My Lord:—­Had the citizens of the United States been as submissive to the taxation of your Government as to the vexations of our ruler, America would, perhaps, have been less free and Europe more tranquil.  After the treaty of Amiens had Produced a general pacification, our Government was seriously determined to reconquer from America a part of those treasures its citizens had gained during the Revolutionary War, by a neutrality which our policy and interest required, and which the liberality of your Government endured.  Hence the acquisition we made of New Orleans from Spain, and hence the intrigues of our emissaries in that colony, and the peremptory requisitions of provision for St. Domingo by our Minister and generals.  Had we been victorious in St. Domingo, most of our troops there were destined for the American Continent, to invade, according to circumstances, either the Spanish colonies on the terra firma or the States of the American Commonwealth.  The unforeseen rupture with your country postponed a plan that is far from being laid aside.

You may, perhaps, think that since we sold Louisiana we have no footing in America that can threaten the peace or independence of the United States; but may not the same dictates that procured us at Madrid the acquisition of New Orleans, also make us masters of Spanish Florida?  And do you believe it improbable that the present disagreement between America and Spain is kept up by our intrigues and by our future views?  Would not a word from us settle in an instant at Madrid the differences as well as the frontiers of the contending parties in America?  And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend their resentment.

I have heard the late American Minister here assert that the American vessels captured by our cruisers and condemned by our tribunals, only during the last war, amounted to about five hundred; and their cargoes (all American property) to one hundred and fifty millions of livres—­L6,000,000.  Some few days ago I saw a printed list, presented by the American consul to our Minister of the Marine Department, claiming one hundred and twelve American ships captured in the West Indies and on the coast of America within these last two years, the cargoes of which have all been confiscated, and most of the crews still continue prisoners at Martinico, Gaudeloupe, or Cayenne.  Besides these, sixty-six American ships, after being plundered in part of their cargoes at sea by our privateers, had been released; and their claims for property thus lost, or damage thus done, amounting to one million three hundred thousand livres.