1797.]

COMPLAINTS BY FRENCH ENVOYS.

615

These papers comprised the whole correspondence during the years 1794, 1795, and 1796, between, first, Mr. Fauchet, and then Mr. Adet, with the American Secretaries of State; and they almost entirely consist of complaints against the United States, in their conduct to France, and the vindication of the United States either by Randolph or Pickering. Those complaints were arranged by Mr. Pickering under three heads. First. In their abandonment, by the United States, of their neutral rights, in not insisting on the principle that free ships make free goods, and in extending the list of contraband articles. Second. In violations of the treaty of 1778, especially the seventeenth and twenty-second articles: and, Third. By the treaty recently made with Great Britain.

Though these constituted the subject of warm and reiterated complaints, others of very inferior dignity and importance were also urged by these zealous envoys, a portion of which were scarcely consistent with the honor of their nation, or their own self-respect. They urged:

First. That the Government of the United States had made a question whether it would execute the treaties with France, or receive the agents of the proscribed princes, (alluding to the discussions of the Cabinet in 1793).

Second. "It made an insidious proclamation of neutrality."

Third. By its chicaneries, it abandoned French privateers to its courts of justice.

Fourth. "It eluded the amicable mediation of the Republic for breaking the chains of its citizens at Algiers."

Fifth "Notwithstanding the treaty stipulations, it allowed to be arrested vessels of State."

616

COMPLAINTS BY FRENCH ENVOYS. [CHAP. VIII.

Sixth. "It suffered England, by insulting its neutrality, to interrupt its commerce with France."

Seventh. "Notwithstanding the faith of treaties, it gave an asylum to these same English, who, after having insulted her flag, and pillaged her citizens, came also to brave the American people in their ports, and to take a station whence to cruise, on a favorable opportunity, against the French."

Eighth. "It might be said that it applauded their (the English) audacity; it had all submission to their will; it allowed the French colonies to be declared in a state of blockade, and its citizens interdicted the right of trading to them."

Ninth. "It eluded all the advances made by the republic for renewing the treaties of commerce, upon a more favorable footing to both nations; it excused itself on the most frivolous pretexts, whilst it anticipated Great Britain by soliciting a treaty in which, prostituting its neutrality, it sacrificed France to her enemies; or rather, looking on her as obliterated from the map of the world, it forgot the services she had rendered it, and threw aside the duty of gratitude, as if ingratitude were a governmental duty."

To this exaggerated statement of grievances, the Minister adds those respecting the disposition made of the French flag, and the failure in an American almanac to give precedence to the French diplomacy; and he refers, lastly, to the complaints made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, which are not comprehended in the above catalogue. These are:

That the consular convention between the United States and France has been rendered illusory in two particulars; and

In the impunity of the outrage committed on the repub

1797.] PICKERING DEFENDS THE UNITED STATES.

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lic in the person of its Minister, the citizen Fauchet, by the English ship Africa.

All these complaints are fully considered and fairly answered, so as to sustain the remarks of Pickering, "that there had been no attempt in the Government of the United States to violate our treaty, or weaken our engagements with France: that whatever resistance it had opposed to the measures of her agents, the maintenance of the laws and sovereignty of the United States, and their neutral obligations, have rendered indispensa ble that it has never acquiesced in any acts violating our rights, or interfering with the advantages stipulated to France; but, on the contrary, has opposed them by all the means in its power: that it has withheld no succors from France that were compatible with the duties of neutrality to grant: that, as well by their independent political rights, as by the express provisions of the commercial treaties with France, the United States were at full liberty to enter into commercial treaties with any other nation, and consequently with Great Britain: that no facts manifesting a partiality to that country have been, and that none such can be produced."1

If some of the facts stated by the French envoys wear the appearance of greater promptitude to act against the violations of the rights of the United States by French cruisers, than against those committed by the British, it must be remembered that those violations which were committed within the jurisdiction of the United States, were more frequently committed by the French than the English, from the known predominance of popular feeling in favor of the French and against the British, and because, when they were committed by the English as when their ships-of-war entered the waters of the

1II. State Papers, page 186.

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ADDITIONAL IMPOST.

[CHAP. VIII.

United States with their prizes-the power of the Government to punish such infractions was utterly inadequate beyond ordering out the militia.

In truth, it was known that the people of the United States were at that time divided into two parties, which were violently opposed to each other as to their foreign relations: one of them with a warm attachment to France and her revolution; the other, less numerous, but no less zealously attached to England-and that most of the members of the administration belonged to this last-mentioned party. All its acts, therefore, were scanned with a jealous eye by the partisans of France; and many of the accusations of the French Government and its agents were but echoes of the charges brought forward in the opposition journals. But General Washington, while he was determined to secure his country, if possible, from the evils of war, was at the same time equally determined to obtain this advantage by no sacrifice of national duty or honor; and nothing more shows his firmness, and steadiness of purpose, as well his thorough sense of moral rectitude, than his conduct towards the French and English at this period. With equal hand he aimed to be just towards both, and to submit to injustice from neither.

It being found, by the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, that the revenue was inadequate to the existing demands on the Government, the Committee of Ways and Means recommended an additional impost on salt, wine, spirits, tea, sugar, and stamps, as well as a direct tax on windows; which gave rise to much discussion.

A tax on lands having been proposed, according to the recommendation of the Secretary, the motion prevailed by forty-eight votes to thirty-nine.

The policy of direct taxation was subsequently very

1797.] A BILL NEGATIVED BY THE PRESIDENT.

619

copiously, but irregularly discussed; but while a majority appeared in the debate to be in favor of direct taxes, there was a manifest reluctance to carry their theory into execution, and no direct tax was laid at this session, in conformity with the report of the Secretary of the Treasury in the preceding year.

An increase of the salaries of the higher officers of the Government, to the amount of twenty-five per cent., was carried by fifty-seven votes to thirty-two.

A bill having passed both Houses for reducing the military establishment of the United States, the President for the second time exercised his constitutional veto, urging four objections which he had to the bill. These were, that the law would do injustice to two companies; would be injurious to the public service; did not comport with economy; and would deprive the regular army of cavalry. On a reconsideration by the House, there were fifty-five in favor of it, and thirty-six against it; so that the former number not being two-thirds of the whole, the bill was rejected.

On the twenty-seventh of February, the Speaker laid before the House a report of the Secretary of State, respecting the spoliations on the trade of the Uuited States by the French republic, on a memorial referred to him by the House on the seventh of May.

These injuries he classed under seven heads:

First. Spoliations and maltreatment of their vessels at sea by French ships-of-war and privateers.

Second. A long-continued embargo on their vessels at Bordeaux, in 1793 and 1794.

Third. The non-payment of bills, and other evidences of debts, drawn by the colonial governments in the West Indies.

Fourth. The seizure or forced sales of the cargoes of