The Hague 22. Sep. 1797. My dear Sir, M'Geurs arrived here last night — He will proceed on to Paris as soon as he can return from Amsterdam whither he must first go — The other Ministers went on the B. Inst. — The only chance it seems to me they have is in the renewal of the war — This would give to us all the advantages of ally'd forces, without the odium — State however, to me our affairs do appear desperate in Paris — This dreadful convulsion which took place on the 4^th, in which all fell upon those desks of justice or could have any reliance, has been to us a more serious event — Pastoret — Portalis — Prissy D'ruglois — Dumas, Vaublanc — Barbé Marbois — Picheygue — these were men of a superior cast who wished to restore order to the social & political state in France; to recall the noble bodies to a recognition of the Public Law of Europe — to re-affirm the confidence of foreign nations in the good faith of France & to check the Directoire in those violations both of the constitution & the law of nations which had created alarm at home & fear & hatred abroad — These men, compounded with the emigrants who had returned, & many of whom had kept up a perpetual conspiracy against the Republican system, are swept off, & by this are on their way to Madagascar. Since, the two councils, like the peasant when arguing with Jupiter, gave to every propositions & anticipated every wish of the Directoire — They have broken up Patriots committee which they had got appointed, after a most able speech on our affairs, in which they urged the right we had to enter into the Treaty of [undecipherable] held up the violences of the Directoire & their Tribunals in a great variety of lights, as unjust, tyrannical & impolitic — The object of this committee was to report upon the existing relations between the U.S. & France — when the injuries that had been inflicted upon our trade — The report was delayed till the arrival of our Minister, & probably under the pretense of an intervening crisis, in which they counted upon success — They have declared the objects of such committees (Dumolard had in also, upon the transactions in Genoa Venice &c.) as inconsistent with the constitution — Republicanism, & have expressly affirmed the usurpative acts of the Directory upon our affairs — Merlin, too, the late minister of Justice, at the official instrument of the numerous condemnations, is now a Director in [Carnot's] plan — whether you consider the acts of the present legislation or of the Directory & the nature of their government, it is now a complete military despotism, & the character of the men who are in the Executive, we shall have little reason to expect Justice — By a letter which I received a few days since from a very intelligent man at Paris, it appears that the table talk in select official parties is, that we may have peace, but it must be upon their terms — that there is a party in the United States strong enough to control, by refusing to overthrow the government, & that in six months war would dissolve the Union — M. Adams's Secretary was in this party & confirmed these assertions — I fear that our ministers may think that delay, and, gaining time, would be a good thing & idea is that all the time consistent with candour & gentleness in manner is in every respect of this a point important — to you I can write with perfect freedom — I do not believe they will grant us a single point of our just demands that they will wish to keep the negotiation open, after they shall have made use of it, to throw into distraction in America, two or three proposals as, to give us a free West India, or a guaranteed Mediterranean trade — if we will abandon the Treaty, probably with this, an abrogation of [undecipherable] stipulation, after the manner to dissolve the Union — to revolutionize the South & West — to place those into a state, available to them for Indian alliances, both in commercial & especially commerce & West India relations, & Nation — This idea I will be the object of such offers, binding the negotiation — This idea I have had for months, & so expressed myself in one of my letters to you — The Pamphlets which are published under the auspices of late, tending to familiarize the heads of the Treaty of 1794, to conciliate this with the cool fashionable line of the interests & desires of America, consider as more collateral education of the interests & desires of France, which may be drawn from within compared with those stronger influences, which may be drawn from their past & present direct & proceedings, & the connexion of [undecipherable] have gradually developed themselves M'ADELL — [undecipherable] & that the State Legislature introduce in session at a period when they might [undecipherable] think be brought to a fixed conclusion, obtaining some definite idea might be transmitted to you from Paris — In such a state of things the vigour of public spirit could have something certain to act upon — if it is spirited by discussions upon those alterations with which France will endeavour to announce it — its expectation be long kept in a state, distracted alternately by an infinite variety of news from Europe, & confusions of this like many rues, a cool, or divide into difficult points of doctrine & policy. But Surely long before this the mist has been withdrawn from the eyes of thousands of our countrymen who have been hitherto in the most profound error respecting their views of France [undecipherable] & of all the nations — the object is aggrandisement — Her means the destruction of Great Britain — Weak or infatuated neutral nations are her Stepping Stones to reach at her rival — Not Republicanism — She has it not herself — She is ruled by the Directoire through the army — to fashion the despotism, this Directoire must & will keep at war, or then the executive is all in all to have the armies, men at their disposal, a more temptation to offer them as the price of their Obedience — When Buonaparte held out his olive branch to the arch. Duke, clever a great as he is, he was in the utmost danger — Both sides gained Time — The Directoire had nothing to do with it — In this interval of Peace for which all France you the two councils set about really organising the True Principles of [their] Republican Constitution — They wished to produce that responsibility of the Execution which this expressly gave them as the source of the executive — they examined into the State of the Finances, saw confusion & penury, no system some attempted — They looked into the expenditures of [undecipherable] a wider & more devouring profusion than had disgraced the ancient regime — They examined into the State of the Bureaus & into the different departments of the Gov.^t, and beheld a more disgusting parade, and a more intricate chain of patronage, a more extensive arrangement of official & subordinate machinery than the old court had ever been charged with by its enemies & reformers — They then attempted to ameliorate the evens [2] & to give them system; to check this profusion & even dared to point out the propriety of looking into the expenditure of those vast treasures with which different generals in Italy had been debited — They sought into the State of the colonies, & pointed out the necessity of really regenerating their lost commercial & regular habits, as a source of maritime strength, & as generally connected with the policy of internal strength, opinion & manufactures — This object in part was to revive the internal happiness of France, to bring the people to observe order, industry, & peaceable habits, & to methodize that dreadful chaos into which the relaxation of laws, & the great irregularity in the proceedings & principles of the non-ordinary governments, had more thrown the people more than any external force had done — There happened in the election of a new Third, who was moderate (i.e. anti-Jacobin,) & had the preliminary articles of Jean [undecipherable] the [undecipherable], a conviction — favouring this great & patriotic design — This election gave the men who entertained these enlightened views, the decided majority — as 3 to 1. This effort was of a nature to excite alarm among all who lived in truth upon public confusion — The Directoire saw, in the line of conduct which they promised to pursue, that check which they were not willing to endure — The Bureaus & all the offices felt Some under this scrutiny into their numerous incapacity & profusion — the armies were stimulated by the generals into hatred against the Councils in the same proportion into a respect for the Directoire, &c in it because it meant to make a more mere cause — From the moment that the Directory perceived that the Legislature resolved to act with firmness in the reform of public abuses, & undertook to secure some redress to their rights of Peace & war, agreeable to the constitution, they excited sedition against those Councils & gradually took their measures under the pretense of preventing gaining Royalists, to overthrow the moderate & to put all grown under their absolute direction — Picheygne & others favoured this crisis — the mysterious march of the armies towards Paris & the daring language in the army addresses to the Directoire of the Councils, & to each other, from Italy to the Sambre & Meuse, led these great men to stimulate those measures of safety & the the constitution put in the way of the Councils — The labours of organizing the national guard or militia — France had been disarmed about a year since — Not a cannon on a mount & had been permitted to appear in Paris, but those in the hands of the guards — The Sections, had been disarmed on the celebrated Vendemiaire — the Directory saw that if this national guard were organized & armed, the Legislature would be supported — They saw Pro that if Peace with the Emperor & G. Britain followed such a Legis: Legislative, Opposition & there not their Schemes of ambition & absolute power might be frustrated — They anticipated the Legislature by plain Plan at a distance, and by the convulsion of the 4. Sep. — Journals & other remarks in the Parisian Senate under Thibrier, when Senators could be nodded by the Tyrant to the Baths, over them a noble stroke of despotism, under the cloak of Republicanism! Fifty odds of the most enlightened Revolutionists in France, good and of members of the Legislature, and ordered for Banishment, to one of the most distant & savage places upon earth — without notice — barely on a Trial — for the order of Banishment Proceeded was the Princess & unexamined heaps of inadmissible evidence which had been elected, visited against Pee & Them, — [undecipherable] & Picheygne — undoubtedly these were emigrants in France — who watched & always will watch be active between the republican parties, that they may direct the crisis to their own ends — but the numbers of the 500 & of the ancients, except perhaps Dumolard, who had lately returned from Guy Canad, me as remarkable for their revolutionary character, as M. Creuzé, M. Barnes & M. Duperan — So also were Carnot & Barthélemy — The real crimes of these men were attempts to put the constitution in force — to execute the laws — & to extricate the people out of revolutionary government, in favour of Peace, order & justice — The charge of Picheygne is derived from the papers from count D'Entraigues, an emigrant — who states conversations with another emigrant, & Camille — a a count Montgaillard, near two years since — These were tricks, which the Tories used to play off upon the Whigs with us — but America has too much good sense & justice to credit such trumpery — From this period, however, it is probable that very serious designs will be taken up by the ablest revolutionists in France, to restore a share of monarchy to the government — My own idea is that the different parties & generals will wait for an opportunity of placing a king upon the throne of France — That whatever party attempts it will be opposed by the opposite party, because each will be jealous of the other; & each would, if it be at all done, wish to have the advantages & instruments of such a decision count — But a most abominable moderation of party age on a personal rivalship will long continue to distract them & retard a government but a revolutionary military despotism — Lord Malmesbury has left Bath — This is not from public authenticity, but I have it through a channel upon which I completely rely — I do not repeat this, as the war will recommence with it's own & as parties are distracted in France & there have no means to find out distant expeditions, they may be the more inclined to listen to our ministers — Still I am convinced that they rely, when a branch of transatlantic measures which they will organize in proportion as the negotiation is lengthened, upon cut by their arts — There is a certainty that upon the scheme at Bruges, Coblentz & Cologn, a revolutionary spirit has brought on a revolution to bear upon the constituted authorities — The plan is to erect a dissolution [The Republic. The plan of France is not only to avail herself of the confusion & weakness which her enemies will feel from revolutions in their territories; but also to surround her land Frontiers with a cordon of small republics, who will be her satellites — her out guards — & whose citizens, as republics, must depend upon their subserviency to her as her protection — Her agents have produced this event — The press is at hand — & though the great majority of the People there, as here, are of this, her partizans there will get possession of power & call their ambition Republicanism — Dear God! a Republic in the inhabited concept parts of Europe! — As a republican! I rejoice if I saw manners, morals & [underline: independence] in these democracies — Formerly when luxury had totally debauched the morals of a nation, they supplied in energy of government, what their vices & habits indeed necessary to hold the society at all together — at present, the attempt at liberty begins at the point of the social state where it used to end — an impotience under moral, religious, civil institutions, arising from a knowledge of only abstract doctrines, & stimulated by ambition, love of plunder, idleness & profligacy, is mistaken for love of liberty — It is in fact the Prototype of Vice — a popular path which it takes to avoid the imputation of criminal ity to its enjoy all its extravagancies & profits — the dreadful anarchy is the result & society is thrown back into its elements, without its simplicity & morals, & can see no end, except that of Despotism, & no good to any one, except that which one man enjoys in the shape of possession of another's prosperity — The revolution at Paris has affected this country but slightly — The violent men would like to see the present intermediary government a little more revolutionary; but the great mass of virtuous Phlegm in the fair & honest views of the very great majority of the People, & the whole genius of the nation, incorporated as it is in a thousand circumstances, arising out of the [underline: artificial existence] of the State Republic, as against sudden bursts of fanaticism — Dykes which repel the besieging ocean are the bulwarks of the national character — Those who exist but by the tenure of a never ending vigilant to invisible Dijzst, of such importance as the whole of their embracing system, you can readily believe are persevering — & of course patient, thoughtful — slow to alter, & fixed when once determined — a real overthrow of things in Holland, in the true revolutionary sense in S^t [underline: Europe] works changes in Gov.^t, would produce the catastrophe of which the Zuyder Zee, at this moment, is an awful mementoe — When this South or [undecipherable] Zee now is, once was land! — There are wonders in our world & of this past land! — There are The the great interior Dykes had been neglected — Storms had accumulated the Ocean when that quarter — the bottoms of the Dykes were softened and sapped, and soon burst — The deluge in from a lovely country, destroyed, and in a great degree covered, & soon obliterated many hundreds of Villages — (The people live in villages —) I have eight hundred! You have often heard, but scarcely believed that the ocean is higher than the land in many of the finest parts of the Seven Provinces — The fact is so — The country rests upon a pool of soft mud — They must have pumped out first in the place of the Sea & then pumped out all the surrounded water — This is done daily, so to pumping, & the maintenance of wind mills for this purpose to keep the land dry, which is below the surface of the Sea, forms a great part of something like ground rent, to each lot in the lower districts — This is more Leyden — & between Rotterdam & the Hague — A people so placed are obliged to be grave & steady or drown — A Fete indeed, a Fête, I lean upon the event of the downfall of Royalism, as they call the overthrow of the Legislature at Paris — a Speech from the President of the upper Legislature & from M. Noël, the minister, is it is said, to manipulate the sympathy of Batavian in the triumphs of Liberty — These Fetes are useful things to any party who uses them triumphantly — They they have an imposing effect — They strike all, upon thousands who love brilliance, effect, & success, but who have neither opportunity to nor power to examine into the justice of the occasion — These fetes are to extend from the mouth of the Rhine, to the ancient Kingdom of Ulysses, in the mouth of the Adriatic — that Land whose — when the tri-coloured flag now waves over the ruins of that wise King — These fetes are to pervade every scene when France has influence or position — They will be attempted in America — I consider them as fairs & the Triumphs over our friends & those who might be of any in France could, do us justice — It will be hugely important to destroy the influence of these Fetes them — It is to celebrate the irrudality of a thinly military Despotism, over a lineum & cordial operation, things which the great experiment was to so fairly made, whether France could endure a real republican form of government — The experiment was a fair one — The people chose their members — these men were not Jacobins — the Jacobins formed the club of salons after Montmorency — The Directoire grew jealous of the two new thirds — the Jacobins united to it, as with the armies of & them — The Directoire turned out these men whom the people appointed, and punished & elect them — the elections — all men of that description, except those who from timidity have made terms with the Executive, are declared illegal, & others put in, before the intelligence could have reached the committees & departments — This is the way the Directoire secure majorities! — It 4/. — If the proper use be made of the late events in Paris & should suppose the eyes of many, certainly not all, in America must be opened, & that the Despotism of the gov.^t is now manifested, its own writing, Citizens would no longer be the dupes of the most graceful & vicious nation under the Sun — I have written to M. Smith, the minister Plenipotentiary at Lisbon, congratulating him — I was invited this distinction — & went to honor — having open as I heard of his appointment, & could get ready — But my dear friend I never hear from you — nor from a soul except Col. Pickering, in his public letters — When you write you could omit your name — as I do — I can not omit one piece of information which I shall also inform Col. P. — The publication of M. Adams's letter respecting this country does us much mischief — It has excited considerable heat — & is thought an insult — They certainly have demanded his recall had he been here. Yet I will think suppose that to answer a great end, these steps must meeting be be taken — and in this case whatever inconvenience arise to the minister it is his duty to bear as part of his official labours & trouble — certainly of good reason right always to be placed against certainty of evil — Unhappy the good is great and certain from publication I should hope the gov.^t would sooner publish — I know that it is to tell the Truth showing America that a minister is sent abroad — I have not been spoken to nor written to [underline: formally]; & have when I saw it would be convenient, attempted to soften the affair — The violence is pretty much against M. Adams — who is out of the way of their anger — They say it hurts them with France — impolitic as it enables her to stimulate this country against us contrary to their wishes, by appealing to the pride of the Batavian People and national Gov.^t — But I have no fear respecting their disposition to be at peace, unless M. Adams unfortunately come on with France, they should be urged under their Treaty offensive & defensive of 1795 to join Fr. in the war ag.^t us. To guard against this possibility I have for months since a & sought means of supporting this proposition, when I thought it might work to the proposed end — [underline: that it is the interest of France] to suffer the Dutch to be at Peace with America — This I believe is true — To support this proposition I am endeavouring to collect materials to show the importance of the American trade to The The Dutch and the interests of the Dutch trade and money of operations upon the French resources & affairs — The relations of the American trade with Bremen & Hamburgh & the commerce of these in free trade with Amsterdam and Rotterdam — The subserviency of the instruments & interest to those sources of Dutch competition, this all available to France at present — The relations of the American trade to France are diverted from an English into a Dutch channel, & the importance of keeping up this diversion — The great importance of the American neutral bottoms to Holland & France in the Surinam & Batavia E. India trade — and a prodigious deal of this carrying is done in American ships which have not been at France in three years, particularly those in the E. India freights. In fact the great value to France of an attentive Dutch trade tells the case, never has our navigation & they very little and & as she could derive from a poor short fleets, or shells of fleets, six years after war. Forbidden in the Treaty — Together with the loss which the French would sustain in the West Indies & South America, without benefit to the U.S. but to the entire aggrandisement of the great rival of France, G. Britain — In these ulterior I shall also, as we have to manifested, any the expected apprehension of a failure of our pacific negotiation which will open at Paris — but only to use these ideas, as far as friendly sympathy might act, & the force of our reasoning, is to prevent a rupture, by helping us, from their own interest, to obtain justice or a good understanding with France [undecipherable] The dealings in the Batavia [undecipherable] only by the government, not by that [union] in all sorts of places which sided was motivated by so serious a metaphysical situation & as to the British, they have handsomely enough to our trade upon all I can hear — Of course unless & that alone produces this conduct — is of course they wish to go to war — There is one thing may be however from pleasantry in the prospect of the redress of settlement of claims by the board of Commissioners — No case falls within the cognizance of that board but such as can not be reached in the ordinary courts — the judicial proceedings there — cases have to travel through certain stages of process in the courts first — here is the approaching hardship — Either the courts are unjustifiably slow, or their delays are designed to take many cases out of the remedy of the Treaty, for the Commissioners & I believe we not receive cases began later than about next April — In such a state of cases undecided, they might avail themselves of circumstances, and say, (though with chicanery) that the Treaty had been ratified — however we have debts as a pledge — but that game is the Old ones to running — M.M. has written & thinks twice to M.^d McHenry — May remember us both with the most cordial respect & kindness to him — accept from us both — my compliments to my friend M. John McHenry. I have written three times. God Washington — I enclose a blank [letter?] to you, soon after my arrival — & enclosed by a letter also to Baltimore to M. Gilman — 3. lately by Cap. Egan — & its returns on accomplished & a right sort of young man — one title from you, your first — & one from brother on all — all that I have seen from America! — M. Adams's letters I have seen — I admire the way in which Col. P. has turned aside from him — good bless you my dear friend & believe me to be always — Sincerely & Affectionately y[ours] The Hon^ble James McHenry Esq. Secretary at War of the U States.