Germany was at that time at peace with England; and yet an agent of that Congress, which was looked upon by England in no other light than that of a body in open rebellion, was not only received with great respect by the ambassador of the Empress Queen at Paris, and by the minister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany (who afterwards mounted the Imperial throne), but resided in Vienna for a considerable time; not, indeed, officially acknowledged, but treated with courtesy and respect; and the Emperor suffered himself to be persuaded by that agent to exert himself to prevent the German powers from furnishing troops to England to enable her to suppress the rebellion in America.  Neither Mr. Huelsemann nor the Cabinet of Vienna, it is presumed, will undertake to say that any thing said or done by this government in regard to the recent war between Austria and Hungary is not borne out, and much more than borne out, by this example of the Imperial Court.  It is believed that the Emperor Joseph the Second habitually spoke in terms of respect and admiration of the character of Washington, as he is known to have done of that of Franklin; and he deemed it no infraction of neutrality to inform himself of the progress of the revolutionary struggle in America, or to express his deep sense of the merits and the talents of those illustrious men who were then leading their country to independence and renown.  The undersigned may add, that in 1781 the courts of Russia and Austria proposed a diplomatic congress of the belligerent powers, to which the commissioners of the United States should be admitted.

Mr. Huelsemann thinks that in Mr. Mann’s instructions improper expressions are introduced in regard to Russia; but the undersigned has no reason to suppose that Russia herself is of that opinion.  The only observation made in those instructions about Russia is, that she “has chosen to assume an attitude of interference, and her immense preparations for invading and reducing the Hungarians to the rule of Austria, from which they desire to be released, gave so serious a character to the contest as to awaken the most painful solicitude in the minds of Americans.”  The undersigned cannot but consider the Austrian Cabinet as unnecessarily susceptible in looking upon language like this as a “hostile demonstration.”  If we remember that it was addressed by the government to its own agent, and has received publicity only through a communication from one department of the American government to another, the language quoted must be deemed moderate and inoffensive.  The comity of nations would hardly forbid its being addressed to the two imperial powers themselves.  It is scarcely necessary for the undersigned to say, that the relations of the United States with Russia have always been of the most friendly kind, and have never been deemed by either party to require any compromise of their peculiar views upon subjects of domestic or foreign polity, or the true origin of governments.  At any rate, the