I beg leave to observe, that when Congress ordered my commission and instructions to be made out, they seem to have misapprehended the nature of the confederation proposed by her Imperial Majesty, to maintain the freedom of commerce, and of navigation. My commission and instructions are in part founded upon the supposition, that her Imperial Majesty, in her declaration of February 28th, 1780, had invited both the belligerent and neutral powers to enter into a general convention for that purpose, and authorise and direct me to accede to the same (if invited thereto) on the part of the United States. Whereas that declaration is in the nature of a notification to the belligerent powers only, and contains a complaint of the interruption the commerce and navigation of the neutral nations, and of her own subjects in particular, had suffered from the subjects of the belligerent powers, in violation of the rights of neutral nations, sets forth and claims those rights and declares, that to maintain them, to protect the honor of her flag, &c. she had fitted out the greatest part of her marine forces. These violations, it is said in it, ought to excite the attention of all neutral powers. In pursuance of this sentiment, a copy of the declaration was communicated to the Courts of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Lisbon, and to the States-General; in which communication they are invited to make a common cause of this business with her Imperial Majesty, who adds, that if to establish this system on a solid foundation, the neutral powers abovementioned would open a negotiation, and enter into a particular convention, she would be ready to come into it. This is the only passage I have been able to find in all the acts relative to this subject, which gives the least idea of a Congress or general negotiation. No general negotiation has ever been opened in consequence of this intimation, and if there had been, the belligerent powers, I conceive, could have taken no part regularly in it, or in the particular conventions which might have been the result. They had only to make their several answers to the declaration which her Imperial Majesty made to them, as they have done. The marine convention which was afterwards first entered into by her Imperial Majesty, and the King of Denmark, and which has served as a basis for all the others, being nothing more than an association to maintain their rights as neutral powers, no formal accession can be made to such a confederation on the part of the United States, till they cease to be a belligerent power.