_Gentlemen of the Senate_:
The proposition of a fresh negotiation with France in consequence
of advances made by the French Government has excited so general an
attention and so much conversation as to have given occasion to many
manifestations of the public opinion, from which it appears to me that
a new modification of the embassy will give more general satisfaction
to the legislature and to the nation, and perhaps better answer the
purposes we have in view.
It is upon this supposition and with this expectation that I now
nominate Oliver Ellsworth, esq., Chief Justice of the United States;
Patrick Henry, esq., late governor of Virginia, and William Vans Murray,
esq., our minister resident at The Hague, to be envoys extraordinary and
ministers plenipotentiary to the French Republic, with full powers to
discuss and settle by a treaty all controversies between the United
States and France.
It is not intended that the two former of these gentlemen shall embark
for Europe until they shall have received from the Executive Directory
assurances, signified by their secretary of foreign relations, that
they shall be received in character, that they shall enjoy all the
prerogatives attached to that character by the law of nations, and
that a minister or ministers of equal powers shall be appointed and
commissioned to treat with them.