SIR,--I have laid before the President of the United States your letter of the 20th instant, accompanying translations of the instructions given you by the Executive Council of France to be distributed among the members of Congress, desiring that the President will lay them officially before both houses, and proposing to transmit successively other papers, to be laid before them in like manner; and I have it in charge to observe, that your functions as the missionary of a foreign nation here, are confined to the transactions of the affairs of your nation with the Executive of the United States; that the communications, which are to pass between the Executive and Legislative branches, cannot be a subject for your interference, and that the President must be left to judge for himself what matters his duty or the public good may require him to propose to the deliberations of Congress. I have therefore the honor of returning you the copies sent for distribution, and of being, with great respect, Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant. TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. PHILADELPHIA, December 31, 1793. DEAR SIR,--Having had the honor of communicating to you in my letter of the last of July, my purpose of returning from the office of Secretary of State, at the end of the month of September, you were pleased, for particular reasons, to wish its postponement to the close of the year. That term being now arrived, and my propensities to retirement becoming daily more and more irresistible, I now take the liberty of resigning the office into your hands. Be pleased to accept with it my sincere thanks for all the indulgences which you have been so good as to exercise towards me in the discharge of its duties. Conscious that my need of them has been great, I have still ever found them greater, without any other claim on my part, than a firm pursuit of what has appeared to me to be right, and a thorough disdain of all means which were not as open and honorable, as their object was pure. I carry into my retirement a lively sense of your goodness, and shall continue gratefully to remember it. With very sincere prayers for your life, health and tranquillity, I pray you to accept the homage of the great and constant respect and attachment with which I have the honor to be, dear Sir, your most obedient, and most humble servant. TO E. RANDOLPH. MONTICELLO, February 3, 1794.