regulated by its price at the port of destination; and, confequently, the actual as well as avowed principle of fuch decifrons was, that the goods feized had not become contraband, according to the exifting law of nations."

The intention of the government then, and the practice under the article, are in direct oppofition to these injurious fufpicions, the indulgence of which has produced fuch pernicious effects. It is even believed that the decifion on this fubject will be one step towards the establishment of that principle for which America has never ceafed to contend. It is alfo believed, and has ever been believed, that the article objected to would have a neceffary tendency to increase, and did, in fact, increase the quantity of provifions imported from America into France and her colonies. The American commerce, being entirely in the hands of individuals, is confequently conducted by them according to their own views of particular advantage: they will unqueftionably endeavour to fupply the highest market, unless re. frained from doing fo by other confiderations which render it unadvisable to attempt fuch a fupply. In their calculation, the rifk of reducing the market is too important an item to be passed over or forgotten. Every diminution of this rifk adds to the number of thofe who will attempt the fupply; and confequently a knowledge that the voyage, fhould it even fail by the feizure of the veffel, would yet be profitable, muft increase the number of hofe who would make it.

It is plain then, that this article admits the feizure of provifions in no fituation where they were not before feizable; and encourages their tranfportation to France and her colonies, by diminishing the risk of fuch transportation.

It is alfo complained of, that this treaty has not, "as all treaties do, pointed out particularly the cafes of the effective blockade of a place," as alone forming an exception to the freedom of provifions.

Articles in a treaty can only be inferted by confent. The United States therefore can never be refponsible for not having inferted an article to which the other contracting party would not affent. They may refufe to make any change in the existing ftate of things prejudicial to themselves or to other powers; and they have refufed to make any fuch change: but it is not in their power to infert, as by common confent, an article, though merely declaratory of a principle which they confidered as certainly exifting, and which they mean to fupport if fuch common confent be unattainable. All that can be done in fuch a cafe is, to leave the principle unimpaired, referving entirely the right to affert it. This has been done: the principle was left unimpaired, and has been lince fuccefsfully afferted.

The United States are at all times truly folicitous to diminifa as much as poffible the lift of contraband. It is their interest, in common with all other nations whofe policy is peace, to enlarge, fo far as they can be enlarged, the rights of neutrals. This intereft is a fure guarantee for their uling those means which they think calculated to effect the object, and which a juft regard to their fituation will permit. But they must be allowed to purfue the object in fuch a manner as may comport with that fituation. While they furrender no actual right, in preferving which there is a common intereft, while they violate no pre-existing engagements (and these they have not furrendered or violated), they must judge exclufively for themselves how far they will or ought to go in their efforts to acquire new rights or eftablish new principles. When they furrender this privilege, they cease to be independent, and they will no longer deserve to be free. They will have furrendered in other hands the most facred of depofits-the right of felf-government; and inftead of the approbation they will merit the contempt of the world.

Those parts of the treaty between the United States and Britain, which have been felected by France as injurious to her, have now been examined. The underfigned are too well convinced that they in no degree justify the enmity they are alleged to have produced, not to rely on a candid reconfideration of them as a fure mean of removing the impreffions they are supposed to have made.

Before this fubject is entirely closed, one other objection will be noticed. The very formation of a commercial treaty with England feems to be reprobated, as furnishing just cause of offence to France; and Mr. Adet has permitted himself to say"It was a little matter only to allow the English to avail themfelves of the advantages of our treaty: it was neceffary to affure those to them by the aid of a contract which might serve at once as a reply to the claims of France, and as peremptory motives for refusals; the true caufe of which it was requifite inceffantly to disguise to her under fpecious pretexts. Such was the object of Mr. Jay's miffion to London; fuch was the object of a negotiation enveloped from its origin in the fhadow of myftery, and covered with the veil of diffimulation."

Paffing over this extraordinary language, the undersigned, being only defirous of producing accommodation by the exhibition of truth, will confider the opinion which is obliquely hinted, and the fact which is directly averred.

The practice of forming commercial treaties is fo univerfal among other nations having any commercial intercourfe with each other, that it seems unneceffary to discuss their utility. The right to form thofe treaties has been fo univerfally afferted and admitted, that it seems to be the infeparable attribute of fovereignty

to

to be queftioned only by thofe who question the right of a nation to govern itfelf, and to be ceded only by thofe who are prepared to cede their independence.

But the profperity of the United States is in a peculiar degree promoted by external commerce. A people almost exclusively agricultural have not within themselves a market for the furplus produce of their labour, or a fufficient number and variety of articles of exchange to fupply the wants of the cultivators; they cannot have an internal which will compenfate for the lofs of an external.commerce: they must fearch abroad for manufactures, for many other articles which contribute to the comfort and convenience of life, and they must fearch abroad alfo for a market for that large portion of the productions of their foil which cannot be confumed at home. The policy of a nation thus circumftanced must ever be to encourage external commerce, and to open to itself every market for the difpofition of its fuperfluities and the supply of its wants. The commercial and manufacturing character and capacities of England must turn into that channel. a confiderable portion of the commerce of any nation under the circumstances of the United States. It is a market too important and too valuable to be voluntarily clofed; in confequence, a con fiderable portion of their commerce has taken that direction, and a continual folicitude has been manifested to regulate and fecure it by contract. To, abolith this commerce, or to refufe to give it permanence and fecurity by fair and equal ftipulations, would be a facrifice which no nation ought to require, and, which no nation ought to make. In forming her treaty of amity and commerce with the United States, France claimed no fuch prerogative. That treaty declares the intention of the parties to be, "to fix, in an equitable and permanent manner, the rules which ought to be followed relative to the commerce and correspondence which the two parties defire to establish between their respective countries, ftates, and fubjects;" and that "they have judged that the faid end could not be better obtained than by taking for the bafis of their agreement the most perfect equality and reciprocity; and by carefully avoiding all those burdenfome preferences which are ufually fources of debate, embarraffment, and difcontent; by leaving alfo each party at liberty to make, respecting commerce and navigation, thofe interior regulations which it fhall find most convenient to itself, and by founding the advantages of commerce folely upon reciprocal utility and the juft rules of free intercourse, referving to each party the liberty of admitting at its pleasure, other nations to a participation of the fame advantages." The treaty itself contains no ftipulation in any degree contradictory to thofe declarations of the preamble, or which could suggest a fufpicion, that under thefe declarations was concealed a wish to abridge the fovereignty of the United States with respect to trea

ties, or to control their interefts in regard to commerce. In forming a commercial treaty with Britain, therefore, in which no peculiar privilege is granted, the government of the United States believed itfelf to be tranfacting a bufinefs exclufively its own, which could give umbrage to none, and which no other na tion on earth would confider itself as having a right to interfere in. There exifted, confequently, no motive for concealing from France, or any other power, that the negotiation of Mr. Jay might or might not terminate in a commercial treaty. The declaration therefore was not made; nor is it usual for nations about to enter into negotiations to proclaim to others the various objects to which thofe negotiations may poffibly be directed. Such is not, nor has it ever been, the practice of France. To fuppofe a neceffity or a duty on the part of one government thus to proclaim all its views, or to confult another with respect to its ar rangement of its own affairs, is to imply a dependence to which no government ought willingly to fubmit. So far as the interefts of France might be involved in the negotiation, the inftructions given to the negotiator were promptly communicated. The minifter of this republic was informed officially, that Mr. Jay was inftructed not to weaken the engagements of the United States to France. Farther information was neither to have been required nor expected: indeed, that which was given furnished reason to fuppofe that one of the objects of the negotiation with Great Britain was a commercial treaty. Why then fuch unnecessary and unmerited farcafms againft a cautious and unoffending ally? Those objects which the purfued were fuch as an independent nation might legitimately purfue, and fuch as America never had diffembled, and never deemed it neceffary to diffemble her with to obtain.

Why should an effort be made to imprefs France with an opinion that Mr. Jay was not authorized to negotiate a commercial treaty with Britain, when the fixed opinion of America had ever been, that France could not be and ought not to be diffatif fied with the formation of fuch a treaty? Why should the minifter of France have been informed officially that Mr. Jay was efpecially inftructed not to weaken the engagement of the United States to France, if it was intended to convince that minifter that his powers did not extend to fubjects in any degree connected with thofe engagements? To what purpose fhould the government of the United States have practised a deception deemed by itself totally unneceffary, and which its utmost efforts could not long continue? It requires an equal degree of folly and vice to practise an useless fraud which must inevitably and immediately be detected, and the detection of which must expose its author to general infamy, as well as the enmity of those on whom the fraud had been practifed. Thefe confiderations ought to VOL, VII.

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have produced fome hesitation concerning the fact. The tefti mony in fupport of it ought to have been very pofitive and very unexceptionable before it received implicit faith. It should have been very clear that there was no mistake, no misunderstanding, concerning the information communicated, before the charge was made in fuch terms as the ininister of France has been pleased to employ; but the teftimony is believed to be fatisfactory, that the government of the United States has not endeavoured to imprefs in France any opinion on this fubject which the fact of the cafe did not warrant. The declaration of Mr. Randolph, made July 8th, 1795, is full on this point. It is in these words:

I never could in truth have informed the French minifter, that the miffion, as set forth in the Prefident's meffage to the Senate, contemplated only an adjustment of our complaints; if, by this phrafe, it be intended to exclude commercial arrangements, I could have no reason for faying fo, fince the French republic could have had nothing to do with our commercial arrangements, if they did not derogate from her rights: it could have answered no purpose, when fo fhort a time would develope the contrary-I never did inform the French minifter as above stated.

"The only official converfation which I recollect with Mr. Fauchet upon this fubject was, when I communicated to him, with the Prefident's permiffion, that Mr. Jay was instructed not to weaken our engagements to France. Neither then, nor at any other time, in official nor unofficial converfation, did I ever fay to him, that nothing of a commercial nature was contemplated, or that nothing but the controverfies under the old treaty and the fpoliations were contemplated.

"Mr. Fauchet fome time ago faid to me, that he understood from what I said, that Mr. Jay was not authorized to treat of commercial matters. I told him, that he misunderstood me; no letter had ever paffed upon this fubject."

If then Mr. Randolph did give Mr. Fauchet the information contended for, it is plain that he never was authorized to do so ; but the confiderations already detailed render it infinitely more probable that Mr. Fauchet has misunderstood Mr. Randolph, than that Mr. Randolph has misinformed Mr. Fauchet.

The underfigned have taken, they trust, a correct view of the leading and influential measures adopted by the government of the United States: they have endeavoured to ftate, with plainnefs and with candour, the motives which have occafioned the adoption of thofe measures and the operation they are believed to have. They have fhown that if America is to be reproached with partialities, irreconcilable, with her neutral fituation, it is not by France that thofe reproaches ought to be made. They have been induced to take this review by a hope which they cannot relinquish without regret, that it may contribute to efface im

preffions