3428. GENET, Recall of.—[further continued] .
Lay the case * * *
immediately before his government. Accompany
it with assurances, which cannot be
stronger than true, that our friendship for the
nation is constant and unabating; that, faithful
to our treaties, we have fulfilled them in
every point to the best of our understanding;
that if in anything, however, we have construed
them amiss, we are ready to enter into candid
explanations, and to do whatever we can be
convinced is right; that in opposing the extravagances
of an agent, whose character they
seem not sufficiently to have known, we have
been urged by motives of duty to ourselves
and justice to others, which cannot but be
approved by those who are just themselves;
and finally, that after independence and self-government,
there is nothing we more sincerely
wish than perpetual friendship with them. [214]
—
To Gouverneur Morris. Washington ed. iv, 50.
Ford ed., vi, 393.
(P.
Aug. 16, 1793)