character by the law of nations, and that a minister of equal rank,
title, and powers shall be appointed to treat with him, to discuss and
conclude all controversies between the two Republics by a new treaty.

JOHN ADAMS.



[Translation.]

PARIS, _the 7th Vendémiaire of the 7th Year
of the French Republic, One and Indivisible_.

_The Minister of Exterior Relations to Citizen Pichon, Secretary of
Legation of the French Republic near the Batavian Republic_:

I have received successively, Citizen, your letters of the 22d and 27th
Fructidor [8th and 13th September]. They afford me more and more reason
to be pleased with the measure you have adopted, to detail to me your
conversations with Mr. Murray. These conversations, at first merely
friendly, have acquired consistency by the sanction I have given to them
by my letter of the 11th Fructidor. I do not regret that you have
trusted to Mr. Murray's honor a copy of my letter. It was intended for
you only, and contains nothing but what is conformable to the intentions
of Government. I am thoroughly convinced that should explanations take
place with confidence between the two Cabinets, irritation would cease,
a crowd of misunderstandings would disappear, and the ties of friendship
would be the more strongly united as each party would discover the hand
which sought to disunite them. But I will not conceal from you that your
letters of the 2d and 3d Vendémiaire, just received, surprised me much.