April 4. Gerry to Talleyrand. Disclaims a power to conclude any thing
separately, can only confer informally and as an unaccredited person or
individual, reserving to lay every thing before the government of the
United States for approbation.
April 14. Gerry to the President. He communicates the preceding, and
hopes the President will send other persons instead of his colleagues
and himself, if it shall appear that any thing can be done.
The President's message says, that as the instructions were not to
consent to any loan, he considers the negotiation as at an end, and that
he will never send another minister to France, until he shall be assured
that he will be received and treated with the respect due to a great,
powerful, free, and independent nation.
A bill was brought into the Senate this day, to declare the treaties
with France void, prefaced by a list of grievances in the style of a
manifesto. It passed to the second reading by fourteen to five.
A bill for punishing forgeries of bank-paper passed to the third reading
by fourteen to six. Three of the fourteen (Laurence, Bingham, and Read)
bank directors.
LETTER CCXXXIX.--TO SAMUEL SMITH, August 22, 1798
TO SAMUEL SMITH.
Monticello, August 22, 1798.
Dear Sir,
Your favor of August the 4th came to hand by our last post, together
with the 'extract of a letter from a gentleman of Philadelphia, dated
July the 10th,' cut from a newspaper, stating some facts which respect
me.
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