The reader is requested to pause, to reflect on the state of things at the date of this letter, and to ask himself if its inevitable tendency be not to strengthen the impression in the Directory of France which had influenced its conduct towards the United States?--If it be not in the same spirit with the interpolated sentence, carried to a greater extreme, and calculated to produce the same effect?--If the editor who made the interpolation might not reasonably suppose that he was only applying expressly to France a sentiment already indicated in terms too plain to be misunderstood? France and Great Britain were then waging deadly war against each other. In this mortal conflict, each sought to strengthen herself, or weaken her adversary by any influence to be acquired over foreign powers--by obtaining allies when allies were attainable, or securing neutrality where co-operation was not to be expected. The temper with which the American people contemplated this awful spectacle can not be forgotten. The war of our revolution, in which France fought by the side of America against Great Britain, was fresh in their recollection. Her unexamined professions of republicanism enlisted all their affections in her favour, and all their antipathies against the monarchs with whom she was contending. Feelings which were believed to be virtuous, and which certainly wore the imposing garb of patriotism, impelled them with almost irresistible force against that wise neutrality which the executive government had laboured to preserve, and had persisted in preserving with wonderful and unexampled firmness. France might, not unreasonably, indulge the hope that our government would be forced out of its neutral course, and be compelled to enter into the war as her ally. The letter to Mazzei could scarcely fail to encourage this hope. The suggestion had been repeatedly made, and France not only countenanced but acted on it, that the American people were ready to take part with her, and were with difficulty restrained by their government. That the government had fallen into the hands of an English party who were the more closely attached to their favourite nation, because they were unfriendly to republicanism, and sought to assimilate the government of the United States to that of England. Partiality to England was ingratitude to France. Monarchical propensities were of course anti-republican, and led to a system of policy separating the United States from republican France, and connecting them with her monarchical enemies. These sentiments were expressed in the interpolated sentence; and are intimated in terms perhaps more offensive, certainly not to be mistaken, in the letter as avowed. Review its language.