ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON TO M. DE LA LUZERNE.
Office of Foreign Affairs, June 9th, 1782.
I have the honor to enclose the copy of a letter from the Superintendent of Finance in answer to one I wrote him on the subject of the loan office certificates. I am sorry for the necessity which dictated it, and look forward with some degree of impatience to the period when ample justice shall be done to all the public creditors. In the meanwhile foreigners will not feel themselves hurt when we make no distinction between them and our own citizens.
TO GEORGE WASHINGTON, COMMANDER IN CHIEF, AND OTHER OFFICERS OF THE AMERICAN ARMY, ON HUDSON'S RIVER.
I shall transmit to his Majesty the address you have been pleased to send me on the birth of an heir to his crown.
It will afford him infinite satisfaction to find with what joy this event has inspired you, and he will see with pleasure, that the same army which has given so many proofs of courage and patriotism, and which has in the most perfect harmony and concert with his own troops fought the common enemy, now hastens to show, that nothing which affects the French nation can be indifferent to them.
The young Prince, whose birth is the object of your congratulations, will, from his infancy, hear recounted the glorious actions, by which you have effected the independence and happiness of a vast continent; and when there shall be cited to him examples of disinterestedness, constancy, courage, and every other military virtue, there will be repeated the names of illustrious chiefs.
He is born at a moment when victory has crowned both our nations. This circumstance is a happy presage of his future glory, and promises, that he will one day be the support of your independence as well as of the alliance, which unites France with the Thirteen United States.
The veneration that your actions and virtues have inspired me with, Gentlemen, augments the pleasure I have in conveying your sentiments to the King, my master.
I beg you to be persuaded, that no one is with more sincere respect, Gentlemen, your very humble and obedient servant.
The United States in Congress assembled to their Great, Faithful, and Beloved Friend and Ally, Louis the Sixteenth, King of France and Navarre.