_Of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, to the Articles to serve as a Basis to the Negotiation for the Re-establishment of Peace._ ARTICLE I. The United States of America have no objection, provided their allies have none, to a treaty with Great Britain, concerning the re-establishment of peace in America, or to another concerning the re-establishment of commerce between the two nations, consistent with their obligations to France and Spain, without the intervention of any of the other belligerent parties, and even without that of the two Imperial Courts, at least, unless their mediation should be formally demanded and granted upon this object, according to the first article communicated to me. ART. II. The United States have nothing to say, provided their allies have not, against the second article. ART. III. To the armistice, and the _statu quo_, in the third article, the United States have very great objections, which indeed are so numerous and decisive, and at the same time so obvious, as to make it unnecessary to state them in detail. The idea of a truce is not suggested in these articles; but as it is mentioned in some observations shown me by his Excellency, the Count de Vergennes, it may be necessary for me to add, that the United States are so deeply impressed with an apprehension, that any truce whatsoever would not fail to be productive of another long and bloody war at the termination of it, and that a short truce would be in many ways highly dangerous to them, that it would be with great reluctance that they should enter into any discussion at all upon such a subject. Two express conditions would be indispensable preliminaries to their taking into consideration the subject of a truce at all. The first is, that their allies agree, that the treaties now subsisting remain in full force during and after the truce, until the final acknowledgment of their independence by Great Britain. The second is, the antecedent removal of the British land and naval armaments from every part of the United States. Upon these two express conditions as preliminaries, if a truce should be proposed for so long a period, or for an indefinite period, requiring so long notice, previous to a renewal of hostilities, as to evince that it is on the part of Great Britain a virtual relinquishment of the object of the war, and an expedient only to avoid the mortification of an express acknowledgment of the independence and sovereignty of the United States, they, with the concurrence of their allies, might accede to it.