LETTER XCIV.--TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, January 23, 1792
TO GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
Philadelphia, January 23, 1792.
Dear Sir,
I have the pleasure to inform you, that the President of the United
States has appointed you Minister Plenipotentiary for the United States,
at the court of France, which was approved by the Senate on the 12th
instant; on which be pleased to accept my congratulations. You will
receive herewith your commission, a letter of credence for the King,
sealed, and a copy of it open for your own satisfaction, as also a
cipher, to be used on proper occasions in the correspondence between us.
To you, it would be more than unnecessary for me to undertake a general
delineation of the functions of the office to which you are appointed.
I shall therefore only express our desire, that they be constantly
exercised in that spirit of sincere friendship and attachment which
we bear to the French nation; and that in all transactions with the
minister, his good dispositions be conciliated by whatever in language
or attentions may tend to that effect. With respect to their government,
we are under no call to express opinions which might please or offend
any party, and therefore it will be best to avoid them on all occasions,
public or private. Could any circumstances require unavoidably such
expressions, they would naturally be in conformity with the sentiments
of the great mass of our countrymen, who, having first, in modern times,
taken the ground of government founded on the will of the people, cannot
but be delighted on seeing so distinguished and so esteemed a nation
arrive on the same ground, and plant their standard by our side.
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