Philad. 2 April 1798 Dear Sir our [strikethrough: news and] your next [strikethrough: paper] bearer has just given me notice that a vessel will sail to-morrow for Madeira from whence a letter to little me will find a ready passage to Lisbon. [strikethrough: Our] Dispatches [strikethrough: made] with [strikethrough: I] [strikethrough: ours] Paris, [strikethrough: the] 18 Jan^y & 8 Janu^ry and it is not clear that they have got it yet, altho' it is pretty plain from their dispatches that they expected to have got one of it long since. There was not any prospect that they would be received, nor of accommodation: their urgent terms that could be acceded to with out compromitting our neutrality and abasing our Government. Private agents of Tallyrand had [strikethrough: held] conversations with them and endeavoured to prevail on them to agree to a bribe for that minister and directors of 50,000 l. sterl^g money & obtain their good offices. This [strikethrough: proposition] as well as another for a large loan to the Government was rejected. Still however our plenipotentiaries remained, intending to make a [strikethrough: last] effort to be formally heard, and then, if not received to return. The Presidents message, which is inclosed will shew you the light in which the views thus [strikethrough: sent] and our situation. This message [strikethrough: has] [strikethrough: been] [strikethrough: even] the opposition affect to consider as equivalent to a declaration of war, in consequence [strikethrough: of] which they have brought forward a resolution tantamount to a declaration of peace, or rather [strikethrough: an] invitation to the directory to continue their system of hostility against our commerce as in [strikethrough: assurance] of [strikethrough: their] support. This resolution added to a desire in our friends to have the people informed of our real situation has brought on a call for the instructions to our Plenipotentiaries at Paris and their communications to the executive. This call [strikethrough: has] been agreed to in the house of Representatives to day in the [strikethrough: Sena] [strikethrough: and] [strikethrough: it] asked for [strikethrough: &] [strikethrough: will] be [strikethrough: sen] to [strikethrough: them] to-morrow, with the exception of the names of the private agents of the directory and such circumstances as might lead to a knowledge of them. It will not [strikethrough: be] easily [strikethrough: be] Consented to [strikethrough: not to] [strikethrough: their] not to publish them. This measure will work an indefinite good. It may however endanger persons of our Plenipotentiaries, if they should be in Paris when the fact reaches the directory, and should the present members of the directory remain in power form a strong obstacle to future negotiation. The spirit of the people is every where rising, and promises in a short time to be what it always ought to have been. To the Southward we are threatened with the neighbourhood of the French, circumstances indicating that Spain will be if she has not already been obliged to yield to the request of the Directory relative to a cession of the Floridas & Louisiana. yours sincerely James McHenry W^m Smith Esq^r