I congratulate your Excellency most sincerely upon the cessation of hostilities, which you will learn from the enclosed Proclamation. You will doubtless have heard directly from General Carleton on the subject, so that it will not be necessary to trouble you with the substance of his letter to me.
Congress will this day, upon my report, take into consideration the propriety of discharging the prisoners, and the manner in which it is to be done. Sir Guy Carleton presses hard in his letter for the execution of the fifth of the Preliminary Articles. I have replied, that it cannot be executed till the treaty is ratified; and in the mean time endeavored to convince him, that the recommendation of Congress will be received with much more respect, when the persons, who compose our Legislatures, have returned to their respective homes, and the asperities occasioned by the war shall be a little worn down by the enjoyment of peace. It is a very capital omission in our treaty, that no time has been fixed for the evacuation of New York.
It were to be wished, that General Carleton's intentions on this head could be sounded by your Excellency.
Permit me to offer you my congratulations on the important event announced by the United States, in Congress, in the enclosed Proclamation for the cessation of hostilities; an event, which is not only pleasing, as it relieves us from the accumulated distresses of war in the bowels of our country, but as it affords the fairest and most flattering prospects of its future greatness and prosperity. I need not, I am persuaded, Sir, use any arguments to urge your Excellency and the State over which you preside, to the most scrupulous attention to the execution of every stipulation in our treaty, which may depend on you or them. A national character is now to be acquired. I venture to hope, that it will be worthy of the struggles by which we became a nation.
SIR GUY CARLETON TO ROBERT R. LIVINGSTON.
As I observe in the seventh article of the Provisional Treaty it is agreed, after stipulating that "all prisoners on both sides shall be set at liberty," that "his Britannic Majesty shall with all convenient speed, and without causing any destruction, or carrying away any negroes, or other property of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets from the United States, and from every port, place, and harbor within the same, &c.;" and as embarkations of persons and property are on the point of being made, I am to request that Congress would be pleased to empower any person or persons, on behalf of the United States, to be present at New York, and to assist such persons as shall be appointed by me to inspect and superintend all embarkations, which the evacuation of this place may require; and they will be pleased to represent to me every infraction of the letter or spirit of the treaty, that redress may be immediately ordered.