power.

To adopt with prudent foresight such systematical measures as may be
expedient for calling forth those energies wherever the national
exigencies may require, whether on the ocean or on our own territory,
and to reconcile with the proper security of revenue the convenience of
mercantile enterprise, on which so great a proportion of the public
resources depends, are objects of moment which shall be duly regarded in
the course of our deliberations.

Fully as we accord with you in the opinion that the United States ought
not to submit to the humiliation of sending another minister to France
without previous assurances sufficiently determinate that he will be
duly accredited, we have heard with cordial approbation the declaration
of your purpose steadily to observe those maxims of humane and pacific
policy by which the United States have hitherto been governed. While it
is left with France to take the requisite steps for accommodation, it is
worthy the Chief Magistrate of a free people to make known to the world
that justice on the part of France will annihilate every obstacle to the
restoration of a friendly intercourse, and that the Executive authority
of this country will respect the sacred rights of embassy. At the same
time, the wisdom and decision which have characterized your past
Administration assure us that no illusory professions will seduce you
into any abandonment of the rights which belong to the United States as
a free and independent nation.

December 13, 1798.