sons of those rulers, as private and ordinary wrong doers, the American merchant, whom they deluded and despoiled in the garb and with the instruments and for the purposes of sovereignty, must despair, forever, of redress."

"The general principle, that a civil society may contract obligations through its actual government, whatever that may be, and that it is not absolved from them by reason, simply, of a change of government or of rulers, is universally received as incontrovertible. It is admitted, not merely by writers on public law as a speculative truth, but by states and statesmen as a practical rule, and accordingly history is full of examples to prove, that the undisturbed possessor of sovereign power in any society, whether a rightful possessor or not, with reference to other claimants of that power, may not only be the lawful object of allegiance, but, by many of its acts in quality of sovereign de facto, may bind the society and those, who come after him, as rulers, although their title be adverse to, or even better than his own. The Marquess di Circello does not need to be informed, that the earlier annals of England in particular abound in instruction upon this head.

"With regard to just and beneficial contracts, entered into by such a sovereign with the merchants of foreign nations, or (which is the same thing) with regard to the detention and confiscation of their property for public uses, and by his authority in direct violation of a pledge of safety, upon the faith of which, that property arrived within the reach of confiscation, this continuing responsibility stands upon the plainest foundation of natural equity.

"It will not be pretended, that a merchant is called upon to investigate, as he prosecutes his traffic, the title of every sovereign, with whose ports and under the guaranty of whose plighted word be trades. He is rarely competent. There are few in any station, who are competent to an investigation, so full of delicacy, so perplexed with facts and principles of a peculiar character, far removed from the common concerns of life. His predicament would be, to the last degree, calamitous if, in an honest search after commercial profit he might not take governments, as he finds them, and consequently rely at all times upon the visible, exclusive, acknowledged possession of supreme authority. If he sees all the usual indications of established rule, all the distinguishing concomitants of real, undisputed power, it cannot be, that it can

be his duty to discuss mysterious theories above his capacity, or foreign to his pursuits, and, moreover, to connect the results of those speculations with events, of which his knowledge is either imperfect, or erroneous. If he sees the obedience of the people and the acquiescence of neighbouring princes, it is impossible, that it can be his duty to examine before he ships his merchandise, whether it be fit, these should acquiesce, or those obey. If, in short, he finds nothing to interfere with or qualify the dominion, which the head of the society exercises over it and the domain which it occupies, it is the dictate of reason, sanctioned by all experience, that he is bound to look no further.

"It can be of no importance to him that, notwithstanding all these appearances, announcing lawful rule, the mere right to fill the throne is claimed by, or, even, resides in another than the actual occupant. The latent right, (supposing it to exist) disjointed from and controverted by the fact, is to him nothing, while it continues to be latent. It is the sovereign only in possession, that it is in his power to know. It is with him only that he can enter into engagements. It is through him only that he can deal with the society. And if it be true, that the sovereign in possession is incapable, on account of a conflict of title between him and another, who barely claims, but makes no effort to assert his claim, of pledging the public faith of the society and of the monarch to foreign traders for commercial and other objects, we are driven to the monstrous conclusion, that the society is, in effect and indefinitely, cut off from all communication with the rest of the world. It has and can have no organ, by which it can become accountable to, or make any contract with foreigners, by which needful supplies may be invited into its harbours, by which famine may be averted or redundant productions be made to find a market in the wants of strangers. It is, in a word, an outcast from the great community of nations, at the very moment, too, when its existence in the form, which it has assumed, may every where be admitted. And, even, if the dormant claim to the throne should, at last, by a fortunate coincidence of circumstances become triumphant and unite itself to the possession, this harsh and palsying theory has no assurance to give either to the society, or to those who may incline to deal with it, that its moral capacity is restored, that it is an outcast no longer, and that it may now, through the protecting 28

VOL. II.

will of its new sovereign, do what it could not do before. It contains, of course, no adequate and certain provision against even the perpetuity of the dilemma, which it creates. If, therefore, a civil society is not competent, when in entire possession of the sovereignty, to enter into such promises to the members of other societies, as necessity or convenience may require, and to remain unanswerable for the breach of them, into whatsoever shape the society may ultimately be cast, or in whatsoever hands the government may ultimately fall; if a sovereign, entirely in possession, is not able, for that reason alone, to incur a just responsibility in his political or corporate character to the citizens of other countries, and to transmit that responsibility, even, to those, who succeed him by displacing him, it will be difficult to show, that the moral capacity of a civil society is any thing but a name, or the responsibility of sovereigns any thing but a shadow. And here the undersigned will take the liberty to suggest, that it is scarcely for the interest of sovereigns to inculcate as a maxim, that their lost dominions can only be recovered at the expense of the unoffending citizen of states in amity, or, which is equivalent to it, to make that recovery the practical consummation of intermediate injustice, by utterly extinguishing the hope of indemnity and, even, the title to demand it.

"The undersigned will now, for the sake of perspicuity and precision, recall to the recollection of his Excellency the Marquess di Circello the situation of the government of Murat at the epoch of the confiscations in question. Whatever might be the origin or foundation of that government, it had for some time been established. It had obtained such obedience as, in such times, was customary, and had manifested itself, not only by active internal exertions of legislative and executive powers, but by important external transactions with old and indisputably regular governments. It had been (as long afterwards it continued to be) recognised by the greatest potentates as one of the European family of states, and had interchanged with them ambassadors and other public ministers and consuls. And Great Britain by an order in council of the 26th April 1809, which modified the system of constructive blockade, promulgated by the orders of November 1807, had excepted the Neapolitan territories with other portions of Italy from the operation of that system, that neutrals might no longer be prevented from trading with them."

"The wrong, which the government of Murat inflicted upon American citizens, wanted nothing, that might give to it atrocity or effect as a robbery, introduced by treachery; but, however pernicious or execrable, it was still reparable. It left in the sufferers and their nation a right, which was not likely to be forgotten or abandoned, of seeking and obtaining ample redress, not from Murat simply, (who individually was lost in the sovereign) but from the government of the country, whose power he abused. By what course of argument can it be proved, that the incontestable right, from which that government could never have escaped, has been destroyed by the reaccession of his Sicilian Majesty, after a long interval, to the sovereignty of the same territories?

"That such a result cannot in any degree be inferred from the misconduct of the American claimants is certain; for no misconduct is imputable to them. They were warranted in every view of the public law of Europe in holding commercial communication with Naples, in the predicament in which they found it, and in trusting to the direct and authentic assurances, which the government of the place affected to throw over them as a shield against every danger. Their shipments were strictly within the terms of those assurances, and nothing was done by the shippers or their agents, by which the benefit of them might be lost or impaired.

"From what other source can such a result be drawn? Will it be said, that the proceeds of these confiscations were not applied to public purposes during the sovereignty of Murat, or that they produced no public advantages with reference, to which the present government ought to be liable? The answer to such a suggestion is, that let the fact be as it may, it can have no influence upon the subject. It is enough, that the confiscations themselves and the promise of safety, which they violated, were acts of state, proceeding from him, who was then and for several successive years the sovereign. The derivative liability of the present government reposes, not upon the good either public or private, which may have been the fruit of such a revolting exhibition of power, emancipated from all the restraints of principle, but upon the general foundation, which the undersigned has already had the honour to expose.

"To follow the proceeds of these spoliations into the public treasury, and thence to all the uses to which they were finally made subservient, can be no part of the duty of the American claimant. It is a task, which he has no means of performing, and

which, if performed by others, could neither strengthen his case nor enfeeble it. And it may confidently be insisted not only that he has no concern with the particular application of these proceeds, but that, even, if he had, he would be authorized to rely upon the presumption, that they were applied as public money to public ends, or left in the public coffers. It must be remembered, moreover, that whatever may have been the destiny of these unhallowed spoils, they cannot well have failed to be instrumental in meliorating the condition of the country. They afforded extraordinary pecuniary means, which, as far as they extended, must have saved it from augmentation of its burdens, or, by relieving the ordinary revenue, made that revenue adequate to various improvements either of use or beauty, which, otherwise, it could not have accomplished. The territories, therefore, under the sway of Murat must be supposed to have returned to his Sicilian Majesty less exhausted, more embellished and more prosperous, than if the property of American citizens had not, in the mean time, been sacrificed to cupidity and cunning. It must further be remembered, that a part of that property was notoriously devoted to the public service. Some of the vessels, seized by orders of Murat were, on account of their excellent construction, converted into vessels of war, and as such commissioned by the government; and the undersigned is informed, that they are now in the possession of the officers of his Sicilian Majesty, and used and claimed as belonging to him."

This letter, after some delay, was answered by the Marquess di Circello, though Mr. Pinkney had at the time left Naples for St. Petersburg. We shall give some extracts from the reply, and the reader will perceive, that the Neapolitan government have declared themselves, by no means, responsible for these demands. In this position, they have gone one step beyond any other European state.

"The demand of Mr. Pinkney would not be, on this account, the less invalid, since the confiscation and sale of the American vessels and cargoes were acts, which proceeded directly from the power and from the will of Bonaparte. There exists, in fact, in the archives of the treasury a report of the minister, Agar, who presided over that department in 1809, addressed to Murat, who was then at Paris.