The Consuls of the Republic having been engaged in an Investigation of its Interests, both at home and abroad, have turned their attention to the mode at present observed by France and England with respect to the Subsistence and Treatment of Prisoners of War in the Hands of these two belligerent Powers. They have caused all the papers relative to the Adoption of this system to be carefully examined and a report having been made to them in this subject they perceive. 1st. That in your letter to the Lords of the Admiralty of the 6th of October 1797 after having claimed the Admission of Captain Cotes into France and the Exchange or at least the Liberation on Parole of Sir Sidney Smith, you proposed in order to put an end to the Recriminations relative to the Treatment of Prisoners continually renewed on both sides that the Prisoners should be furnished in the Country where they were detained with Clothing, Subsistence, and Medicines at the Expence of the Government to which they belonged. 2ndly. That the said Arrangement took place in consequence of the Communications respecting this Proposal made to M. Charretie the French Commissary by the Commissioners of the Transport Office on the 12th October and the 13th November following in pursuance of the orders of the Lords of the Admiralty. I shall not revert here, Sir, to the circumstances which preceded this Arrangement, but it is my Duty to declare to you, that the Consuls of the Republic having remarked that it was not founded upon any authentic Stipulation, that the Cartel of Exchange signed nearly Ten Months afterwards took not the least notice of it and that it was an obvious contradiction of all the usages and Laws of War, were of opinion, that on the one Hand, the further execution of it was derogatory both to the Interests and to the Dignity of the Republic, and, on the other that neither the good Faith the Government wishes to manifest on every occasion, nor the peculiar solicitude it owes to its Fellow Citizens, did in any manner call upon it to continue to observe this Arrangement. Indeed, Sir, you have yourself declared, in your letter of the 6th October 1797 the one of the Motives which led you to wish for this Arrangement, was the Difficulty of judging whether the Complaints of the Prisoners were well or ill founded; that some of these Complaints were dictated by Passion by Prejudice or Animosity, whilst others arose solely from the Difference in their Mode of Living, and in the same Letter you acknowledged that the belligerent Powers in preceding Wars when the Account of Expences incurred for their respective Prisoners came to be adjusted admitted only the sums advanced for their Clothing. The principal Motives alleged by you, Sir, were therefore the necessity of putting an end to the Complaints of the Prisoners and the Benefit they would derive from being subsisted and treated in a Manner conformable to their former Habits.