ly closed to its light. But we live in the midst of a
people, who do not hesitate to call white black, and black white,
provided it favors the party of the Boreases of England and of our
country." The States of Holland assembled yesterday. They have named
two committees to deliberate, the one on the answer to be made to the
Court of France, the other on the new complaints to which the English
have just given cause. We shall not know the result till next week.

In the circumstances, Gentlemen, in which you see things, it will be
necessary that I should be provided with a letter of credence from
your honorable Congress, like, _mutatis mutandis_, that which I
received from it under date from the 9th to the 12th of December,
1775, and of which I made use at the Court of France, in April, 1776;
with this difference, that the other being unlimited and accommodated
to existing circumstances, that which I now ask for should be limited
to this Republic, and conformable to the present situation and
dignity of the American confederation, to the end that I may be able
to produce it to whomever it shall be proper, and to labor with all
requisite credit and weight, in concert with your friends in this
country, on the proposal of amity and commerce between the two
Republics. Such a paper becomes every day more necessary; and I dare
say, that it will be necessary to the United States that I should be
provided with it as soon as possible, so as not to give it publicity,
which everywhere, except in France and Spain, seems to have no good
effect; but to continue, as I have done hitherto, to increase and
strengthen your friends here, and to hinder your enemies from
realising, at the expense of this Republic, the fable of the monkey
who drew his chestnuts from the fire with the cat's paw. _Malo esse
quam videri_ ought to be the constant maxim of all those, who are
called to serve so fine a cause as that of the American Union. It is
certainly mine. It is this that dictates the precise answer, which I
have yet to give to what you had the goodness to write concerning me,
in the letter with which you honored me, under date of the 14th of May
of this year, to wit; "We shall write particularly to the gentlemen at
Paris, respecting the injuries you have received from our enemies, and
shall instruct them to pay the strictest attention to our engagements
made to you at the commencement of our correspondence."

These gentlemen, in sending me the let