TO COUNT DE FLORIDA BLANCA.
Paris, December 27th, 1778.
Sir,
I have the honor of enclosing to your Excellency a manifesto from Congress, in answer to that of his Britannic Majesty’s Commissioners. You have also enclosed a copy of a former resolution of Congress on this subject, from which it will appear how earnestly they have shunned this shocking extremity. As long as it was possible to impute the barbarities committed to the unauthorised intemperance of individuals, Congress exhorted the suffering people to lenity and forbearance. But when they became acts of authority, avowed and ordered, Congress must not only stand justified before God and man, but would have been culpable in the eyes of both, had they longer withheld the order for retaliation. Permit me to hope, that your Excellency will represent these things to his Majesty, and that they will produce an immediate declaration, which is most likely to arrest the sanguinary progress of our enemy, and compel them to relinquish the devastation of our country for the defence of their own.
I have the honor to be, &c.
TO COUNT DE VERGENNES.
Chaillot, January 3d, 1779.