University of Virginia Library

8882. WAR, Executives and.—

We have
received a report that the French Directory
has proposed a declaration of war against the
United States to the Council of Ancients, who
have rejected it. Thus we see two nations,
who love one another affectionately, brought
by the ill temper of their executive administrations,
to the very brink of a necessity to
imbrue their hands in the blood of each other.—
To Aaron Burr. Washington ed. iv, 187. Ford ed., vii, 148.
(Pa., June. 1797)