Sir,
I am exceedingly obliged to your Excellency for your communication of the 15th. The Articles of the treaty between America and Great Britain, as they stand in connexion with a general pacification, are so very inconclusive, that I am fully in sentiment with your Excellency, that we should hold ourselves in a hostile position, prepared for either alternative, peace or war.
I shall confer with the Duc de la Lauzun on the objects you are pleased to mention; and as I have ever viewed the practice of the States in supplying the enemy in New York with the means of subsistence, as a very pernicious one in its tendency, both to ourselves and to our allies, you may depend upon me to exert every measure in my power to prevent it.
I am at all times happy in receiving any intelligence from your Excellency, and should it be in your power to announce a general peace, you cannot make a more pleasing communication to me.
Persuaded of the pure and benevolent intentions, which animate the breast of his Most Christian Majesty, I am assured, if that happy event should not result from the present negotiations, that the failure will not rest on his part.
I have the honor to be, &c.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
MINUTES OF A VERBAL COMMUNICATION FROM THE MINISTER OF FRANCE.
Office of Foreign Affairs, March 22d, 1783.
The Minister of France, waiting upon Mr Livingston at 12 o'clock agreeable to appointment, communicated to him a letter from the Count de Vergennes, dated the 19th of November.