Phenix Gazette

Claims on France.—The following paragraph conveying information of vast importance to many of our mercantile readers, we find in the Richmond Enquirer of Friday last. We presume it is derived from private letters from our Minister to France, Mr. Rives. If from some source at the Seat of Government, it would we should suppose, have been promulgated in the official paper.

Negotiations with France.—It is said that the French Commissioners assert the conformity of the Berlin and Milan Decrees with the Laws of Nations! and report favorably on other cases amounting only to two or three millions.

We should deeply regret such a result on every account. It would be an act of gross injustice to our plundered merchants—and from whose hand does the blow come? Not from the Bourbons but from the regenerated Government of France. In all their negotiations with Mr. Gallatin in Paris, the Bourbons never denied that the Claims were fairly due. They never justified the decrees of Bonaparte. As well as we recollect, they never disavowed any responsibility for his acts; but they principally relied on their poverty, &c. &c. And now, when a more liberal Government is established among them; when it ought to be supported, on the principles of justice and good faith, we are to be put off with a frivolous pretence, that some of the grossest outrages which were ever perpetrated against a neutral Nation, are consistent with the Laws of Nations. The character of France—the free and just principles on which alone her government can be supported—the deep sympathy which we have felt in her recent struggles—the attachment of our countrymen and the justice of their Claims, should have inspired her commissioners with a juster spirit. We hope it is not yet too late to repair these errors, and that her Government will lose no time in reviewing her decision, and in doing justice to our citizens. Richmond Enquirer.