their exertions for this purpose have made themselves respected by every belligerent, with a view to their co-operation on this head. There is nothing extant to show that he held any conferences with them, and the treaty itself manifests his hostility to their principles.

It has often been alleged, and never denied, that Sweden and Denmark proposed directly to the United States, to unite with them to support, with force if necessary, the rights of the neutral flag; and that the American administration absolutely refused. Sweden and Denmark then united their councils, and successfully resisted the violation of their rights, while the United States abandoned them by actual stipulation in Mr. Jay's treaty, in manifest breach of our subsisting treaties with France, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, &c. The sincerity of Sweden and Denmark was then as now beyond all suspicion, and their spirited answers in '93, to the demand of Russia, to suspend their commerce in provisions to France; that the conspiracy of kings to starve the French nation might be consumated, were sound, dignified and in every respect worthy of our imitation. That of Denmark, after protesting against the principle, or rather the want of principle assumed, runs thus: "To restrict the commerce in grain, as it now subsists, is a thing quite insignifi cant to the cause which Russia has espoused; but it is not so to Denmark, because it involves a sacrifice of her rights, of her independence and of her treaties, which she intends to maintain. His majesty refrains from entering into a more serious examination of this subject, since Russia has thought proper to reject the only judge whom Denmark could acknowledge, namely, the common law of nations." And Mr. Monroe declares, that he had carefully avoided several conferences that were sought by the Swedish minister, because he knew nothing could result from them, as he was authorised to say nothing: And he also declares that it was impossible for him to succeed in conciliating the French government towards the British treaty, since his efforts were not only not seconded in that respect, by our administration, but absolutely counteracted by it." He labored under still greater difficulty with regard to conciliating his own government with himself, for he was censured in direct terms, and, without much punctilio, recalled. Such disapprobation, in an ordinary case, would have been disgrace beyond redemption; but in this, he was sustained by the whole nation, who have from that day till recently, confided to him the most important duties both abroad and at home.

+

Looking at this treaty in relation to our interest, putting all questions of principle aside for a moment, still nothing is found to satisfy us; for while our exports in '94-5, to France were $12,653,635, those to Britain were only $9,218,540. The whole of the former was for French consumption, but much of the latter was for re-expor tation. The return cargoes from France were chiefly hard money, but those from

*The following instructions were given by Russia to her Admiral Tchithakoff, conformably to her treaty with England of March '93.

We have ordered a fleet of 25 sail of the line and frigates, to be equipped for four months and put under your command. The principal duty of our naval armament consists in what follows:-We are bound according to our stipulations with his majesty the King of Great Britain to endeavor to prevent these Erench, who persist in their rebellion, from receiving any supplies of which they may be in need. The hostile measures employed against them, are not strictly conformable to the natural laws of war, when it unfortunately takes place between nations under lawful government: but as those measures are taken against those arrant villians who have overturned all duties observed towards God, the laws, and the government, who have even gone so far as to take the life of their own sovereign- the means of punishing those villians ought in justice to be employed in such a manner as to accelerate and insure success in so salutary an affair. We have made representations to the courts of Sweden and Den. mark, but ur just demands have not been satisfactorily answered:, wherefore we have declared to them, that we cannot see with indifference provisions or stores sent to France which serve to nourish the rebels. By this you will clearly see our will and our intentions; and we order you to seize all those French vessels you may meet with, and to send back to their own ports all neutral vessels bound to France." The British orders went further, and authorized the capture of neutral vessels, and several Swedish vessels were captured under them; but a spirited remonstrance produced compensation for them, and as assurance that such acts would not be repeated; accordingly we find Swedish and Danish vessels specially excepted from their future most oppressive orders in council.

It will not escape the attention of the reader, that the Russian order above, does not allege that any injury had been sustained from France, and explicitly acknowledges, that the captures thereby authorised were not conformable to the laws of war.

Britain were wholly manufactured goods. The exports in '96 for France and her colonies, from the port of Philadelphia alone, amounted to $4,185,431.

*

The objections to this treaty are without number, and are pourtrayed with much force, and at great length, in many official documents now before me. But I find no small difficulty in finding out who were its friends. There was objection from every quarter, save one individual now in obscurity-And the Congressional record shows, that it was ratified by the Senate by precisely a constitutional majority (produced by the vote of a member who was carried to the chamber in the pains of expiring life) and carried into effect, in the House of Representatives, by a majority of three only. The question, in committee of the whole, was carried by the casting vote of the Speaker; and, on being reported to the House was adopted by a vote of 51 to 48.

This unexampled close vote, showing that the absence only (not conversion) of one of its friends, in either House, would have lost the treaty, seems to justify the popular allegation, that it was Executive influence alone that procured its adoption. Mr. Secretary Randolph asserts, that scarcely a day passed, on which the President saw him (during the period of several months that the treaty was held under advisement,) that he did not enumerate many objections to it-to the commercial part, to the Canada article, to the omission of compensation for the negroes and property plundered, and to other parts. From what has been stated, and from what might be stated, which neither my limits nor the occasion call for or permit, it may be safely affirmed that Mr. Jay's treaty, as to its inception, progress, ratification, and effect, is the most extraordinary state paper ever formed. Its violation of principles and engagements resulted in all the evils at home, from party spirit, and abroad, from violence and plunder, which we have borne up to this day, not excepting, perhaps, the late war with Great Britain. A CLAIMANT.

No. XXI.

On the 3d of January, '95, the French government passed a decree giving full and complete effect to the treaty of 1778, and acknowledged therein that the departure from it, under the several prior decrees, were by way of reprisal. Under this decree our navigation and commerce had perfect security; and notwithstanding the occasional suspicion of Mr. Jay's movements, and even some indirect intimation of the contents of the treaty he had agreed to, yet every confidence was manifested that our government would not confirm it; and under that impression our vessels were undisturbed; and they extended to us many acts of unequivocal kindBut the moment that treaty was ratified, the disappointment and mortification of the French government broke forth. They charged the President of the United States with having lulled them into security while courting and consum

ness.

*Mr. Alexander Hamilton, who wrote numerous essays in its defence, admits there are valid objections to the commercial parts; that the prohibition to sell French prizes in our ports, is the most material cause of complaint on the part of the French; and that he recom mended, that the repeal of the British order to capture our provision vessels, should be a sine qua non to the exchange of ratifications. He asserts that Mr. Jay himself was dissatisfied with the commercial articles, which, he says, might have been better arranged had Mr. Jay been familiar with commercial matters, which he was not. But Mr. Hamilton's admission, that the treaty contained a prohibition to sell French prizes, is itself an error. The treaty contains no such thing-the saving clause excepts it. But if it did contain such prohibition, it would in that respect be void, since the prior treaty with France gave them the right. true objection on the part of France, therefore, was, not that the treaty contained such prohibition, but that our construction gave it that effect.

The

If it could be conceded, that the French had a right to make reprisals on the commerce of the United States, the individuals whose property might be seized on that plea, would still have a valid claim on their own government; particularly as the cause of reprisals would be found in the acts of the government, and not in the acts of the individual sufferers. According to Vattel, B. 2, Chap. 18, sec 345, "he who makes use of reprisals against a nation, on the goods of its members indiscriminately, cannot be taxed with seizing the wealth of an innocent person, for the debt of another, for in this case, the sovereign is to recompense those of his subjects, on whom the reprisals fall. This is a debt of the state or nation, of which each citizen ought only to support his quota."

mating a close alliance with her enemy; that he had acted with partiality to England throughout, and cited as a proof, that he had not failed to announce to Congress, sometimes by special message, the several obnoxious decrees, while he had carefully abstained, in his message of December 8, '95, from announcing their repeal by that of January 30, '95: and that the effect was, that the people of the United States were led to believe that their commerce was suffering alike under the British orders and French decrees, when in fact, the British were capturing their vessels, and the French protecting them.

They ordered their minister in the United States to protest against Mr. Jay's treaty; to demand the execution of the French treaties, particularly the guarantee article of the treaty of alliance; and to suspend his functions forthwith. They claimed the right, and exercised it without consulting us, to modify our treaty with them so as to embrace the favors granted to England, and in making this change, did not stop at equal measure. And on the 2d of July, '96, they passed the following decree: "The Executive Directory, considering that if it becomes the faith of the French nation to respect treaties or conventions which secure to the flags of some neutral or friendly powers commercial advantages, the result of which is to be common to the contracting powers, those same advantages if they should turn to the benefit of our enemies, either through the weakness of our allies, or of neutrals, or through fear, through interested views, or through whatever motives, would in fact, warrant the execution of the articles in which they were stipulated, decrees as follows: All neutral or allied powers shall without delay, be notified, that the flag of the French republic will treat all neutral vessels either as to confiscation, as to searches or capture, in the same manner as they shall suffer the English to treat them. The minister of foreign relations is charged with the execution of the present decree, which shall not be printed."

66

On the 7th July, '96, the minister of foreign affairs wrote to Mr. Monroe: Time, citizen minister, has sufficiently ripened the points that were then [15th of March and 27th of June preceding] in discussion, and far from being enfeebled, our complaints against that treaty have acquired, since, in our estimation, new force. I will content myself then, without entering into details, to announce to you that the opinion of the Directory has never varied upon that point. It has seen in this act, concluded in the midst of hostilities, a breach of the friendship which unites. the United States and this republic; and in the stipulations which respect the neutrality of the flag, an abandonment of the tacit engagement which subsisted between the two nations upon this point, since their treaty of commerce of 1778. The abandonment of the principles, consecrated by this treaty has struck us with greater force, from the consideration that all the other treaties which the United States have made; contain them, as from the further one, that these principles are since so generally acknowledged, that they now form the public law of all civilized nations. After this, citizen minister, the Executive Directory thinks itself founded, in regarding the stipulations of the treaty of 1778, which concern the neutrality of the flag, as altered and suspended in their most essential parts, by this act, and that it would fail in its duty, if it did not modify a state of things which would never have been consented to, but upon the condition of the most strict reciprocity." Numerous communications passed to and from the minister of foreign affairs and Mr. Monroe, and also to and from Mr. Adet and the Secretary of State, all relating to the articles in Mr. Jay's treaty; these are too voluminous to copy here, and do not admit of reduction in any shape, hence, I must solicit the reader to examine for himself, they will be found among the documents laid before the Senate by the President in May last, and since that time printed in a large octavo.

In December, '96, Mr. Monroe notified the French government that he was recalled, and that General C. C. Pinckney was appointed resident minister in his place. He received for answer that the Directory would no longer recognise, nor receive, a minister plenipotentiary from the United States until after a reparation of the grievances demanded of the American government, and which the French government has a right to expect. I beg you, citizen minister, to be persuaded, that this determination, which is become necessary, does not oppose the continuance of the affection between the French republic and the American people, which is grounded on former good offices and reciprocal interest; an affection which you have taken pleasure in cultivating by all the means in your power.

On the 18th December, '96, the American consul, Mr. Mountflorence,made a report to Mr. Pinckney of the situation of our commercial interests in France, he says: "Since several months the directory executive has given evident symptoms of displeas

sure towards our government, which has been generally attributed to the treaty of commerce with Great Britain. In consequence thereof, orders have been issued to their cruisers to visit every neutral vessel going to or coming from an English port. But these orders were common to the Danish and Swedish vessels as well as our own. Numbers of our vessels have been brought into the ports of France by virtue of these orders. Several of them have been already released, some of the cargoes temporarily sequestered, and others now libelled before tribunals of commerce. The tribunals of commerce are chiefly composed of merchants, and most of them are directly or indirectly more or less interested in the fitting out of privateers, and therefore are often parties concerned in the controversies they are to determine upon. This happened in the case of Capt. John Bryant of Norfolk. As to the several claims of American citizens against the French government, for supplies furnished here and in the West Indies, spoliations, embargoes at Bordeaux and Brest, and other ports; indemnities for illegal captures and detentions of our vessels; freights of vessels chartered by the French agents in the United States; drafts of the colonial administrations upon the national treasury, delegations of the said administrations upon the minister of France near the United States; nothing can be done with them for the moment: but this suspension is common to all the claimants of the other neutral nations, as likewise to the French creditors, for indeed the embarrassments of their finances are such, that many of the officers of government cannot obtain the payment of the arrears due them." On the 21st Jan., '97, Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State, wrote to Mr. Pinckney: "The commissioners and special agents of the French republic, in the West Indies, are destroying our commerce in the most wanton manner. They have issued orders for taking all American vessels bound to or from English ports; not only those which the English occupy in St. Domingo, but those of their own Íslands. They condemn without the formality of a trial. These orders appear, from the information I have received, to have been issued in consequence of letters from Mr. Adet, who you will see in his note of November 15th, said, the French armed vessels were not merely to capture American vessels, but to practice vexations towards them, and who, I am further informed, wrote to the commissioners that they could not treat the American vessels too badly. This state of things cannot continue long. It makes little difference whether our vessels go voluntarily to French ports, or are carried in as prizes. In the latter case, they condemn without ceremony-and, in the former, they forcibly take the cargoes, heretofore with promises of payment, which they generally broke; and now, I am told, without deigning to give their faithless promises."

On the 1st of August, 296, Victor Hughes and Lebas, special agents of the Executive Directory to the Windward Islands, passed the following decree: "Considering that laws, as well ancient as modern, forbid neutrals to carry to the enemy contraband or prohibited merchandize:-Considering that, notwithstanding the complaints of the ministers of the French republic near the United States, of which he has informed us by his letter of the 2d July, 1796, those states, and especially Virginia, have fitted out vessels loaded with horses for the English: Decree, that from this day forward, all vessels loaded with merchandize, designated by the name, contraband, as arms, instruments, munitions of war, of what kind soever, horses and their furniture, shall be stopped by the ships of war and privateers, to be seized and confiscated for the benefit of the captors."

On the 27th of November, '96, Le Blanc, Santhonax, Raimond and Pascal, commissioners of the French government to the Leward Islands, passed the fol lowing decree:-The commission resolves, that the captains of French national vessels and privateers are authorized to stop, and bring into the ports of the colony, American vessels bound to English ports, or coming from the said ports. The vessels which are already taken, or shall be hereafter, shall remain in the ports of the colony, until it shall be otherwise ordered."

This decree refers to no law, does not call the captured vessels prizes, nor threaten condemnation: It is nothing less than a carte blanche to rob,-and was so understood and practised by the privateers.

On the 11th of February, '96, the Secretary of State wrote to Mr. Pinckney: "The spoliations on our commerce by French privateers are daily increasing, in a manner to set every just principle at defiance. If their acts were simply the violation of our treaty with France, the injuries would be comparatively trifling; but their outrages extend to the capture of our vessels merely because going to or from a British port: nay, more, they take them when going from a neutral to a

ON the 1st of February, '97, Victor Hughes and Lebas, special agents to the Windward Islands, passed the following decree: "Considering that, in virtue of the second article of the Treaty of Alliance, concluded at Paris, on the 6th February, '78, between the United States and France, the former power engaged to defend the American possessions in case of war, and that the government and the commerce of the United States have strangely abused the forbearance of the republic of France, in turning to its injury the favors granted to them of trading in all the ports of the French colonies; that, by permitting neutral vessels any longer to carry provisions of war and of subsistence to men, evidently in a state of rebellion, would be to prolong civil war, and the calamities flowing therefrom: Decrees as follows: Article 1st. The ships of the republic, and French privateers, are authorized to capture, and conduct into the ports of the republic, neutral vessels, destined to the Windward and Leeward Islands of America, delivered up to the English, and occupied and defended by the emigrants. These ports are Martinico, St. Lucia, Tobago, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, and of the Leeward, Port-auPrince, St. Marks, L'Archaye, and Jeremie. 2d. Every armed vessel, having a commission from either of the said ports, shall be reputed a pirate, and the crews adjudged and punished as such. 3d. The vessels and cargoes described in the first and second articles are declared good prize, and shall be sold for the benefit of the captors. 4th. Every captured vessel which shall have cleared out under the vague denomination of West-Indies, is comprehended in the first and second articles. 5th. The decree of the 4th Nivose, in pursuance of the resolution of the Executive Driectory of the 14th Messidor, 4th year, [decree of 2d July, '96.] shall be executed, till further orders, as far as shall not be contravened by the present decree."

On the 2d of March, '97, the Executive Directory passed a decree, of too great length to transcribe here, but in character and extent of operation far exceeding any of its odious predecessors: the following is a brief outline of it. The preamble recites all the offensive decrees since and including that of the 9th of May, '93, and the 1st article revives and puts them all into operation. The 2d and 3d articles give notice that the treaty of "78 with the United States, "has been, from the terms of its second article, in strict right, modified by that which was entered into in London on the 19th November 94, between the United States and England. In consequence, agreeably to the 17th article of the treaty of London, of the 19th November, 94, all merchandise belonging to an enemy, or not sufficiently proven to be neutral, loaded under the American flag, shall be confiscated; but the vessel on board of which it shall have been found, shall be released and returned to the proprietor. It is enjoined on the commissioners of the Executive Directory to cause to be accelerated, by all means in their power, the judgment on the trials which shall take place, either in relation to the validity of the capture of the cargo, or in relation to freights and demurrage. 4th. Agreeably to the 18th article of the treaty of London of the 19th of November, '94, there shall be added the following articles to those declared contraband by the 24th article of the treaty of the 6th February, '78, viz: Wood for ship building, pitch, tar and rosin, copper in sheets, canvass hemp and cordage, and every thing that serves directly or indirectly for