and august commission was instituted, consisting of Mr. Pinckney, John Marshall, and Elbridge Gerry, who, after enduring many insults and baffling many intrigues, returned to the United States. The United States, apprehending war with not only France, but Great Britain also, laid the foundations of their present systems of military and naval defence; and the controversy with the former power ripened into resistance, reprisal, and retaliation. After two years had thus passed, and after the French Directory had consented to negotiate, Oliver Ellsworth, William R. Davie, and William Vans Murray, proceeded to Paris as ambassadors. They found France just entering the fourth act of the drama of her Revolution-the consulate of the youthful conqueror of Italy. The American ministers demanded indemnities for the spoliations, as a sine qua non. The French ministers, at whose head was Joseph Bonaparte, readily yielded this condition, but insisted at the same time on a recognition and renewal of the ancient treaties, with national damages for the violation of them, as a sine qua non on their part. The Americans, in vain, resisted long and strenuously the pretensions of the French ministers, viz:

"That the treaties which united France and the United States are not broken; that even war could not have broken them; but that the state of misunderstanding which has existed for some time between France and the United States, by the act of some agents, rather than by the will of the respective governments, has not been a state of war, at least on the side of France."-Rep. Sec. State, 1825-'26, Doc. 108, page 616, No. 371.

But our ministers were finally constrained, by principles of public law, and the inflexible adherence to them by the French ministers, to yield the point, and admit that the treaties were still in forceand then they proposed to purchase with large sums of money a release from their most embarrassing stipulations.-Rep. Sec. State, 1825-'26, Doc. 108, page 631, No. 380.

They offered ten millions of francs for a release from the article of guaranty, and three millions of francs for a reduction of the privileges granted to France by the 17th article of the Treaty of Commerce, to such as were allowed by the United States to the most favored nation. France rejected all such overtures, and the commissioners, respectively, receding from their extreme demands, concluded an accommodation by which the United States secured compensation for the plunder of vessels not yet condemned, together with payment of the claims founded upon contracts, and also a satisfactory designation of articles contraband of war. The claims for spoliations in cases where condemnation had

already passed, the original sine qua non on our part, together with the reciprocal claims of France for national indemnities, and for a recognition and renewal of the ancient treaties, the original sine qua non on the part of France, were reserved by the following article:

"ART. 2. The Ministers Plenipotentiary of the two parties not being able to agree at present respecting the Treaty of Alliance of the 6th of February, 1778, the Treaty of Amity and Commerce of the same date, and the Convention of the 14th of November, 1788, nor upon the indemnities mutually due or claimed, the parties will negotiate further on those subjects at a convenient time; and until they have agreed upon these points, the said Treaties and Convention shall have no operation, and the relations of the two countries shall be regulated as follows."

The United States amended the new compact by striking out this second article altogether, and by adding a new one which limited its duration to eight years.

Bonaparte, First Consul, accepted the amendments, with an explanation, in these words:

"Provided, That by this retrenchment the two states renounce their respective pretensions which are the objects of the said (second) article.”

The United States assented, and the compact was ratified as thus mutually amended.

This is the convention of 1800. "The pretensions" which France thus relinquished, were claims for indemnities for viola. tions of the ancient treaties by the United States, together with a continuance and a renewal of those treaties; and the "pretensions" which the United States thus renounced, were the claims for indemnities for spoliations upon the property of American merchants, which are the subjects of the bill now before the Senate of the United States.

Mr. President, this review discloses

First. That on the 6th day of February, 1778, and on the 14th day of November, 1788, the United States and France entered into reciprocal, political, and commercial engagements, mutually beneficial.

Secondly. That, previously to the 30th of September, 1800, France violated her engagements by committing depredations, in which merchants, citizens of the United States, sustained damages to the amount of twenty millions of dollars, of which, after allowing all claims adjusted, there still remains the sum of ten millions of dollars, exclusive of interest.

Thirdly. That the United States negotiated with France for payVOL. 1-10.

ment of those damages, and also for a release from their ancient obligations; and that France conceded the claims for damages, but demanded national indemnities for a violation of the treaties by the United States, and also a continuance and renewal of them.

Fourthly. That the United States renounced their claims for damages due to their citizens, in consideration of a release by France of the treaties, and of her national claims for damages.

Fifthly. That thus the United States confiscated ten millions of private property of their citizens, and applied it to the purchase of national benefits, under a constitution which declares that private property shall not be taken for public uses without just compensation to its owners.

It seems to result from these facts, that the United States became immediately liable to pay to the American merchants the sums before due to them by France; and as this obligation was assumed by the United States in lieu of their ancient engagements with France, undertaken to secure the establishment of the national liberty and independence, it becomes in equity invested with their sacredness and sanctions, and therefore ought to be regarded as a debt incurred for the attainment of the sovereignty, liberty, and independence of the United States.

Why, then, Mr. President, shall not this debt, so ancient, and apparently so sacred and so just, be discharged?

I proceed to review the reasons which have been at various times assigned.

First. The intrinsic justice of the claims has been questioned. The very learned and justly distinguished Senator from Missouri, [Mr. BENTON] in a former debate, stated that France had justified these spoliations, on the ground that the ships seized were in part laden with goods belonging to Englishmen, who had borrowed the names of Americans. I have not been able to find evidence to support such a pretension. On the other hand, the diplomatic language of the United States constantly claimed that the sufferers were American citizens. Sir, if these claims are spurious, then it must be true that either Ellsworth, Marshall, Pinckney, Monroe, Morris, Jefferson, Adams the elder, and Washington, were ignorant of the fact, or that they colluded to defraud France. Neither position can be true. The claims are therefore just.

An objection raised by the Senator from Virginia [Mr. HUNTER] falls under the same head. It is that the French government have a list or table of the claims submitted in 1803, which was presented by the American commissioners, and which shows that the French, as the Senator says, suppose that they paid, under the convention of 1803, all the claims of American citizens. I have this table before me. If the honorable Senator will refer to the treaty of 1800, he will find that it stipulated for the payment of the class specified in that table only-to wit: debts owing on contracts and that the claims for the spoliations now in question were omitted expressly on the ground that they were excluded by the treaty of 1800. Here is the article of that treaty:

"The debts contracted by one of the two nations with individuals of the other, or by the individuals of one with the individuals of the other, shall be paid, or the payment may be prosecuted in the same manner as if there had been no misunderstanding between the two states. But this clause shall not extend to indemnities claimed on account of captures or confiscations."— Vol. VIII of Statutes at Large, p. 180.

Then, what is left out of this table? Exactly that portion of the claims left out of the treaty, and which is the subject of the present bill.

Secondly. It has been objected in late years that the claims belonged to speculators. Certainly few of the sufferers survive, and soon all will have departed. But the claims are property; they were the property of those sufferers. As property they could be transferred and transmitted by assignment, will, and administration. These are only modes in which property is perpetuated; and this capability of being perpetuated is inherent in it, and is always rightfully and necessarily recognized and protected by all governments, with proper limitations. Individual property is the ballast of the state. Wo to the state that casts it overboard. That state is sure to drift away, and to break upon the rocks. But the allegation that speculators have purchased these claims is denied, while the bill protects the public even if it be true. None but a lawful assignee can take any benefit from the bill, nor can such an one receive in any case more than he actually paid for the claim.

Thirdly. It is said that the evidences of the claims and of titles must necessarily be loose and inconclusive.

However this may be, the fault does not rest with the claimants, while the losses resulting from deficiency of proof will fall upon

them. Moreover, they must produce legal evidence. The United States can justly ask no more.

Fourthly. It is denied that the United States exchanged a release of the claims for a release of the ancient treaties.

We have seen that in form at least the treaty of 1800 was such an exchange of those equivalents. It was understood to be such an exchange, in effect, when made.

Robert R. Livingston said:

"It will be well recollected by the distinguished characters who had the management of the negotiation, that the payment for illegal captures, with damages and indemnities, was demanded on the one side, and the renewal of the treaties of 1778 on the other; that they are considered as of equivalent value, and that they only formed the subject of the second article."-Letter to Talleyrand, April 17, 1802.

Napoleon, at St. Helena, declared—

“That the suppression of the second article at once put an end to the privileges which France had possessed by the treaties of 1778, and annulled the just claims which America might have had for injuries done in time of peace."-Conversation with Gourgaud

Notwithstanding these and similar cotemporaneous expositions, it has been insisted here by two of my very eminent predecessors, [Mr. WRIGHT and Mr. Dix,] as well as by others, that this confessed form of the treaty was a mere diplomatic artifice; that the treaty was not an exchange of equivalents; and that the claims for spoliations were renounced because they could not be enforced, and not for an adequate and admitted consideration. Did Oliver Ellsworth and his colleagues combine to practice a diplomatic fraud upon France? Certainly not. Were they then circumvented? If we should grant that they were, there would yet remain John Adams, President in 1800, and Thomas Jefferson, President in 1801, and the Senate of those years, all equally compromited. Who will impeach their intelligence or their directness? Sir, upon whom shall we rely to vindicate our own less deserved and ephemeral fame, if we strike so rudely the monuments where these great names lie sleeping!

If the United States can plead fraud in this or any other case, now shall creditors or allies, individuals or states, learn to distinguish between obligations which we admit to be valid, and those which we claim a right to repudiate?

No, sir we cannot raise such a defence. Nor could it be maintained. No one questions the sincerity of the United States in prosecuting these claims. France was equally sincere in admitting them, and in preferring her own. Even in her piratical de