Monday, December 22.
The following Message was received from the President of the United States.
Gentlemen of the Senate:
In conformity with your request, in your resolution of the 19th of this month, I transmit you the instructions given to our late Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary to the French Republic.
It is my request to the Senate that these instructions may be considered in strict confidence, and returned to me as soon as the Senate shall have made all the use of them they may judge necessary.
JOHN ADAMS.
United States, Dec. 22, 1800.
On motion,
Resolved, That all confidential communications made by the President of the United States to the Senate, shall be, by the members thereof, kept inviolably secret; and that all treaties which may hereafter be laid before the Senate, shall also be kept secret, until the Senate shall, by their resolution, take off the injunction of secrecy.