To John Jay from the New York State Assembly, 14 August 1798
From the New York State Assembly
[Assembly-Chamber, August 14, 1798.]
SIR,
Being fully convinced that your Excellency in convening this extraordinary session of the Legislature, has been solely influenced by a just and attentive regard to the public welfare, and that the measure is warranted by the very critical situation of public affairs, it is with the utmost prompitude that we meet your Excellency at this important and alarming crisis.
It is to be regretted, that the repeated, disinterested and friendly attentions of our government to the republic of France, have not produced the happy effects we had reason to expect; and that from the progress and result of the negotiations tendered by the United States to the republic of France, there is reason to apprehend that peace with us is not among the objects of the present Directory.
Admonished by multiplied examples in Europe, that civil discord, directed by a foreign hand, is the bane of republican governments, we feel persuaded that the virtue and patriotism of the great body of our fellow citizens, will repel with equal firmness the diplomatic arts, and open violence, not only of the republic of France but of all foreign nations.
Permit us to assure your Excellency, that the several important subjects submitted to our consideration, in your Excellency’s speech, and the papers accompanying the same, shall receive our sincere deliberation.
The necessary appropriations for the defence of the state, for the erection of arsenals, and for a suitable supply of military implements and stores, will in a particular manner engage our immediate attention.
It is with pleasure we receive, and with great sincerity we reciprocate, your Excellency’s asurances, of a determination to cherish a spirit of union and patriotism, and shall most cheerfully co-operate with you in encouraging and enabling our citizens to transmit to posterity, our national honor and our national rights unsullied and undiminished. By order of the Assembly,
DIRCK TEN BROECK Speaker.
PtD, Albany Gazette and Albany Centinel, 17 Aug.; Daily Advertiser (New York) and Argus, Greeenleafs New Daily Advertiser, 21 Aug.; Greenleaf’s New York Journal, 22 Aug.; Spectator (New York), 22 Aug.; Federal Gazette (Baltimore), 22 Aug.; Philadelphia Gazette, 22. Aug.; Gazette of the United States (Philadelphia), 23 Aug.; Massachusetts Mercury (Boston), 24 Aug.; and Telegraphe and Daily Advertiser (Baltimore), 24 Aug.; Northern Centinel (Salem, N.Y.), 27 Aug.; Universal Gazette (Philadelphia), 30 Aug.; and Otsego Herald (Cooperstown), 30 Aug. 1798. , 16.
This final text of the assembly’s response to JJ’s address of 9 Aug., above, is the culmination of a series of drafts submitted to a committee of the whole and amended in the course of debate, a process that indicated the sensitivity of the subject and the political divisions involved with regard to the references to France. The original draft (not found) submitted by the committee appointed to prepare the address was replaced in the committee of the whole by amendment on a motion by John Van Rensselaer, one of the original committee members who composed an alternate draft. A second proposed address submitted by David Hopkins of Washington County was approved in place of Van Rensselaer’s draft. A third proposed draft submitted by John B. Prevost was rejected. The committee of the whole then returned to discussing and revising Hopkins’s text. The committee then reported it to the house where it was again read and agreed to. N.Y. Assembly Journal, 22 nd sess. (August 1798), 12–17. For JJ’s reply, see JJ’s Message to the New York State Assembly, 14 Aug. 1798, below.