[12] [The above note of the author is on a slip of paper, pasted in at the end of the Declaration. Here is also sewed into the MS. a slip of newspaper containing, under the head "Declaration of Independence," a letter from Thomas M'Kean, to Messrs. William M'Corkle & Son, dated "Philadelphia, June 16, 1817." This letter is to be found in the Port Folio, Sept. 1817, p. 249.] [13] [Here terminate the author's notes of the "earlier debates on the confederation," and recommences the MS. begun by him in 1821.] [14] [See Appendix, note A.] [15] [See Appendix, note E.] [16] His ostensible character was to be that of a merchant, his real one that of agent for military supplies, and also for sounding the dispositions of the government of France, and seeing how far they would favor us, either secretly or openly. His appointment had been by the Committee of foreign correspondence, March, 1776. [17] [See Appendix, note F.] [18] Vattel L. 2, § 156. L. 4, § 77. 1. Mably Droit D'Europe, 86. [19] [In the original MS., the paragraph ending "fell through," terminates page 81 between this page and the next, there is stitched in, a leaf of old writing, constituting a memorandum, whereof note G. in the Appendix, is a copy.] [20] The Crimea. [21] [Extract from the despatch of the Count de Vergennes, to the Marquis de Verac, Ambassador from France, at the Hague, dated March 1, 1786: