I will not, Gentlemen, attempt to describe the emotions of joy which my return to my native country, and particularly to this city, has excited in my mind; nor can I paint the sentiments of affection and gratitude towards you which my heart has ever felt, and which the kind and partial reception now given me by my fellow citizens cannot fail to increase. He only who has been ... absent from a much loved country, and from friends greatly and deservedly esteemed—whose return is welcomed with expressions, which, di[rec]ted by friendship, surpass his merits or his ho[pes,] will judge of feelings to which I cannot do justice.
The situation in which the late Envoys from [the] United States to the French Republic found themselves in Paris was, indeed, attended with the unpleasant circumstances which you have traced.—Removed far from the councils of their country, and receiving no intelligence concerning it, the scene before them could not fail to produce the most anxious and disquieting sensations. Neither the ambition, the power, nor the hostile temper of France, was concealed from them; nor could they be unacquainted with the earnest and unceasing solicitude felt by the government and people of the United States for peace. But midst these difficulties, they possessed, as guides, clear and explicit instructions, a conviction of the firmness and magnanimity, as well as of the justice and pacific temper of their government, and a strong reliance on that patriotism and love of liberty, which can never cease to glow in the American bosom. With these guides, however thorny the path of duty might be, they could not mistake it. It was their duty, unmindful of personal considerations, to pursue peace with unabating zeal, through all the difficulties with which the pursuit was embarrassed by a haughty and victorious government, holding in perfect contempt the rights of others, but to repel, with unhesitating decision, any propositions, an acceptance of which would subvert the independence of the United States.—This they have endeavoured to do. I delight to believe that their endeavours have not dissatisfied their government or country, and it is most grateful to my mind to be assured that they receive the approbation of my fellow-citizens in Richmond, and its vicinity.
I rejoice that I was not mistaken in the opinion I had formed of my countrymen. I rejoice to find, though they know how to estimate, and therefore seek to avoid the horrors and dangers of war, yet they know also how to value the blessings of liberty and national independence:—They know that peace would be purchased at too high a price by bending beneath a foreign yoke, and that peace so purchased could be but of short duration. The nation thus submitting would be soon involved in the quarrels of its master, and would be compelled to exhaust its blood and its treasure, not for its own liberty, its own independence, or its own rights, but for the aggrandizement of its oppressor. The modern world unhappily exhibits but too plain a demonstration of this proposition. I pray heaven that America may never contribute its still further elucidation.
Terrible to her neighbors on the continent of Europe, as all must admit France to be, I believe that the United States, if indeed united, if awake to the impending danger, if capable of employing their whole, their undivided force—are so situated as to be able to preserve their independence. An immense ocean placed by a gracious Providence, which seems to watch over this rising empire, between us and the European world, opposes of itself such an obstacle to an invading ambition, must so diminish the force which can be brought to bear upon us, that our resources, if duly exerted, must be adequate to our protection, and we shall remain free if we do not deserve to be slaves.
You do me justice, gentlemen, when you suppose that consolation must be derived from a comparison of the Administration of the American Government, with that which I have lately witnessed. To a citizen of the United States, so familiarly habituated to the actual possession of liberty, that he almost considers it as the inseparable companion of man, a view of the despotism, which borrowing the garb and usurping the name of freedom, tyrannizes over so large and so fair a proportion of the earth, must teach the value which he ought to place on the solid safety and real security he enjoys at home. In support of these, all temporary difficulties, however great, ought to be encountered, and I agree with you that the loss of them would poison and embitter every other joy; and that deprived of them, men who aspire to the exalted character of freemen, would turn with loathing and disgust from every other comfort of life.
To me, gentlemen, the attachment you manifest to the government of your choice affords the most sincere satisfaction. Having no interests separate from or opposed to those of the people, being themselves subject in common with others, to the laws they make, being soon to return to that mass from which they are selected for a time in order to conduct the affairs of the nation, it is by no means probable that those who administer the government of the United States can be actuated by other motives than the sincere desire of promoting the real prosperity of those, whose destiny involves their own, and in whose ruin they must participate. Desirable as it is at all times, a due confidence in our government, it is peculiarly so in a moment of peril like the present, in a moment when the want of that confidence must impair the means of self defence, must increase a danger already but too great, and furnish, or at least give the appearance of furnishing, to a foreign real enemy, those weapons, which have so often been so successfully used.
Accept, gentlemen, my grateful acknowledgments for your kind expressions concerning myself, and do me the justice to believe, that your prosperity, and that of the city of Richmond and its vicinity, will ever be among the first wishes of my heart.
(From Columbian Centinel, Saturday, Sept. 22, 1798.)