Richmond Enquirer

[From the National Intelligencer.]

NEGOTIATION WITH NAPLES.

On the 2d March, the President communicated to the House of Representatives of the United States a Report from the Department of State, transmitting, in pursuance to the request of that body, information relative to the claims of merchants of the United States for their property seized and confiscated under the authority of the King of Naples.

We give a selection of the principal Documents, and an Abstract of the Remainder. The first Document is as follows:

Extracts of a letter from Mr. Monroe, Secretary of State, to Mr. Pinkney, special minister to Naples, dated Department of State, May 11, 1816.

Being appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the emperor of Russia, and, in a similar trust, to the king of Naples, the duties of the latter mission, which is special, will engage your attention in the first instance. The Washington, a ship of the line, is ordered into the Chesapeake, to receive on board, and to convey you and your family to Naples. You will be furnished with the usual commission and letter of credence to the king.

A principal object of your mission to Naples is, to obtain indemnity for the losses which our citizens sustained by the illegal seizure and confiscation of their property by the Neapolitan government. You will be furnished with such evidence in support of the claim, as is in possession of this department, and as notice has been given to the collectors of the principal cities of your appointment and its object, that it might be communicated to the parties interested, it is expected that you will receive much further light on the subject directly from them.

The President does not entertain a doubt of the right of the United States, to a full indemnity of those losses. They were inflicted by the then government of the country, without the slightest cause. The commerce of the United States was invited into the Neapolitan ports by special decrees, with the promise of protection and encouragement, on the faith of which, many ships having entered with valuable cargoes, the whole amount was seized by the government itself, and converted to public use. For this very extraordinary and unlawful act, no plea has been urged that we have heard of, except that of necessity, which is no argument against indemnity. The injury being inflicted by a government in full possession of the sovereignty of the country, exercising all its powers, recognized by the nation and by foreign powers, by treaties and by other formal acts of the highest authority, it is not perceived on what ground an indemnity can be refused. No principle is better established than that the nation is responsible for the acts of its government, and that a change in the authority does not affect the obligation. In the disordered state of that country for several years past, it has been thought useless to press this claim, but, now that affairs appear to be better settled, it would be improper longer to delay. The President indulges a strong hope, that reparation will now be made. In the discharge of this trust, in the manner of the negotiation, and in the provision for the debt, should such be made, you will manifest a spirit of conciliation towards the government of Naples. Any reasonable accommodation, as to the time and the mode of payment which may be desired, will be cheerfully allowed.

As you will be well acquainted with the nature of these claims, and the right of the United States to an indemnity, with the principles on which it is founded, and the arguments and facts which support it, it is unnecessary for me to enter further into the subject. The President has full confidence that nothing will be wanting on your part to secure success to the mission. Satisfied that you will discharge its duties with equal ability and discretion, it is thought improper, by too much precision, to impose any restraint on your good judgment, either as to the manner or the argument to be used in the negotiation.

Your mission to Naples being special, its object limited, and being likewise anticipated by the Neapolitan government, it is expected that it may be concluded in a few interviews. It is very important that the United States should be represented at St. Petersburg, by a minister of the highest grade employed by them without any delay which can be avoided. The President desires, therefore, that you will use every effort in your power to terminate the business with Naples as soon as it may be possible, and that you will proceed thence, immediately afterward, to St. Petersburg.

The next paper is "Extracts of a letter from Mr. Pinkney, Minister at Naples, to the secretary of State, dated Naples, August 20th, 1816." It gives an account of Mr. Pinkney's reception and his first conversation with the Neapolitan Minister. The next paper is Mr. Pinkney's official Note to the Neapolitan Minister, on the subject of this mission, &c.

Mr. Pinkney to the Marquis di Circello.

Naples, August 2, 1816.

The undersigned, envoy extraordinary of the United States of America, has already had the honor to mention to his excellency the Marquis di Circello, secretary of state and minister for foreign affairs of his majesty the king of the two Sicilies, the principal objects of his mission, and he now invites his excellency's attention to a more detailed and formal exposition of one of those objects.

The undersigned is sure, that the appeal which he is about to make to the well known justice of his Sicilian majesty, in the name and by the orders of his government, will receive a deliberate and candid consideration; and that, if it shall appear, as he trusts it will, to be recommended by those principles which it is the interest, as well as the duty of all governments, to observe and maintain in the claim involved in it will be admitted, equitably and promptly.

The undersigned did but obey the instructions of the President of the United States, when he assured his excellency the Marquis di Circello, at their first interview, that his mission was suggested by such sentiments towards his Sicilian majesty as could not fail to be approved by him. Those sentiments are apparent in the desire which the President has manifested, through the undersigned, that the commercial relations between the territories of his majesty and those of the United States should be cherished by reciprocal arrangements, sought in the spirit of enlightened friendship, and with a sincere view to such equal advantages, as it is fit for nations to derive from one another. The representations which the undersigned is commanded to make upon the subject of the present note will be seen by his majesty in the same light. They shew the firm reliance of the President upon the disposition of the court of Naples, impartially to discuss and ascertain, and faithfully to discharge its obligations towards foreign states and their citizens, a reliance which the undersigned partakes with his government; and under the influence of which he proceeds to state the nature and grounds of the reclamation in question.

It cannot but be known to his excellency the Marquis di Circello, that, on the 1st of July, 1809, the minister of foreign affairs of the then government of Naples, addressed to Frederick Degan, Esq. then consul of the United States, an official letter, containing an invitation to all American vessels, having on board the usual certificates of origin and other regular papers, to come direct to Naples with their cargoes; and that the same minister caused that invitation to be published in every possible mode, in order that it might come to the knowledge of those whom it concerned. It will not be questioned, that the promise of security, necessarily implied in this measure, had every title, in the actual circumstances of Europe, to the confidence of distant and peaceful merchants. The merchants of America, as was to have been expected, did confide. Upon the credit, and under the protection of that promise, they sent to Naples many valuable vessels and cargoes, navigated and documented with scrupulous regularity, and in no respect obnoxious to molestation: but scarcely had they reached the destination to which they had been allured, when they were seized, without distinction, as prize or as otherwise forfeited to the Neapolitan government, upon pretexts the most frivolous and idle. These arbitrary seizures were followed, with a rapacious haste, by summary decrees, confiscating, in the name and for the use of the same government, the whole of the property which had thus been brought within its grasp; and these decrees, which wanted even the decent affectation of justice, were immediately carried into execution, against all the remonstrances of those whom they oppressed, to enrich the treasury of the state.

The undersigned persuades himself, that it is not in a note addressed to the Marquis di Circello, that it is necessary to enlarge upon the singularly atrocious character of this procedure, for which no apology can be devised, and for which none that is intelligible has hitherto been attempted. It was indeed an undisguised abuse of power, of which nothing could well enhance the deformity, but the studied deception that preceded and prepared it; a deception, which, by a sort of treason against society, converted a proffer of hospitality into a snare, and that salutary confidence, without which nations and men must cease to have intercourse, into an engine of plunder.

The right of the innocent victims of this unequalled act of fraud and rapine, to demand retribution, cannot be doubted. The only question is, from whom are they entitled to demand it? Those who at that moment ruled in Naples, and were in fact, and in the view of the world, the government of Naples, have passed away before retribution could be obtained, although not before it was required; and if the right to retribution regards only the persons 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 undersigned presumes, that such is not the view which the present government will feel itself justified in taking of this interesting subject; he trusts that it will, on the contrary, perceive that the claim which the injured merchant was authorized to prefer against the government of this country, before the recent change, and which, but for that change, must sooner or later have been successful, is now a valid claim against the government of the same country, notwithstanding that change. At least, the undersigned is not at present aware of any considerations which, applied to the facts that characterise this case, can lead to a different conclusion; and certainly it would be matter for sincere regret, that any considerations should be thought sufficient to make the return of his Sicilian majesty's power fatal to the rights of friendly strangers, to whom no fault can be ascribed.

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 his acts, in his 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 Marquis de Circello does not need to be informed, that the earlier annals of England, in particular, abound in illustrations 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 foundations 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 guarantee of whose plighted word, he 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 things 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 constants of real, undisputed power, it cannot be that he is, at his peril, 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 neighboring princes, it is impossible that it can be his duty to examine, before he ships his merchandize, whether it be fit that those 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 that dominion gives him over foreigners who resort to it, it is the dictate of reason, sanctioned by all experience, that he is bound to look no farther.

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, disjoined from, and controverted by, the fact, is to him, nothing, while it continues to be latent. It is only the sovereign 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 needed supplies may be invited into its harbours, by which famine may be averted, or redundant products be made to find a market in the wants of strangers. It is, in a word, an outcast from the bosom of the great community of nations, at the very moment, too, when its existence, in the form which it has assumed, may everywhere 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 will of its new sovereign, do what it could not do before. It contains, of course, no adequate and certain provisions against even the perpetuity of the dilemma which it creates. If, therefore, a civil society is not competent, by rulers in entire possession of the sovereignty, to enter into all 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 into whatsoever hands the government may ultimately fall; if a sovereign, entirely in possession, is not able, for that reason alone, to incur 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 anything but a name, or the responsibility of sovereigns, anything 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 citizens 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 Marquis 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 the 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) recognized 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 G. Britain, by an order in council of the 28th of 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.

Such was the state of things when American vessels were tempted into Naples, by a reliance upon the passports of its government, to which perfidy had lent more than ordinary solemnity, upon a declaration as explicit, as it was formal and notorious, that they might come without fear and might depart in peace. It was under these circumstances, that, instead of being permitted to retire with their lawful gains, both they and their cargoes were seized and appropriated in a manner already related. The undersigned may consequently assume, that if ever there was a claim to compensation for broken faith, which survived the political power of those, whose iniquity produced it, and devolved in full force upon their successors, the present claim is of that description.

As to the demand itself, as it existed against the government of Murat, the Marquis di Circello will undoubtedly be the first to concede, not only that it is above reproach, but that it rests upon grounds in which the civilized world has a deep and lasting interest. And with regard to the liability of the present government, as standing in the place of the former, it may be taken as a corollary from that concession; at least until it has been shown, that it is the natural fate of obligations, so high and sacred, contracted by a government, in the full and tranquil enjoyment of power, to perish with the first revolution, either in form or rulers, through which it may happen to pass; or (to state the same proposition in different terms) that it is the natural operation of a political revolution in a state to strip unfortunate traders, who have been betrayed and plundered by the former sovereign of all that his rapacity could not reach—the right of reclamation.

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 this 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 foundations, which the undersigned has already had the honor 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 an 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 the property was notoriously devoted to the public service. Some of the vessels seized by the 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.

The undersigned having thus briefly explained to the Marquis di Circello the nature of the claim, which the government of the United States has commanded him to submit to the reflection of the government of his Sicilian majesty, forbears at present to multiply arguments in support of it. He feels assured that the equitable disposition of his majesty renders superfluous the further illustrations of which it is susceptible.

The undersigned has the honor to renew to his excellency the Marquis di Circello the assurances of his distinguished consideration.

WILLIAM PINKNEY.

The next paper is a letter from Mr. Pinkney to the Secretary of State, dated September 28, 1816, stating that all his exertions have failed to obtain an answer to his official note of August 21. The following is an extract from Mr. P.'s letter:

"It has been mentioned to me by those in whom I have confidence, that this government has been extremely perplexed by the demand contained in my note, and has it under constant and anxious consideration: that, fearing after much consultation to take the ground (suggested for it, as I think, in America,) of irresponsibility for such acts of Murat's government as my note set forth, it has been and still is searching for information as to facts: that diligent inquiry, for example, has been made, and is yet making, for the original papers of the different vessels and cargoes, for which we require compensation, or for such evidence as might supply their place; and that it is probable that in the end an attempt will be made to encounter at least a part of our demand with proof (good or bad) that our case is not altogether such as we supposed it to be, in its circumstances.

"I am told their search after the papers of the vessels and cargoes is not likely to be very successful; very few, perhaps none, remain; and it is not easy to conjecture what satisfactory or even plausible substitutes they can procure."

[Documents to be continued.]