a question had been suggested, he thought it ought to be considered:  that this being done, I might now issue passports to sea-vessels in the form prescribed by the French treaty.  I had for a week past only issued the Dutch form; to have issued the French, would have been presupposing the treaty to be in existence.  The President suggested, that he thought it would be as well that nothing should be said of such a question having been under consideration.  Written May the 6th.

May the 6th, 1793.  When the question was, whether the proclamation of April the 22nd should be issued, Randolph observed, that there should be a letter written by me to the ministers of the belligerent powers, to declare that it should not be taken as conclusive evidence against our citizens in foreign courts of admiralty, for contraband goods.  Knox suddenly adopted the opinion before Hamilton delivered his.  Hamilton opposed it pretty strongly.  I thought it an indifferent thing, but rather approved Randolph’s opinion.  The President was against it; but observed that, as there were three for it, it should go.  This was the first instance I had seen of an opportunity to decide by a mere majority, including his own vote.

May the 12th.  Lear called on me to-day.  Speaking of the lowness of stocks (sixteen shillings), I observed it was a pity we had not money to buy on public account.  He said, yes, and that it was the more provoking, as two millions had been borrowed for that purpose, and drawn over here, and yet were not here.  That he had no doubt those would take notice of the circumstance whose duty it was to do so.  I suppose he must mean the President.

May the 23rd.  I had sent to the President, yesterday, draughts of a letter from him to the Provisory Executive Council of France, and of one from myself to Mr. Ternant, both on the occasion of his recall.  I called on him to-day.  He said there was an expression in one of them, which he had never before seen in any of our public communications, to wit, ’our republic’ The letter prepared for him to the Council, began thus:  ’The Citizen Ternant has delivered to me the letter wherein you inform me, that yielding &c. you had determined to recall him from his mission, as your Minister Plenipotentiary to our republic.’  He had underscored the words our republic.  He said that certainly ours was a republican government, but yet we had not used that style in this way; that if any body wanted to change its form into a monarchy, he was sure it was only a few individuals, and that no man in the United States would set his face against it more than himself:  but that this was not what he was afraid of; his fears were from another quarter; that there was more danger of anarchy being introduced.  He adverted to a piece in Freneau’s paper of yesterday; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there never had been an act of the government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in any