Gentlemen of the House of Representatives:
In pursuance of the request in your resolve of yesterday, I lay before you such information as I have received touching a suspension of the arret of the French Republic, communicated to your House by my message of the 28th of January last. But if the execution of that arret be suspended, or even if it were repealed, it should be remembered that the arret of the Executive Directory of the 2d of March, 1797, remains in force, the third article of which subjects, explicitly and exclusively, American seamen to be treated as pirates if found on board ships of the enemies of France.
JOHN ADAMS.
John Adams, Special Message Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/202395