The memorial from the army was laid before Congress, and referred to a grand committee. This reference was intended as a mark of the important light in which the memorial was viewed.

Mr. Berkley having represented some inconveniences incident to the plan of a consular convention between France and the United States, particularly the restriction of consuls from trading, and his letter having been committed, a report was made proposing that the convention should for the present be suspended. To this it had been objected that, as the convention might already be concluded, such a step was improper; and as the end might be obtained by authorizing the minister at Versailles to propose particular alterations, that it was unnecessary. By Mr. MADISON it had been moved, that the report should be postponed, to make place for the consideration of an instruction and authority to the said minister for that purpose; and this motion had, in consequence, been brought before Congress. On this day the business revived. The sentiments of the members were various, some wishing to suspend such part of the convention only as excluded consuls from commerce; others thought this exclusion too important to be even suspended; others, again, thought the whole ought to be suspended during the war; and others, lastly, contended that the whole ought to be new modelled, the consuls having too many privileges in some respects, and too little power in others. It was observable that this diversity of opinions prevailed chiefly among the members who had come in since the convention had passed in Congress; the members originally present adhering to the views which then governed them. the subject was finally postponed; eight states only being represented, and nine being requisite for such a question. Even to have suspended the convention, after it had been proposed to the court of France, and possibly acceded to, would have been indecent and dishonorable, and, at a juncture when Great Britain was courting a commercial intimacy, to the probable uneasiness of France, of very mischievous tendency. But experience constantly teaches that new members of a public body do not feel the necessary respect or responsibility for the acts of their predecessors, and that a change of members and of circumstances often proves fatal to consistency and stability of public measures. Some conversation in private, by the old members with the most judicious of the new, in this instance, has abated the tiredness of the latter for innovations, and it is even problematical whether they will be again urged.

In the evening of this day the grand committee met, and agreed to meet again the succeeding evening, for the purpose of a conference with the superintendent of finance.

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