It would give us great pain if anything we have written or now write respecting this Court should be construed to impeach the friendship of the King and nation for us. We also believe that the Minister is so far our friend, and is disposed so far to do us good offices, as may correspond with, and be dictated by his system of policy for promoting the power, riches, and glory of France. God forbid that we should ever sacrifice our faith, our gratitude, or our honor, to any considerations of convenience; and may He also forbid that we should ever be unmindful of the dignity and independent spirit, which should always characterize a free and generous people. We shall immediately propose an Article to be inserted in the definitive treaty for postponing the payment of British debts for the time mentioned by Congress. There are, no doubt, certain ambiguities in our Articles, but it is not to be wondered at, when it is considered how exceedingly averse Britain was to any expressions, which explicitly wounded the tories; and how disinclined we were to use any, that should amount to absolute stipulations in their favor. The words for returning the property of _real British subjects_ were well understood and explained between us, _not_ to mean or comprehend _American refugees_. Mr Oswald and Mr Fitzherbert know this to have been the case, and will readily confess and admit it. This mode of expression was preferred by them, as a more delicate mode of excluding those refugees, and of making a proper distinction between them and the subjects of Britain, whose only particular interest in America consisted in holding lands or property there. The 6th Article, viz. where it declares, that no _future confiscations_ shall be made, &c. ought to have fixed the time with greater accuracy. We think the most fair and true construction is, that it relates to the date of the cessation of hostilities. That is the time when peace in fact took place, in consequence of prior informal, though binding, contracts to terminate the war. We consider the definitive treaties, as only giving the dress of form to those contracts, and not as constituting the obligation of them. Had the cessation of hostilities been the effect of truce, and consequently nothing more than a temporary suspension of war, another construction would have been the true one. We are officially assured by Mr Hartley, that positive orders for the evacuation of New York have been despatched, and that no avoidable delay will retard that event. Had we proposed to fix a time for it, the British Commissioner would have contended, that it should be a time posterior to the date of the definitive treaty, and that would have been probably more disadvantageous to us, than as that Article now stands.