Office of Foreign Affairs, March 18th, 1783.
The important matter contained in the despatches lately received, renders me unwilling to reply to them without being well satisfied of the sentiments of Congress. But, as the subjects on which I wish to be informed, are of too delicate a nature to be rendered formal acts, I shall submit to them the drafts of my reply to the joint letter of our Ministers, now at Paris. Previous to this, it will be necessary that Congress come to some express determination upon points which arise out of the treaty, and which, if they see in the same light that I do, they will consider as the most embarrassing, as well as the most important that can claim their attention.
Congress have hitherto, in all their acts, both of a public and private nature, manifested the utmost confidence in the Court of France. In answer to every communication, they have reiterated their resolutions on that subject, and so lately as the 4th of October last, resolved unanimously, "That they will not enter into the discussion of any overtures of pacification but in _confidence_ and in _concert_ with his Most Christian Majesty;" and directed that a copy of the above resolution should not only be furnished to the Minister of France, but be sent to all the Ministers of the United States in Europe, and published to the world. Yet, Sir, it has unfortunately so happened, that the Ministers of these States have imagined they had sufficient grounds to suspect the sincerity of the Court of France, and have not only thought it prudent to agree upon and sign preliminaries with Great Britain, without communicating them, till after the signature, to the Ministers of his Most Christian Majesty, but have permitted a separate article to be inserted in their treaty, which they still conceal from the Court of France.
This reduces Congress to the disagreeable necessity, either of making themselves parties to this concealment, and thereby to contradict all their former professions of confidence in their ally, made not only to that ally, but to their own citizens, and to every Court at which they had a Minister, or of revealing it at the expense of the confidence they would wish to maintain between their Ministers and the Court of France, and that, too, when those Ministers have obtained such terms from the Court of London, as does great honor to them, and at least equals our highest expectations.