These motives were undoubtedly sufficient in support of your Proposal and although you added that War, though giving to the Captors an incontestable right over the Discipline and the Police of their Prisoners does not however impose upon them the Obligation of providing for their Wants you would certainly mean to allude to their secondary Wants only and in Proof of this the English Government, as you have already declared, always understood that it must have provided what was absolutely necessary for the subsistence of the French Prisoners even on the Supposition that none of the Demands contained in your letter had been acceded to. The respect paid by all civilized Nations to the immutable Laws of Humanity and the Empire of those Laws over the English Nation will not allow me to give any other Construction to your statement. The result of this explanation, Sir, is that the mode adopted since November 1797 for the Subsistence and Treatment of Prisoners of War, had chiefly in view to ameliorate their Condition; the Consuls of the Republic in declining to observe this Mode any longer for the reasons before stated are nevertheless determined to neglect no means in order to ensure the same effect. They have, in consequence, ordered me to assure you, that from the 1st of Nivose next when all remittances of money from England to France and from France to England for the Subsistence and Treatment of Prisoners of War are to cease your Countrymen in France shall be treated whether in Health or Sickness with every attention due to their Rank and Situation and that with a View to their Food being better adapted to their Mode of Living in their own Country; they shall receive both ashore and in any other Place of Detention the Ration fixed by the Fourth Article of the Cartel of Exchange. As this Order of things will place France and England with regard to the Prisoners made by each of the Two Powers on the Footing on which they have stood previous to the 25th of November 1797 the Consuls of the French Republic desire that the English Commissary at Paris and the French Commissary at London may not interfere after the first of Nivose next in any Details relative to the Prisoners of War except in the cases specified in the 3rd Article of the Cartel of the 13th September 1798. They have particularly directed me to assure you that the said Cartel shall be executed with that strict Attention to good Faith, which will characterize all the Acts of the French Consuls and that, if they have felt it their duty under the present Circumstances to re-establish the former System of Management with respect to Prisoners of War, they at the same time, understand that the two belligerent Powers may on the Return of a General Peace bring forward such Claims for Compensation as may then be deemed necessary. I have the Honour to be, &c., (Signed) NIOU.