The New Hampshire Gazette

The mission of Mr. Pinkney to Naples has excited considerable interest, not only in that city but also in London, if we may believe the British journalists. But why should the claims of our citizens for the unlawful confiscation of their property excite surprise? The principle of reclamation, upon which they are founded, is fully sanctioned by the law of nations. The English newspapers tell us that "it is not very clear that their government ought to interfere in the case." And why should it interfere? What plausible pretext could G. Britain invent for countenancing the Neapolitan monarch in a refusal of our fair demands? The people of every independent nation, whatever revolutions they may experience, or however they may change their sovereigns, are responsible for the unjust acts of their governors. Were the rule of the law otherwise, all that a nation would have to do, in order to get rid of its domestic debts and its foreign obligations, would be by a violence of exertion, to depose one sovereign and crown another. This is a doctrine, however, that savours too much of the Algerine logic to be recognized by christian potentates. At all events, England should be the last power in Europe to suggest a single doubt as to the legality and propriety of the American claims on the Neapolitan government: because England, at the head of the Allied Powers, has strained the principle of public law, in this respect, beyond the point of reason, by forcibly compelling the French to pay the expense of wars carried on for their own subjugation.--Nat. Int.