I have the honor to be, Sir, &c.
ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
CIRCULAR LETTER TO THE GOVERNORS OF THE STATES.
Philadelphia, February 18th, 1782.
Sir,
I do myself the honor to transmit to your Excellency several resolutions of Congress, which having a reference to the Department of Foreign Affairs, are in course to go through this office. The necessity of carrying them into effect is too obvious to need observations.
While we hold an intercourse with civilised nations, we must conform to laws, which humanity has established, and which custom has consecrated among them. On this the rights, which the United States or their citizens may claim in foreign countries must be founded.
One of the resolutions passed Congress in consequence of a convention about to be concluded between his Most Christian Majesty and the United States of America, which affords an additional reason for paying it the earliest attention. Your Excellency and the Legislature will see the propriety of rendering the laws on these subjects as simple, and the execution of them as expeditious, as possible, since foreigners, who are the great object of them, are easily disgusted at complex systems, which they find a difficulty in understanding, and the honor and peace of a nation are frequently as much wounded by a delay as by a denial of justice.
Another resolution relates to your boundaries, and is designed as one means of ascertaining the territorial rights of the United States collectively, which can only be accurately known by each State's exhibiting its claims, and the evidence on which they found them. Your Excellency will therefore be pleased to direct, authentic copies from your records of all grants, charters, maps, treaties with the natives, and other evidences, to be transmitted to this office, as soon as you can conveniently collect them. I could wish, that the copies might be proved, by having the great seal of your State annexed.
I have the honor to be, &c.