The New Hampshire Gazette

Important Documents.

On the 4th inst. the President of the United States, transmitted to both Houses of Congress, the following, being all the Communications from our Envoys Extraordinary at Paris.

(No. 6.)

Paris, Feb. 7, 1798.

Dear Sir,

We transmit to you in this enclosure, Foreign Relations; although dated the 17th ult. it was not on account of the time taken to translate so long a letter, delivered until the 31st. In our communications here although we have, agreeably to your instructions, written in our own language, we at the same time have taken the precaution, lest our meaning should be misrepresented or misunderstood, to accompany them with an accurate translation. We have not yet received any answer to this communication, and should no notice be taken of it in a few days, we shall apply in a more explicit manner for our passports.

The councils have passed the decree mentioned in No. 5, as having been recommended by the Directory, to capture and condemn all neutral vessels laden in part or in whole with the manufactures or productions of England, or its possessions. We enclose you the official copy of the report on that subject, and shall represent to this government the injustice and injury which it must inevitably occasion us.

We have the honor to be, with great respect, Your most ob't humble servants,

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,

J. Marshall,

E. Gerry.

Col. Pickering, Secretary of the United States.

To the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic.

Citizen Minister,

The undersigned Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary, from the United States of America to the French Republic, have been hitherto restrained by the expectation of entering on the object of their mission, in the forms usual among nations, from addressing to the Executive Directory, through you, those explanations and reclamations with which they are charged by the government they represent. If this expectation is to be relinquished, yet the unfeigned wish of the United States, to restore that harmony between the two Republics, which they have so unremittingly sought to preserve, renders it the duty of the undersigned, to lay before the government of France, however informal the communication may be deemed, some considerations, in addition to those already submitted, relative to the existing differences between the two nations.

Openly and repeatedly have France and America interchanged unequivocal testimonials of reciprocal regard. These testimonials were given by the United States with all the ardor and sincerity of youth. It is still believed that on the part of France they were likewise the offspring of real esteem. They were considered on the other side of the Atlantic as evidencing a mature friendship, to be as durable as the Republics themselves. Unhappily, the scene is changed; and America looks around in vain for the ally or the friend. The contrast both of language and of conduct, which the present so avowedly exhibits to a portion of the past, has been repeatedly attributed by France, to a disposition alleged to exist in the government of the United States, unfriendly to this Republic, and partial towards its enemies.

That government, astonished at a reproach so unfounded in fact, so contradicted by its declarations and its conduct, could scarcely consider this charge as serious, and has ever cherished the hope, that a candid review of its conduct founded on the documents, and aided by the arguments with which the Executive Directory has been furnished, would have rescued it from the injurious suspicion. This hope seems not to have been realized. The undersigned, therefore, deem it proper to precede their application for that justice which they claim from France by an effort to remove the cause, which is alleged to have produced the injuries of which they complain. With this view, they pray the attention of the Executive Directory to a serious and candid reconsideration of the leading measures adopted by the government of the United States, and they persuade themselves, that however various and multiplied the channels may be, through which misinformation, concerning the dispositions of that government, may have been received, yet this reconsideration must remove unfounded prejudices, and entirely exculpate the American nation from an accusation it knows to be unfounded, and believes to be supported by no single fact.

When the war which has been waged with such unparalleled fury, which in its vast vicissitudes of fortune, has alternately threatened the very existence of the conflicting parties, but which, in its progress, has surrounded France with such splendor, and added still more to her glory than her territory; when that war first involved those nations, with whom the United States were in habits of friendly intercourse, it became incumbent on their government to examine their situation, their connexions, and their duties. America found herself at peace with all the belligerent powers. She was connected with some of them by treaties of amity & commerce, & with France by a treaty of alliance also. These several treaties were considered with the most serious attention, and with a sincere wish to determine by fair construction the obligations which they really imposed. The result of this inquiry was a full conviction, that her engagements by no means bound her to take part in the war, but left her so far the mistress of her own conduct as to be at perfect liberty to observe a system of real neutrality. It is deemed unnecessary to analyze those treaties in order to support the propriety of this decision, because it is not recollected ever to have been questioned, and is believed not to admit of doubt.

Being bound by no duty to enter into the war, the government of the United States conceived itself bound by duties the most sacred to abstain from it. Contemplating man, even in a different society, as the friend of man, a state of peace, though unstipulated by treaty, was considered as imposing obligations, not to be wantonly violated. These obligations created by the laws of nature, were in some instances strengthened by solemn existing engagements, of which good faith required a religious observance. To a sense of moral right other considerations of the greatest magnitude were added, which forbade the government of the United States to plunge them unnecessarily into the miseries of the bloody conflict then commencing. The great nations of Europe, either impelled by ambition, or by existing or supposed political interests, peculiar to themselves, have consumed more than a third of the present century in wars. Whatever causes may have produced so afflicting an evil, they cannot be supposed to have been entirely extinguished, and humanity can scarcely indulge the hope, that the temper or condition of man is so altered as to exempt the next century from the ills of the past.

Strong fortifications, powerful navies, immense armies, the accumulated wealth of ages and a full population, enable the nations of Europe, to support those wars in which they are induced to engage, by motives which they deem adequate, and by interests exclusively their own. In all respects different is the situation of the United States: possessed of an extensive unsettled territory, on which bountiful nature has bestowed with a lavish hand all the capacities for future legitimate greatness, they indulge no thirst for conquest, no ambition for the extension of their limits. Encircled by no dangerous powers, they neither fear nor are jealous of their neighbours, and are not on that account obliged to arm for their own safety. Separated from Europe by a vast and friendly ocean, they are but remotely, if at all, affected by those interests, which agitate and influence this portion of the globe. Thus circumstanced, they have no motive for a voluntary war. On the contrary, the most powerful considerations urge them to avoid it. An extensive and undefended commerce, peculiarly necessary to a nation which does not manufacture for itself, which is and for a long time to come, will be almost exclusively agricultural, would have been its immediate and certain victim. The surplus produce of their labour must have perished on their hands, and that increase of population so essential to a young country, must, with their prosperity, have sustained a serious check. Their exertions too would not have been considerable, unless the war had been transferred to their own bosoms.

Great as are, the means and resources of the United States for self-defence, 'tis only in self-defence, that those resources can be completely displayed. Neither the genius of the nation, nor the state of its finances, admit of calling its citizens from the plough, but to defend their own liberty and their own fire-sides. How criminal must have been that government which could have plunged its constituents in a war, to which they were neither impelled by duty or solicited by interest; in which they committed so much to hazard; in which they must suffer, in order to act efficiently, and could only display their energy too in repelling invasion? But motives still more powerful than the calamities of the moment, have influenced the government of the United States. It was perhaps impossible to have engaged voluntarily in the existing conflict, without launching into the almost boundless ocean of European politics, without contracting habits of national conduct, and forming close political connections which must have compromised the future peace of the nation, and have involved it in all the future quarrels of Europe. A long train of armies, debts and taxes, checking the growth, diminishing the happiness, and perhaps endangering the liberty of the United States, must have followed the adoption of such a system. And for what purpose should it have been adopted? For what purpose should America thus burthen herself with the conflicts of Europe? Not to comply with any engagements she has formed, not to promote her own views, her own objects, her own happiness, or her own safety, but to move as a Satellite around some greater Planet, whose laws she must of necessity obey. In addition to these weighty considerations, it was believed that France would derive more benefit from the neutrality of America, than from her becoming a party in the war.

The determination then of the government of the United States to preserve that neutral station in which the war found them, far from manifesting a partiality for the enemies of France, was only a measure of justice to itself and to others, and did not even derogate from that predilection for this republic, which it has so repeatedly expressed and displayed. Having avowed this determination, increased motives of honor and of duty commanded its faithful observance. It is not a principle which remains now to be settled, that a fraudulent neutrality is no neutrality at all; and that the nation which would be admitted to its privileges must also perform the duties it enjoins. Had the government of the United States, declaring itself neutral, indulged its partialities by granting favours unstipulated by treaty, to one of the belligerent powers, which it refused to another, it could no longer have claimed the immunities of a situation of which the obligations were forgotten, it would have become a party to the war, as certainly as if war had been openly and formally declared, and if it would have added to the madness of wantonly engaging in such a hazardous conflict, the dishonor of insincere and fraudulent conduct: it would have attained circuitously an object which it could not plainly avow, or directly pursue, and would have tricked the people of the United States into a war, which it could not venture openly to declare.

It was matter of real delight to the government and people of America, to be informed that France did not wish to interrupt the peace they enjoyed. The undersigned have been induced to rest upon the first necessary and decisive step taken by their government, altho' its propriety may not be controverted, from a conviction, that if the right of the United States, to observe a fair and honest neutrality be established, the general charges of an unfriendly disposition, made against them by France, must be relinquished, because the facts, by which those charges are supported, will be found to have grown inevitable out of that situation. This measure was accompanied by another, which, in repelling so astonishing a charge as partiality for the enemies of France deserves to be noticed. Soon after the government of the United States had noticed to its citizens the duties which its neutrality enjoined, Mr. Genet, the first minister from this Republic, arrived at Philadelphia: altho' his conduct had been such as to give cause for serious alarm, altho' before he was even acknowledged as a minister, or had reached the authority which could inspect his credentials, he had assumed the functions of the government to which he was deputed. Yet the government resolved to see in him only the representative of a Republic, to which it was sincerely attached, gave him the same warm and cordial reception which he had experienced from its citizens, without a single exception, from Charleston to Philadelphia. The then situation of France deserves to be remembered. While the recollection adds, citizen minister, to the glory with which your nation is encircled, it establishes the sincerity of the United States.

The most formidable combination the world had ever seen, threatened the extermination of this Republic. Austria, Germany, Prussia, Britain, Spain, Holland and Sardinia, were in arms against France, and Russia was leagued in the coalition. Nor was this all. The Republic, distracted by internal divisions, contained numerous enemies within its own bosom, and a considerable portion of its proper force was arrayed against itself. In such a state of things, the most sanguine might fear, and the most ardent hesitate. Confident in their strength, and relying on success, the coalesced powers sought to arm in their cause the residue of the world, and deemed it criminal to acknowledge the sovereignty of the Republic. The nations of Europe, even those who had not entered into the contest, were either of themselves unwilling to acknowledge this sovereignty, or were deterred by fear from doing so. Had the partialities of America been against France, this example would have been followed. According to the rules of ordinary calculation, the measure would have been safe, and consequently a government feeling the attachments now so unjustly attributed to that of the United States, would have indicated those attachments by its adoption. Far from pursuing such a system, the United States, unawed by the strength of coalition, received with open arms the minister of this Republic, acknowledged with enthusiasm the government which had deputed him, overlooked his extraordinary attack on their sovereignty and manifested a cordial friendship for his nation and a sincere wish for its success.

Scarcely were the first ceremonies of his reception over, when Mr. Genet, displayed a disposition to usurp and exercise, within the United States, the choicest and most important duties and powers of sovereignty. He claimed the privileges of arming and embodying the citizens of America within their own territory, to carry on from thence expeditions against nations with whom they were at peace, of fitting out and equipping within their limits privateers, to cruize on a commerce destined for their ports, of exercising within their jurisdiction, an independent judiciary, and of arraigning their government at the bar of the people. The undersigned will not ask in what manner France would have treated any foreign minister who should have dared so to conduct himself towards this republic? But in what manner would the American government have treated such a minister, if the representative of a nation it viewed with coldness or even indifference? in what manner would it have treated him, had he been the representative of any other nation than France? No man acquainted with that government can doubt how these enquiries ought to be answered. From the minister of France alone could this extraordinary conduct be borne with temper. To have continued to have borne it, without perceiving and feeling its extreme impropriety, would have been to have merited the contempt as well of France as of the other powers of the earth. The government of the United States did feel it; but far from transferring to his nation that resentment, which such conduct could not fail to excite, it distinguished strongly between the government and its minister, and the representations it made were in the language of a friend afflicted but not irritated by the injuries it complained of. The recall of that minister was received with universal joy, as a confirmation that his whole system of conduct was attributable only to himself; and not even the publication of his private instructions could persuade the American government to ascribe any part of it to this Republic.

At the same time the exertions of the United States to pay up the arrearages of their debt to France, which had been unavoidably permitted to accumulate, to make disinterested and liberal advances to the sufferers of St. Domingo, thrown suddenly upon them, without provisions or money, whose recommendation was that they were Frenchmen and unfortunate, the perseverance with which they apologized for and ascribed any occasional injuries they sustained to the force of circumstances, the interest which they continued openly to take in all the fortunes of this Republic, manifested partialities of a very different sort from those which have been so unjustly attributed to them.

At this period too, a great principle was brought into discussion, the dispassionate consideration of which is essential to the fair estimate of the charges made by France against the government of the United States. The property of French citizens was taken by British cruizers and ships of war, out of American bottoms, and the American government submitted to the practice. The propriety of submitting to it depends entirely on the naked right of the captors, under the existing circumstances of the case, to exercise such a power. The circumstances were these. In the treaty of commerce made between France and the United States in February 1778, it was stipulated in substance, that neither party should take out of the vessels of the other, the goods of its enemy, but that the character of the bottom should be imparted to its cargo. With England the United States had made no stipulation on the subject. It follows that the rights of England, being neither diminished or increased by compact, remained precisely in their natural state, and were to be ascertained by some pre-existing acknowledged principle. This principle is to be searched for in the law of nations. That law forms, independent of compact, a rule of action by which the sovereignties of the civilized world consent to be governed. It prescribes what one nation may do without giving just cause of war, and what, of consequence another may and ought to permit, without being considered as having sacrificed its honor, its dignity or independence.

What then is the doctrine of the law of nations on this subject? Do neutral bottoms of right, independent of particular compact protect hostile goods? The question is to be considered on its own right, uninfluenced by the wishes or the interests of a neutral or belligerent power. It is a general rule, that war gives to a belligerent power a right to seize and confiscate the goods of his enemy. However humanity may deplore the application of this principle, there is perhaps no one to which man has more universally assented, or to which jurists have more uniformly agreed. Its theory and its practice have unhappily been maintained in all ages. This right then may be exercised on the goods of an enemy wherever found, unless opposed by a superior right. It yields by common consent to the superior right of a neutral nation to protect, by virtue of its sovereignty, the goods of either of the belligerent powers found within its jurisdiction. But can this right of protection, admitted to be possessed by every government within its own limits in virtue of its absolute sovereignty, be communicated to a vessel navigating the high seas?

It is supposed that it cannot be so communicated; because the ocean being common to all nations, no absolute sovereignty can be acquired in it: the rights of all are equal, and must necessarily check, limit and restrain each other. The superior right therefore of absolute sovereignty to protect all property within its own territory, ceases to be superior when the property is no longer within its own territory, and may be encountered by the opposing acknowledged right of a belligerent power to seize and confiscate the goods of his enemy. If the belligerent permits the neutral to attempt without hazard to himself, thus to serve and aid his enemy, yet he does not relinquish the right of defeating that attempt whenever it shall be in his power to defeat it. Thus it is admitted that an armed vessel may stop and search at sea a neutral bottom, and may take out goods which are contraband of war, without giving cause of offence, or being supposed in any degree to infringe neutral rights. But this practice could not be permitted within the rivers, harbours or other places of a neutral, where its sovereignty was complete. It follows then that the full right of affording protection to all property whatever, within its own territory, which is inherent in every government, is not transferred to a vessel navigating the high seas. The right of a belligerent over goods of his enemy within his reach, is as complete as his right over contraband of war; and it seems a position not easily to be refuted, that a situation that will not protect the one will not protect the other. A neutral bottom then does not of right, in cases where no compact exists, protect from his enemy in goods of a belligerent power.

To this reasoning the practice of nations has conformed, and the common understanding of mankind seems to have Vattel, B. 3. Sect. 115, says of v 'that effects belonging to an enemy on board a neutral ship, are seizable by the rights of war.' Vattel is believed to be supported by the most approved writers on the same subject. It is deemed unnecessary to multiply quotations to this point; because France herself is supposed to have decided it. In her maritime ordonnance of the year 1744, which is considered as having been in force in 1778, enemy goods in neutral bottoms, generally, are declared liable to seizure and confiscation. From the operation of this rule are excepted the vessels of Denmark and the United Provinces, to whom special treaties secured the exception. In the ordonnance of the 26th July, 1778, the first article of which is considered as forbidding the cruizers of France to stop and bring into port neutral vessels, having on board the goods of an enemy, a power is reserved to revoke the privilege granted to neutrals by that article, if the enemy should not grant the same privilege within six months from the publication of that regulation. This clearly indicates a conviction that the exemption from the capture of the goods of an enemy, which should be found on board the vessel of a neutral power, not having stipulated such exemption by treaty, was a privilege granted by the ordonnance, and that the mere revocation of the ordonnance would abolish the privilege, and restore the ancient rule. It will not be contended that France continued in a long course of practice and legislation opposed to her own opinion of the law of nations. It must then be considered as the opinion of France, that under the law neutral bottoms afford no protection to the goods of an enemy. This principle, thus admitted to have been established, is supposed by some to have been changed by the armed neutrality. A new law of nations, it is contended, was introduced, by the confederation. But who were the parties to that federation, and what was its object? The northern maritime powers united to protect by force, in their own bottoms, during the then existing war, the goods of either and of all the belligerent powers. The compact in its own nature was confined with respect to its object and its duration. It did not purport to change or could it change permanently and universally the rights of nations not becoming parties to it. It did indeed hold forth the promise of future more permanent and more general engagements for the same object, but such engagements were never formed. How then can this temporary and partial convention be considered as altering, radically and generally, principles which have been universally adopted, and in the modifications of which all have an interest? Would France herself admit that a combination, such as that which constituted the armed neutrality, may rightfully change the law of nations, and establish a new code of universal obligation? It is believed that no nation on earth would more perseveringly oppose such an invasion of its sovereignty. There seems then to be no solid ground for maintaining, that the general law of nations has been at all varied by the armed neutrality.

It remains to inquire whether the treaty between France and the U. States, pledge either nation to assert and establish the principle, that free bottoms make free goods. The treaty of amity and commerce, concluded the 6th February, 1778, stipulates reciprocally for the right of trading with and protecting the goods of the enemy of either party in the vessel of the other, and in turn surrenders its own goods found in the vessels of an enemy, but it contains no clause imposing on either party the duty of extending the principle or of supporting its application to other nations. The stipulations of that treaty are negative as well as affirmative. They specify as well the disabilities intended to be created and the duties to be imposed as the privileges designed to be granted. Had it been intended that either nation should have been bound to maintain this principle in its intercourse with others, or should have been in any degree incapacitated from prosecuting freely that intercourse, without the previous admission of the principle, a stipulation to that effect would have been made. No such stipulation having been made, the parties cannot be presumed to have intended it. Indeed it would have been madness in the United States, under their actual circumstances, to have formed such an agreement. There being no express stipulation to this effect, it cannot be supposed to have been implied. Nations forming a solemn compact which ought to regulate their conduct towards each other, which is to be resorted to for the standard of adjusting their differences, do not leave to implication such delicate and important points. Indeed if a great
principle not mentioned is permitted to be implied, the object of a written agreement, which is itself to evidence all the obligation it creates, is totally defeated. But who is to make the implication, and to what extent is implication to be allowed? It is very easy to perceive, that the doctrine of implying in contracts stipulations never formed, would destroy all certainty of construction, and open a boundless field of controversy to the contracting parties.

It results from the very nature of a contract which affects the rights of the parties, but not of others and from the admission of a general rule of action, binding independent of compact, which may be changed by consent, but is only changed so far as that consent is actually given, that a treaty between any two nations must leave to all others those rights which the law of nations acknowledges; and must leave each of the contracting parties subject to the operation of those rights. For the truth of this position, believed to be so clear in itself, and which it is supposed the history of all Europe will illustrate, the ordonnance of 1744 already quoted is considered as furnishing an unequivocal authority. By that ordonnance the law of nations is applied to all those neutrals with whom France had not stipulated, that the quality of their bottoms should be imparted to their cargoes, while those with whom such stipulations had been made are exempted from the application of the law.

The desire of establishing universally the principle that neutral bottoms shall make neutral goods, is perhaps felt by no nation on earth, more strongly than by the United States. Perhaps no nation is more deeply interested in its establishment. It is an object they keep in view, and if not forced by violence to abandon, they will pursue in such manner as their own judgment may dictate as being best calculated to ascertain it: but the wish to establish a principle is essentially different from a determination that it is already established. The interests of the United States, could not fail to produce the wish, their duty forbid them to indulge it, when deciding on a mere right.

However solicitous America might be to pursue all proper means, tending to obtain for this principle the assent of all or any of the maritime powers of Europe, she never conceived the idea of obtaining that consent by force.

The United States will only arm to defend their own rights; neither their policy nor their interests permit them to arm, in order to compel a surrender to the rights of others. These and other considerations, which have been submitted to the government of France, produced on the part of the United States a decision, that their bottoms could not of right protect the goods of a belligerent power from an enemy not bound to respect the principle. This decision was founded on the most perfect conviction that it was enjoined by the law of nations, and that good faith, respect for truth, and for the duties of an upright and honest judgment render it indispensable. This conviction remains unshaken. If these arguments, which still appear conclusive to the American government, have not the same operation on the judgment of France, they must at least be sufficient to evince the sincerity with which that government has acted, and to prove that its conduct, in this respect, was produced by a sense of duty, and not by any partiality for a nation against which it was at that time considerably irritated by other causes.

The undersigned, citizen minister, rely too implicitly on your candour and discernment, to apprehend that you will estimate improperly the motives which on this essential point have influenced and guided the United States.

The early decision of the American government on this subject was immediately openly avowed and amply supported by Mr. Jefferson, the then Secretary of State, in his letter to Mr. Genet, dated the 24th July, 1793, and in his letter to Mr. Morris, dated 16th August, in the same year. The arguments which those letters contain were supposed to have satisfied the government of France, since its ministers in the U. States no longer controverted the principle they supported. Indeed those arguments appeared too conclusive to permit a doubt concerning the success which would attend them.

In August 1794, when Mr. Munroe, the then minister of the U. States to this republic, was received into the bosom of the convention, France obviously did not consider the acknowledgment of this established principle of the law of nations as indicating a partiality towards her enemy. The language used on the occasion could only have been used to the minister of a nation whose friendship was valued, and whose conduct had evinced the sincerity of its professions. It was then declared, "that the sincerest, the frankest fraternity united in effect the two republics," and that "their union would be forever indissoluble." These declarations, made long after America had avowed its neutrality, and had avowed its acquiescence under the principle that a belligerent power, unrestrained by particular treaty, may of right take out of the bottoms of a neutral the goods of its enemy, demonstrate that neither that neutrality nor that acquiescence induced the want of a proper regard for France. The government of the U. States still cherishes the hope, that this true and fair estimate then made of its conduct may soon be resumed by a nation whose friendship it has assiduously and unremittingly cultivated by all those means which good faith and justice could permit it to use.

After the discussion of this interesting question was supposed to have been closed, and France was believed to have been entirely content with that system in which the United States found themselves bound to persevere, some complaints were made, not against the principles adopted by the government, but against the application of those principles to particular cases supposed not to come within them. The neutrality of the United States could not permit prize to be made of those vessels belonging to nations with whom they were at peace, within their jurisdiction, or by privateers fitted out in their own ports. Regulations to this effect were necessarily made, and to enforce the observance of those regulations was a duty not to be dispensed with. The right of one of the belligerent powers, to obtain the release of a vessel captured under such circumstances was as sacred as the right of the captor to a vessel taken on the high seas and which according to the usages of war was lawful prize. The United States were bound to respect the rights of both. To do so, it was necessary to examine the facts! for which purpose a Tribunal, in which both parties might be fairly heard, was unavoidable. Some complaints were made of particular vexations, and each complaint has heretofore been particularly attended to. It is believed to be unnecessary to review these several cases, because the undersigned are entirely persuaded that explanations already given must have been completely satisfactory. Should any one of them be still considered as furnishing subject for complaint, the undersigned will proceed to its investigation, with the most sincere desire to attain truth, and to redress the wrong, if any has been committed.

During this period, the causes of complaint against France, on the part of the United States, were by no means inconsiderable. Their commerce was not to exempt from depredations, believed to be entirely unwarrantable, made upon it by the Cruizers of this Republic.

On the 9th May 1793, the National convention passed a decree relative to the commerce of neutrals, the first article of which is in these words, "The French ships of war and privateers may stop and bring into the ports of the republic such neutral vessels as are loaded, in whole or in part, either with provisions belonging to Neutrals, and destined for enemy ports, or with merchandize belonging to enemies."

In consequence of the remonstrances of the American Minister, the convention, on the 23d May, declared "that the vessels of the United States are not comprised in the regulations of the decree of the 9th May."

On the 28th of the same month the convention repealed the decree of the 23d-- On the 1st July they re-established it. On the 27th July it was again repealed. Under the decree of the 9th May, the vessels of the United States were captured, brought into the ports of France, and their cargoes disposed of. Could this decree, citizen minister, be regarded otherwise than as infringing the laws of nations, the rights of neutrals, and the particular engagements, subsisting between France and the United States?

When on the 8th June in the same year the British government issued a similar order, its injustice produced a ferment throughout America indicating strong dispositions immediately to oppose its execution by force. The letter of Mr. Jefferson, the then Secretary of State, to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at London, dated the 7th Sept. 1793, and remonstrating against the order of the 8th June, contains so much justice of sentiment and strength of argument, as to have been quoted by your predecessor, in his letter to Mr. Munroe of the 9th March 1796.

It cannot escape you citizen minister, that the arguments of Mr. Jefferson, concerning the order of the 8th June, apply conclusively to the decree of the 9th May; and that to them are to be added those arguments which are to be drawn from the hardship of being absolutely compelled, without any alternative, to part with the cargoes in France, and those also which are drawn from the duties imposed by an express and solemn treaty.

Nothing can demonstrate more conclusively the real temper of the United States, than the difference between the reception given to the decree of the convention of 9th May, and that which was given to the order of the British cabinet on the 8th June.

A large number of American vessels too were for a long time detained at Bourdeaux, very much to the injury of the owners, without assigning a motive for such detention, or putting it in the power of the government to conjecture the cause of a measure which so deeply affected the interests of their fellow citizens--These and other embarrassments were experienced, but they could not diminish the attachment of the United States to France. In the midst of them, prayers were offered up, through the whole extent of the American continent, for the success of this Republic. The government feeling the same sentiment, displayed it, at least as far as was compatible with the decent deportment required from a nation not a party in the war, and professing neutrality. Such would not have been the conduct of a Government and people in secret unfriendly to France.

Very strong and just resentments were at that time inspired by the hostile conduct of Britain. The instructions of June 1793, whereby the American vessels laden with provisions for France, were brought into the ports of Britain, there to sell such cargoes, or to give security to sell them in other ports in amity with England, and the still more offensive order of November the 6th, in the same year, whereby, vessels laden with the produce of a French colony were ordered to be brought in for adjudication, added to the pre-existing causes of mutual irritation, had produced such a state of things as to render it obvious that the injuries complained of by America must be entirely done away, or that war was the inevitable consequence.

This state of things was not so altered by the order of the 8th of Jan. 1794, revoking that of the 6th of Nov. 1793, as to promise a different result. But as a nation, preferring peace to war will ever make a peaceable demand of reparation for injuries sustained before that reparation is sought by the sword, and the policy of America has ever been, "to pursue with unremitting zeal before the last resource which has so often been the scourge of nations, and could not fail to check the advanced prosperity of the United States was contemplated." an Envoy Extraordinary was deputed to his Britannic Majesty. "Carrying with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of his country, it was expected that he would vindicate its rights with firmness and cultivate peace with sincerity."

Truly desirous as the American government were of preserving peace with Britain, its determination was unalterable, not to preserve it, nor to receive compensation for injuries sustained, nor security against their future commission, at the expense of the smallest of its engagements to France. Explicit and positive instructions to this effect were given to Mr. Jay, and those instructions were freely communicated to the minister of this Republic then at Philadelphia.

The negociation of the American Envoy terminated in a treaty in many respects desirable to the United States. But however desirable its objects might be, the Government of the United States would not have hesitated to reject them had they been accompanied with any stipulation violating or weakening its engagements with France. But it has been able to discern no such stipulation. The twenty-fifth article of that treaty guards the rights of this Republic by the following clause. "Nothing in this treaty contained shall, however, be construed to operate contrary to former and existing public treaties with other sovereigns or States." The treaty with France being "a former and existing public treaty," and it being thus provided that nothing contained in the treaty with Britain "should be construed to operate contrary to it," the Government of the United States did not apprehend that the treaty with Britain could be considered as affecting its relations to France. But such was its attention to its ally that the instrument was previous to its ratification submitted to the consideration of the Minister of this Republic, who was invited to communicate freely to the United States, such observations upon it as he might judge proper. Mr. Adet in a letter addressed to Mr. Randolph, dated 19th Meidor 3d year of the French Republic, (30th June 1795) expresses his sense of this procedure in the following words: "This frank measure is to me a sure guaranty of the friendship of the American government towards France, and of the fidelity with which it always marks its conduct towards a faithful ally." He then stated those reflections to which the reading of the treaty had given birth. The articles which relate to enemy goods in neutral bottoms, are mentioned without a comment. He contended that the list of contraband was swelled, and that the 23d, 24th and 25th articles of the treaty with Britain, ceded to that power advantages inconsistent with the previous cessions to France. This letter was answered by Mr. Randolph on the 6th of July following, who proves that no article was enumerated in the list of contraband in the treaty between the United States and Great Britain, which was not of that description previous to the formation, and independent of it, noticed briefly, the subject of enemy goods in neutral bottoms, and demonstrated that the objections of Mr. Adet to the 23d, 24th and 25th articles were entirely founded on a misconstruCtion of them. This misconstruCtion was so apparent, that Britain has never claimed it nor would the American government ever have admitted it. The letter of Mr. Randolph closes the subject of enemy contraband and of enemy property taken out of neutral bottoms, with a paragraph to which Citizen Minister, your attention is solicited, "Hitherto however (says he) I have spoken upon principles of right. Upon any other principles, and more especially upon those of hardship and injury to a friend, it shall be a topic of the negociation now opening between us. With the temper which will pervade the whole of it; I cannot doubt, that some modification may be devised, and it may be separated from the general treaty so as not to be delayed by it."

It was then apparent that the government of the United States, actuated by that friendship which transcends the line of strict obligation, was willing gratuitously to release her ally from those stipulations of a former treaty, which in the course of events were deemed to operate unfavourably to her,-- This readiness to concede marked that friendship the more strongly, as the situations in which the two nations found themselves could not have been unforeseen, but was the very situation for which the article provides. The answer of Mr. Randolph concludes with requesting an opportunity to remove any remaining doubts, should there be such, by further explanation: no remaining doubts were stated, and therefore as well for its contents the letter was believed to be entirely satisfactory to Mr. Adet, and it was hoped that this government as well as that of America would consider the treaty with Britain as an accommodation desirable by the United States and not disadvantageous to France.

It is not easy to express the chagrin felt by the American government on learning that in this treaty the United States were supposed to have "knowingly and evidently sacrificed their connection with this Republic and the most essential and least contested prerogatives of neutrality." With the firmness of conscious integrity the United States aver that they have never knowingly sacrificed or impaired their connections with this Republic nor the prerogatives of neutrality, but that they have, according to their best judgment, invariably sought to preserve both. The undersigned will endeavour faithfully to state the impressions of the government they represent on this interesting subject.

The objections made to this treaty by your predecessor in office in his note to Mr. Munroe, dated 10th Ventose, 4th year of the French Republic, one and indivisible (9th March '96:) are :

1st. That the United States, besides having departed from the principles established by the armed neutrality have given to England, to the detriment of their first allies, the most striking mark of an unbounded condescension, by abandoning the limits given to contraband by the law of Nations, by their treaties with all other nations and even by those of England with the greater part of the maritime powers.

2d. That they have consented to extend the denomination of contraband even to provisions. Instead of pointing out particularly as all treaties do, the cases of the effective blockade of a place, as alone forming an exception to the freedom of this article they have tacitly acknowledged the pretensions raised by England to create blockades in the colonies, and even in France, by the force of a bare proclamation.

Mr. Adet in his letter to Mr. Pickering dated Brumaire 5th year of the French Republic one and indivisible (15th Nov. 1796) has repeated the same objection, and has been pleased to superadd some observations relative to the formation of such a treaty generally, and the circumstances attending its negociation, in terms not to have been expected by the first and almost only voluntary friends of the Republic

These having been the only specific objections officially made to the Treaty with Britain by the government of France either in Paris or Philadelphia, are necessarily supposed to be the only objections which have occurred. They have often been discussed on the part of the United States, but that discussion will be renewed, because, although the undersigned may be unable to suggest any argument not heretofore urged, they cannot resist the hope that an attentive reconsideration of those arguments may give them a success which has not yet attended them.

The first objection may be supposed to consist of two parts. First, the abandonment of the principle that neutral bottoms make neutral goods, an objection rather insinuated than expressed, and 2dly, the addition to the catalogue of contraband.

1. On the first part of the objection, it is observable that the statements of late Minister of exterior relations, and of Mr. Adet, seem to admit but certainly do not controvert the position, that previous to the formation of the armed Neutrality, a belligerent power could rightfully take out of the bottoms of a neutral the goods of its enemy. This position is believed to be uncontrovertible, some of the arguments in support of it have been already detailed, and it is deemed unnecessary to repeat or to add to them. To this principle of the armed neutrality with a departure from which, the United States seem to be impliedly charged, the note of Mr. de la Croix does not assign any obligation whatever ; nor does he appear to consider it as having been engrafted by that confederation on the law of nations. On this point Mr. Adet has not been more explicit. He seems to have been content with vague insinuations, and not to have been willing to commit himself by a direct averment that in consequence of the armed neutrality the law of nations on this subject is changed. The undersigned are unwilling to combat at length a proposition not positively advanced, which they deem so clearly indefensible, and will therefore refer to the brief observation already made respecting it.

It may however be improper here to notice that in February 1778, when the treaty between France and the United States was entered into, the armed neutrality had not been formed: of consequence the state of things, on which that treaty operated, was regulated by the law of nations, as it clearly existed previous to the formation of the armed neutrality. It is supposed to be admitted, that according to that state of things neutral bottoms could afford no protection to the goods of an enemy. The stipulation then of the article of that treaty was understood at the time by the contracting parties, to form an exception to a general rule ; which would retain its obligation in all cases where it was not changed--If then the contracting parties had deigned to impose on each other the necessity of extending this exception to other nations, so as to convert it into a general rule, they would have expressed this intention in their contract ; not having expressed it they must be considered as intending, that this exception should form a rule as between themselves, while the general rule should govern as with other nations who had not consented to change it.

It is also worthy of observation that when this treaty was made, the United States were at war, and France at peace with Britain. In this state of things, which might have continued, had not war been declared or hostilities commenced by England, the bottoms of France would have protected from American cruizers, English property, while they would not have protected from British cruizers, American property. This was the necessary result of that state of things under which the treaty was formed ; America had consented to it and neither could or would have complained.

(To be continued.)