fectuate the restoration of, or to make compensation for prizes, made subsequent to the 5th day of June by privateers fitted out of our ports; that, consequently, he expected you to cause restitution to be made of all prizes taken and brought into our ports, subsequent to the said 5th of June, by such privateers, in defect of which he considered it as incumbent on the United States to indemnify the owners of such prizes; the indemnification to be reimbursed by the French nation. This determination involved the brig Jane of Dublin, taken by the armed vessel Citoyen Genet on the 24th of July, the brig Lovely Lass, taken by the same vessel on the 4th of July, and the brig Prince William Henry, taken by the same vessel on the 28th of June, and I have it in charge to inquire of you, sir, whether these three brigs have been given up, according to the determination of the President, and if they have not, to repeat the requisition, that they be given up to their former owners. I have the honour to be, &c. TH: JEFFERSON. TRANSLATION. The Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republick, to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State of the United States. New York, November 29, 1793, 2d year of the Republick. SIR, IT is not in my power to order the French vessels, which have received letters of marque in the ports of the Unit ed States, in virtue of our treaties, in virtue of the most precise instructions to me, to restore the prizes which they have been authorized to make on our enemies, but I have long since prescribed to all our consuls, neither to oppose nor allow to be opposed, any resistance to the moral force of the justice of the United States, if it thinks it may interfere in affairs relative to the prizes, or of the government, if it persists in the system against which I have incessantly made the best founded representations. Neither is it in my power, sir, to consent that the indemnities, which your government proposes to have paid to the proprietors of the said prizes, should be placed to the account of France. Ist. Because no indemnity is due but when some damage has been occasioned in the use of a right which was not possessed, whereas our treaties and my instructions prove to me, that we were fully authorized to arm in your ports. 2d. Because, ac cording to our constitution as well as yours, the executive has not the arbitrary appropriation of the funds of the state; and the executive council of France and their delegates could not consent to a reimbursement of the indemnities in question, but when the legislative body shall first have renounced, under its responsibility to the people, the right which I have been expressly instructed to maintain, and afterwards have granted the sums demanded by our enemies, and which have been promised them by the President. Accept my respect, GENET. TRANSLATION. The Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the Republick of France, to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State of the United States. New York, November 11, 1793, 2d year of the Republick. SIR, THE funds which were at the disposition of the French Republick for the year 1793 being exhausted by the colonial' bills drawn on them, by the considerable expense which the continuance of the vessels of the Republick in the ports of the United States occasions, by the succour which I have given to the refugees from the Cape, the supplies of all kinds which I have sent into the French colonies in America ; in fine, the divers expenses of the legation and of the administration confided to me, I request the favour of you to make known to the President of the United States, that I am forced in order to face our engagements, and to relieve our most pressing necessities, to draw on the sums which will become due to France, in the years 1794, and 95, until Congress shall have taken into consideration the mode of reimbursement which I have been instructed to propose to the federal government; our contractors will be content with these assignments, provided they are accepted by the treasury of the United States, to be paid when they become due. Accept my respect, GENET. TRANSLATION. The Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republick, to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State of the United States. New York, November 14, 1793, 2d year of the French Republick. SIR, IT becomes extremely important that you should have the goodness to inform me without delay, whether I can draw, by anticipation, on the approaching reimbursements of the debt of the United States to France; our agents being informed, that the funds, which were at the disposition of the Republick for 1793, are exhausted, have suspended their supplies and their enterprises, until they shall be assured that the assignments of the debt, which I may make to them in virtue of my powers, shall be paid when due. As without doubt you will form to yourself a just idea of all the branches of the service which will suffer, as long as this authority shall be withheld from me, I am persuaded, sir, that you will zealously second me in this ne gotiation. Two thousand seamen and soldiers whom I support are on the eve of wanting bread. The repairs of our vessels are at a stand. The indispensable expeditions of subsistence for our colonies and France are suspended. The federal government, without advancing a single one of the payments fixed by law, can by two words signed by you or the Secretary of the Treasury, again put every thing into motion, until Congress shall have taken into consideration the general mode of reimbursement which I have been instructed to communicate to you, and which alone can put me in a condition to supply at least France for the next campaign, since it could not do so far this one. The long nights, the thick fogs and the heavy seas of winter will be favourable to our transports, by rendering less probable the painful risks to which the odious principles of England expose neutral vessels, and particularly those of the United States. Accept my respect, GENET. Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, to Mr. Genet, Minister Ple-nipotentiary of the French Republick. Germantown, Nov. 24, 1793. SIR, I laid before the President of the United States your two letters of the 11th and 14th instant, on the subject of new advances of money, and they were immediately referred to the Secretary of the Treasury, within whose department subjects of this nature lie. I have now the honour of enclosing you a copy of his report thereon to the President, in answer to your letters, and of adding assurances of the respect and esteem of sir, &c. TH: JEFFERSON. The Secretary of the Treasury, upon two letters from the Minister Plenipotentiary of France, to the Secretary of State, severally bearing date the 11th and 14th of November, instant, respectfully reports to the President of the United States, as follows: 1st. THE object of these letters is to procure an engagement, that the bills which the minister may draw upon the sums, which, according to the terms respecting the contracts of the French debt, would fall due in the years 1794 and 1795, shall be accepted on the part of the United States, payable at the periods stipulated for the payments of those sums respectively. The following considerations are submitted as militating against the proposed arrangement I. According to the view entertained at the Treasury of the situation of the account between France and the United States, adjusting equitably the question of depreciation, there have already been anticipated payments to France equal, or nearly equal to the sums falling due in the course of the year 1794. II. The provision by law for discharging the principal of the French debt, contemplates only loans. Of those, which have been hitherto made, the sum unexpended is not more than commensurate with a payment which is to be made on the first of June next, upon account of the capital of the Dutch debt. It is possible that a fund for this payment may be derived from another loan; but it is known to the President, that from ad vices recently received, full reliance cannot be placed on this resource; owing to the influence of the present state of European affairs upon the measures of the United States for borrowing. It need not be observed that a failure in making the payment referred to would be ruinous to the credit of the United States. The acceptance of the bills of the minister of France would virtually pledge the only fund, of which there is at present a certainty, for accomplishing that payment, and as this is a mat. ter of strict obligation, directly affecting the publick credit, it would not appear advisable to engage that fund for a different object, which, if the ideas of the Treasury are right, with regard to the state of our account with France, does not stand upon a similar footing. It would be manifestly unsafe to presume upon contingencies, or to enter into engagements to be executed at distant periods, when the means of execution are uncertain. But as there appears to be a difference of opinion between the minister of France and the Treasury, with regard to the state of the account between the two countries, it is necessary that something on this head should be ascertained. With this view, the Secretary of the Treasury will proceed without delay to take arrangements for the adjustment of the account. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, Treasury Department, Nov. 23, 1793. York, to Mr. Genet, Minis- Mr. Clinton, Governour of New ter Plenipotentiary of France. SIR, AS by your letter of the 11th instant, I am informed that the vessel therein mentioned, now repairing at the wharf in the East river, is called the Carmagnole, and that she was fitted out as a privateer, in the Delaware, I conceive it proper to transmit to you a copy of a letter which I have since received from the Secretary of War, dated the 15th instant, in answer to one from me to the President of the United States, informing him of your having withdrawn the commissions granted to certain privateers, fitted out in the ports of the United States: by which you will perceive it to be the sense of the President, that this vessel should be entirely divested of her warlike equipments, and which, from the readiness you are pleased to express to conform to the views of the federal government, I cannot doubt, will on the receipt hereof, be complied with, and that until this is effected you will not permit her to leave the harbour. I am, &c. GEORGE CLINTON. Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary from the French Re publick, to General Clinton, Governour of the state of New York. New York, Nov. 23, 1793, 2d year of the French Republick. SIR, I have received the letter which you did me the honour to write me the 21st instant, as also the copy annexed to it of a letter from the Secretary of War. The fresh requisitions which have lately been transmitted to you respecting the schooner Columbia, formerly called the Carmagnole, are only a continuation of the system which has been observed towards me, from the very commencement of my mission, and which evidently appears to be calculated to baffle my zeal, to fill me with disgust, and to provoke my country to measures dictated by a just resentment, which would accomplish the wishes of those whose politicks tend only to disunite America from France, the more easily to deliver the former into the power of the English. Warned by this conjecture, which is unfortunately but too well founded, instead of proving to you as I could easily do that the orders which have been given to you are contrary to our treaties, to the conduct of the federal government even towards the British nation, whose packets and a great number of merchant vessels, I am well informed, have been permitted to arm for defence in their ports, to the bonds of friendship which unite the people of both republicks, and to their mutual interest, since the vessel in question is intended to serve as an adviceboat in our correspondence with the French islands, which, by our treaties, you are bound to guarantee, and in whose fate your property is no less interested than ours, I will give orders to the consul and to the French commodore of the road, to conform themselves to every thing that your wisdom may think proper to direct. Accept, sir, &c. GENET. The Governour of New York, to the President of the United States. New-York, November 24, 1793. SIR, I HAVE recently received a letter from the Secretary of War, dated the 12th, and also another dated the 13th instant, in answer to mine of the 8th of September last. On recurring to my correspondence with the minister of France, a copy of which was enclosed in that letter, it will appear, that my object was to procure the departure of the privateers Petit Democrat and Carmagnole, agreeably to your decision, communicated to me in a letter from the Secretary of War, dated the 16th of August; but as it was mentioned to be your desire, that forcible measures should not be resorted to, until every other effort had been tried, I thought it proper to submit to your consideration the measure proposed by the |