similar engagements with France, Spain and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, or in Case France and Spain should refuse to enter into a Convention founded on the Principles of the armed Neutrality, or wish to delay it, till after the general Peace to form a separate Convention for similar Purposes between the United Provinces of the Netherlands and the United States of America. That the Answers to these Propositions do not appear from the Papers transmitted, though there is Room to infer from Mr. Dumas Letter of the fourth and eighteenth of February that the two first of these Propositions were encouraged by our Ministers and that the States General proposed to act in Consequence thereof and had made the last Proposition in order to be prepared in Case either or both of the two first should fail.

It appears from the report of the Secretary for foreign affairs, that no Powers at present vested in any Person in Europe to agree to any Treaty similar to that entered into by Russia, Sweden, Dennemark and the United Provinces of the Netherlands after the Peace shall be concluded. The Resolution of the 5th. of October 1780 empowers the Ministers of these States if invited thereto, to acceed to such Regulations conformable to the Spirit of the Declaration of the Empress of Russia as may be agreed upon by the Congress expected to assemble in Pursuance of the Invitation of her Imperial Majesty. Our Ministers received no Invitation, and special Powers were afterwards given to Mr. Dana which in their Nature superseded that Resolution. Mr. Dana was by his Commission and Instructions empowered to sign the Treaty on Convention for the Protection of Commerce in Behalf of the United States either with her Imperial Majesty or any of those, that is those neutral Powers. The Treaty terminated with the War or at most extended, only to sign it with the neutral Powers, and not to form a new and separate Treaty.

Where upon Congress came to the following Resolution.

Whereas the primary Object of the Resolution of October 5. 1780 and of the Commission and Instructions to Mr. Dana relative to the Accesstion of the United States to the neutral confederacy no longer can operate, and as the True Interest of these States requires that they should be as little as possible entangled in the Politics and Controverses of European Nations, it is inexpedient to renew the said Powers either to Mister Dana, or, to the other Ministers of these United States in Europe: But in as much as the liberal Principles on which the said Confederacy was established are conceived to be in general favorable to the Interests of Nations and particularly to those of the United States and ought in that View to be promoted by the latter as far as will consist with their fundamental Policy.

Resolved that the Ministers Plenipotentiary of these United States for negotiating a Peace be and they are hereby instructed, in case they should comprize in the difinitive Treaty any Stipulation amounting to a Recognition of the Rights of neutral Nations, to avoid accompanying them by any Engagements which shall oblige the contracting Parties to support those Stipulations by arms. (signed)