In pursuance of the request, in your resolve of yesterday, I lay before you such information as I have received, touching a suspension of the arrêt of the French Republic, communicated to your House by my Message of the 28th of January last. But if the execution of that arrêt be suspended, or even if it were repealed, it should be remembered that the arrêt of the Executive Directory of the 2d of March, 1797, remains in force, the third article of which subjects explicitly and exclusively American seamen to be treated as pirates, if found on board ships of the enemies of France.
JOHN ADAMS.
United States, February 15, 1799.
Extract of a letter from Rufus King, Esq., Minister Plenipotentiary, &c., London, to the Secretary of State, dated 28th November, 1798.
"Annexed I send you a copy of a note from Lord Grenville, respecting the French arrêt transmitted to you with my No. 9. A late French paper contains a second arrêt which postpones the execution of the first."
Lord Grenville to Mr. King.
The undersigned, His Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has the honor of communicating to Mr. King, Minister Plenipotentiary for the United States of America, for the information of his Government, that, by a decree, published officially at Paris, it appears to have been declared, in the name of the French Directory, that every person being a native of or originally belonging to neutral countries, or to such as are in amity and alliance with the French Republic, who shall bear any commission under His Majesty, or who shall form a part of the crews of any British ships of war, or other vessels, should, on the proof of that fact alone, be considered and treated as a pirate, and that it has been ordered that this resolution shall be notified to the neutral powers, and to those in alliance with France.
Even this decree, contrary as it is to the usages of every civilized nation, cannot excite any surprise, as proceeding from those in whose name it has been published. To the different powers who are thus insulted, and whose innocent subjects are exposed to the most cruel treatment on the part of a Government professing friendship or alliance with them, His Majesty must leave it to adopt such measures as they will, without doubt, judge necessary, in the case of an outrage hitherto unexampled in the history of the world.
The King, however, feels, that protection is also due from him to those who sail under his flag, either in His Majesty's ships of war, or in other British vessels; His Majesty has, therefore, not hesitated to direct it to be signified to the Commissioner for French prisoners in Great Britain, that the first instance of the execution of this decree shall be followed by the most rigorous retaliation against the French prisoners, whom the fortune of war has already, or may hereafter place at the King's disposal.
It would certainly never be but with extreme reluctance that the King could yield to the painful necessity of exposing so many unfortunate individuals to the fatal but inevitable effects of this atrocious decree; but His Majesty will have at least the satisfaction of feeling that nothing has been omitted on his part to prevent its execution, and that the authors of it can alone be considered responsible for all its guilt and all its consequences.