TRADE AND COMMERCE WITH FOREIGN NATIONS.

FIRST CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

August 5, 1789.

With reference to arranging and bringing forward a system to regulate the trade and intercourse between the United States and the territory of other powers in North America and the West Indies, Mr. Butler reported as follows:

That it will be expedient to pass a law for imposing an increased duty of tonnage, for a limited time, on all foreign ships and other vessels that shall load in the United States, with the produce of the same, to any port or place in America whereto the vessels of the United Stated are not permitted to carry their own produce; but such a law being of the nature of a revenue law, your committee conceive that the originating a bill for that purpose is by the Constitution exclusively placed in the House of Representative.

Your committee beg leave further to report as their opinion that it will be expedient to direct a bill to be brought in for imposing similar restraints upon the trade of the European settlements in America with the United States that are imposed on the trade of the United States with those settlements.

FIRST CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

May 25, 1790.

On providing the means of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, Mr. Strong reported an amended bill, which became a law by the approval of the President on July 1, 1790. It is as follows:

SEC. 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States shall be, and he hereby is, authorized to draw from the Treasury of the United States a sum not exceeding forty thousand dollars annually, to be paid out of the monies arising from the duties on imports and tonnage, for the support of such persons as he shall commission to serve the United States in foreign parts, and for the expense incident to the business in which they may be employed: Provided, That, exclusive of an outfit, which shall in no case exceed the amount of one year's full salary to the minister plenipotentiary or chargé des affaires to whom the same may be allowed, the President shall not allow to any minister plenipotentiary a greater sum than at the rate of nine thousand dollars per annum, as a compensation for all his personal services and other expenses;

nor a greater sum for the same than four thousand five hundred do lars per annum to a chargé des affaires; nor a greater sum for the same than one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars per annum to the secretary of any minister plenipotentiary; And provided also, That the President shall account specially for all such expenditures of the said money as in his judgment may be made public, and also for the amount of such expenditures as he may think it advisable not to specify, and cause a regular statement and account thereof to be laid before Congress annually, and also lodged in the proper office of the Treasury Department.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall continue and be in force for the space of two years, and from thence until the end of the next session of Congress thereafter, and no longer.

(Stat. L., Vol. I, p. 128; Leg. Jour., Vol. I, p. 173.)

FIRST CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION.

January 26, 1791.

Concerning consuls and vice-consuls of the United States in foreign parts, Mr. Ellsworth reported as follows:

A BILL for carrying into full effect the convention between the King of the French and the United States of America, entered into for the purpose of defin ing and establishing the functions and privileges of their respective consuls and vice-consuls.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatires of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That where in the seventh article of the said convention it is agreed that when there shall be no consul or vice-consul of the King of the French to attend to the saving of the wreck of any French vessels stranded on the coasts of the United States, or that the residence of the said consul or vice-consul (he not being at the place of the wreck) shall be more distant from the said place than that of the competent judge of the country, the latter shall immediately proceed to perform the office therein prescribed; the district judge of the United States of the district in which the wreck shall happen shall proceed therein, according to the tenor of said article. And in such cases it shall be the duty of the officers of the customs within whose districts such wrecks shall happen to give notice thereof as soon as may be to the said judge, and to aid and to assist him to perform the duties hereby assigned to him. The district judges of the United States shall also within their respective districts be the competent judges for the purposes expressed in the ninth article of the said convention, and it shall be incumbent on them to give aid to the consuls and vice-consuls of the King of the French in arresting and securing deserters from the vessels of the French nation, according to the tenor of the said article. And where by any article of the said convention the consuls and vice-consuls of the King of the French are entitled to the aid of the competent executive officers of the country in the execution of any precept, the marshals of the United States and their deputies shall within their respective districts be the competent officers, and shall give their aid according to the tenor of the stipulations.

And whenever commitments to the jails of the country shall become necessary in pursuance of any stipulation of the said convention, they

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shall be to such jails within the respective districts as other commitments under the authority of the United States are by law made. And for the direction of the consuls and vice-consuls of the United States in certain cases.

SEC. 2. Be it enacted by the authority of the aforesaid, That they shall have right, in the ports or places to which they are or may be severally appointed, of receiving the protests or declarations which such captains, masters, crews, passengers, and merchants as are citizens of the United States and may respectively choose to make there, and also such as any foreigner may choose to make before them relative to the personal interest of any citizens of the United States; and the copies of the said acts duly authenticated by the said consuls or vice-consuls, under the seal of their consulates, respectively, shall receive faith in law, equally as their originals would in the courts of the United States. It shall be their duty, where the laws of the country permit, to take possession of the personal estate left by any citizen of the United States other than seamen belonging to any ship or vessel who shall die within their consulate, leaving there no legal representative, partner in trade, or trustee by him appointed, to take care of his effects; they shall inventory the same with the assistance of two merchants of the United States, or, for want of them, of any others of their choice; shall collect the debts due to the deceased in the country where he died, and pay the debts due from his estate which he shall have there contracted; shall sell at auction after reasonable public notice such part of the estate as shall be of a perishable nature, and such further part, if any, as shall be necessary for the payment of his debts, and at the expiration of one year from his decease the residue; and the balance of the estate they shall transmit to the Treasury of the United States, to be holden in trust for the legal claimants. But if at any time before such transmission the legal representative of the deceased shall appear and demand his effects in their hands, they shall deliver them up, being paid their fees, and shall cease their proceedings.

For the information of the representative of the deceased, it shall be the duty of the consul or vice-consul authorized to proceed as aforesaid in the settlement of his estate immediately to notify his death in one of the gazettes published in the consulate, and also to the Secretary of State, that the same may be notified in the State to which the deceased shall belong; and he shall also, as soon as may be, transmit to the Secretary of State an inventory of the effects of the deceased taken as before directed.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the said consuls and viceconsuls, in cases where ships or vessels of the United States shall be stranded on the coasts of their consulates, respectively, shall, as far as the laws of the country will permit, take proper measures, as well for the purpose of saving the said ships or vessels, their cargoes and appurtenances, as for storing and securing the effects and merchandise saved, and for taking an inventory or inventories thereof; and the merchandise and effects saved, with the inventory or inventories thereof taken as aforesaid, shall, after deducting therefrom the expense, be delivered to the owner or owners: Provided, That no consul or viceconsul shall have authority to take possession of any such goods, wares, merchandise, or other property when the master, owner, or consignee thereof is present or capable of taking possession of the same. SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That it shall and may be lawful for every consul and vice-consul of the United States to take and

receive the following fees of office for the services which he shall have performed:

For authenticating, under the consular seal, every protest, declaration, deposition, or other act which such captains, masters, mariners, seamen, passengers, merchants, or others as are citizens of the United States may respectively choose to make, the sum of two dollars.

For the taking into possession, inventorying, selling, and finally settling and paying or transmitting as aforesaid the balance due on the personal estate left by any citizen of the United States who shall die within the limits of his consulate, five per centum on the gross amount of such estate.

For taking into possession and otherwise proceeding on any such estate which shall be delivered over to the legal representative before a final settlement of the same, as is herein before directed, two and a half per centum on such part delivered over as shall not be in money and five per centum on the gross amount of the residue.

And it shall be the duty of the consuls and vice-consuls of the United States to give receipts for all fees which they shall receive by virtue of this act, expressing the particular services for which they are paid.

SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That in case it be found necessary for the interest of the United States that a consul or consuls be appointed to reside on the coast of Barbary, the President be authorized to allow an annual salary, not exceeding two thousand dollars, to each person so to be appointed: Provided, That such salary be not allowed to more than one consul for any one of the States on the said coast.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That every consul and vice-consul shall, before they enter into the execution of their trusts, or, if already in the execution of the same, within one year from the passage of this act, or if resident in Asia within two years, give bond with such sureties as shall be approved by the Secretary of State in a sum of not less than two thousand or more than ten thousand dollars, conditioned for the true and faithful discharge of the duties of his office according to law, and also for truly accounting for all moneys, goods, and effects which may act; and the said bond shall be lodged in the office of the Secretary of the Treasury.

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That to prevent the mariners and seamen employed in vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, in cases of shipwreck, sickness, or captivity, from suffering in foreign ports, it shall be the duty of the consuls and vice-consuls, respectively, from time to time to provide for them in the most reasonable manner, at the expense of the United States, subject to such instructions as the Secretary of State shall give, and not exceeding an allowance of twelve cents to a man per diem; and all masters and commanders of vessels belonging to citizens of the United States, and bound to some port of the same, are hereby required and enjoined to take such mariners or seamen on board of their ships or vessels, at the request of the said consuls or vice-consuls, respectively, and to transport them to the port in the United States to which such ships or vessels may be bound, free of costs or charge; but that the said mariners or seamen shall, if able, be bound to do duty on board such ships or vessels, according to their several abilities: Provided, That no master or captain of any ship or vessel shall be obliged to take a greater number than two men to every one hundred tons burthen of the said ship or vessel, on any one voyage; and if any such captain or