myself with the hope that in the treaty you are about to conclude with Denmark you will find it easy and highly advantageous to include certain articles for admitting America into the armed neutrality. I persuade myself beforehand that this would afford pleasure to the Empress of Russia, who is at the head of that noble and humane combination; and as I shall now set out immediately for St. Petersburg, I will mention the idea to her Imperial Majesty and let you know her answer. "If Congress should think I deserve the promotion that was proposed when I was last in America, and should condescend to confer on me the grade of rear admiral from the day I took the Serapis (23d of September, 1779), I am persuaded it would be very agreeable to the empress, who now deigns to offer me an equal rank in her service, although I never yet had the honour to draw my sword in her cause, nor to do any other act that could directly merit her imperial benevolence. While I express, in the warm effusion of a grateful heart, the deep sense I feel of my eternal obligation to you as the author of the honourable prospect that is now before me, I must rely on your friendship to justify to the United States the important step I now take, conformable to your advice. You know I had no idea of this new fortune when I found that you had put it in train, before my last return to Paris from America. I have not forsaken a country that has had many disinterested and difficult proofs of my steady affection, and I can never renounce the glorious title of _a citizen of the United States!_