This, you may be assured, will extend itself to the Count, and to the officers and men of his whole fleet, should they return to Rhode Island, unless a reconciliation shall have taken place.

The Marquis speaks kindly of a letter from you to him on this subject.

He will therefore take any advice from you in a friendly way; and, if he can be pacified, the other French gentlemen will, of course, be satisfied; since they look up to him as their head.

The Marquis grounds his complaint on a general order of the 24th of August, and upon the universal clamour that prevailed against the French nation.
"I beg you will take every measure to keep the protest entered into by the general officers from being made public.

Congress, sensible of the ill consequences that will flow from our differences being known to the world, have passed a resolve to that purpose.