UNITED STATES, _May 31, 1797_.
_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
I nominate General Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina,
Francis Dana, chief justice of the State of Massachusetts, and General
John Marshall, of Virginia, to be jointly and severally envoys
extraordinary and ministers plenipotentiary to the French Republic.
After mature deliberation on the critical situation of our relations
with France, which have long engaged my most serious attention, I have
determined on these nominations of persons to negotiate with the French
Republic to dissipate umbrages, to remove prejudices, to rectify errors,
and adjust all differences by a treaty between the two powers.
It is in the present critical and singular circumstances of great
importance to engage the confidence of the great portions of the Union
in the characters employed and the measures which may be adopted. I have
therefore thought it expedient to nominate persons of talents and
integrity, long known and intrusted in the three great divisions of
the Union, and at the same time, to provide against the cases of death,
absence, indisposition, or other impediment, to invest any one or more
of them with full powers.