e to permit this article to be put in question, which
treaties secure to them.

I have the honor to be, &c.

DUMAS.

* * * * *

TO THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

The Hague, December 25th, 1778.

Gentlemen,

Your friends here do all that they can to bring about future
connexions between the two Republics. The phrase, that I have
underlined in the Declaration,[33] expresses nothing else than the
authentic information, which the city of Amsterdam has of the
disposition by which a majority is influenced in the Republic. See in
it then only the wish of the city, that your virtuous perseverance in
a union, on which alone depends your sovereignty, may frustrate this
influence. It can do nothing against you without unanimity; but,
without this same unanimity, all the good will of the city can at the
present time do nothing more for you, as to the conclusion of a treaty
of amity and commerce, than project it, in order to have it ready when
it shall be able to propose it with some appearance of success. A copy
of the Memorial, presented on the 7th of December, by the French
Minister to their High Mightinesses, was sent to me by himself, on the
8th, to be communicated to you.

They have sent me from Amsterdam, with the same intent, a copy of the
protest of the city against the resolution adopted by the majority for
refusing convoy to naval articles. This important paper is very long,
(20 pages in folio.) Expecting that I may be able to send it to you,
translated and copied, I will transcribe for you, Gentlemen, what a
good Dutch citizen, to whom I lent it, thought of it. "It is scarce
possible for me," said he, "to paint the vexation with which I have
read the resolve adopted by the majority. A document at once puerile,
jesuitical, and made unintelligible, as I think, from design, to
conceal the palpaple contradictions and absurdities of which it is
full. I can compare it to nothing better than to a serpent, which
hides its ugly head under the tortuous folds of its horrible body. The
protest, on the contrary, is the finest document of its kind, that I
remember to have seen. As precise as it is luminous, it presents at
once, and gathers, so to speak, into a single focus, all the reasons
for the opposite sentiment, in a manner to strike all eyes which are
not voluntari