to every Court at which they
had a Minister, or of revealing it at the expense of the confidence
they would wish to maintain between their Ministers and the Court of
France, and that, too, when those Ministers have obtained such terms
from the Court of London, as does great honor to them, and at least
equals our highest expectations.

I feel the more pain on this subject, because, from the manner in
which this treaty is drawn, as well as from the article itself, I am
inclined to believe that England had no other view in its insertion,
but to be enabled to produce it as a mark of the confidence we reposed
in them, and to detach us from our ally, if the nation could be
brought to continue the war.

The preamble, drawn by our Ministers, contained professions of
attachment to the alliance, and declared that the treaty should not be
obligatory till His Britannic Majesty shall have agreed to accept the
terms of a peace between France and Britain, proposed or accepted by
his Most Christian Majesty, and shall be read