from citizens of Boston.1 The debate upon Webster's resolution began upon the 19th of January2 and continued until the 26th. It took a wide range, developed great diversity of sentiment, and produced no result.

The sympathy for the Greeks continued to manifest itself. On the 2d of January, 1827, Edward Livingston moved to instruct the Committee of Ways and Means to report a bill appropriating $50,000 for provisions for their relief.3 The bill was negatived on the 27th. Private relief was given, and in his annual message to Congress in the fol lowing December the President transmitted to Congress correspondence respecting it with Capo d'Istrias and with the President and Secretary of the Greek National Assembly.5

The first and only Treaty with Greece was concluded in London in 1837 between the Ministers of the respective Powers at that Court. It was sent to Congress with the President's message of December 4, 1838.

HANOVER.

The Treaties of Commerce and Navigation with Hanover contained provisions respecting duties upon tobacco, which were the subject of both correspondence and legislation, and were esteemed important. It was thought at the time of their negotiation that other similar Treaties with more important Powers would follow. This proved to be a mistake. How these Treaties became abrogated is explained in note " Abrogated, Suspended, or Obsolete Treaties."

8

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

In the year 1826 Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, commanding the United States Sloop-of-War "Peacock," signed articles of agreement in the form of a Treaty with the King of the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaiians profess to have observed this as a Treaty,10 but it was not regarded as such by the United States.

In December, 1842, the "duly commissioned" representatives of King Kamehameha III proposed to Mr. Webster, Secretary of State, to conclude a Treaty whenever the sovereignty of the King should be recog nized. In support of their proposal they said, "Twenty-three years ago the nation had no written language, and no character in which to write it. * The nation had no fixed form or regulations of government except as they were dictated by those who were in authority, or

Ib., 931. 2 Ib., 1084. 33 Debates, 577. Ib., 654.6 F. R. F., 627, 636. S. E. Doc. 1, 3d Sess. 25th Cong. H. E. Doc. 258, 2d Sess. 25th Cong.; H. E. Doc. 60, 1st Sess. 36th Cong. H. E. Doc. 258, 2d Sess. 25th Cong., 22. H. E. Doc. 35, 3d Sess. 27th Cong.

10 Ib.

8

might by any means acquire power.

*

*

* But under the fostering influence, patronage, and care of His Majesty, and that of his predecessors, the language has been reduced to visible and systematized form, and is now written by a large and respectable portion of the people. A regular monarchcial government has been organized of a limited and representative character. A code of laws, both civil and criminal, has been enacted and published. Their position is such that they constitute the great centre of whale-fishery for most of the world. They are on the principal line of communica. tion between the Western Continent of America and the Eastern Continent of Asia; and such are the prevailing winds on that ocean that all vessels requiring repairs or supplies, either of provisions or of water, naturally touch at those islands, whether the vessels sail from Columbia River or the north, or from the far distant ports of Mexico, Central America, or Peru upon the south."

Mr. Webster replied, "The United States have regarded the existing authorities in the Sandwich Islands as a Government suited to the con dition of the people, and resting on their own choice; and the President is of opinion that the interests of all the commercial nations require that that government should not be interfered with by foreign Powers, The President does not see any present necessity for the negotiation of a formal Treaty." It was not until 1849 that a Treaty was concluded.

Under this treaty it was held by Attorney-General Speed, (June 26. 1866,) that the Consular Courts at Honolulu have the power, without interference from local Courts, to determine, as between citizens of the United States, who comprise the crew of an American vessel, and are bound to fulfil the obligations imposed by the shipping-article.3

HONDURAS.

Prior to the signature of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850, Great Britain had taken possession of Tigre Island, in the Gulf of Fonseca. An animated discussion followed.4

In the 14th article of the Treaty concluded with Honduras in 1864, the United States undertook, in consideration of certain concessions by Honduras, to guarantee the neutrality of an interoceanic communication so long as they should enjoy the concessions. The Government of Honduras having manifested a purpose of holding these guarantees to be in force before the United States had come into the enjoyment of the concessions, Mr. Fish wrote Mr. Baxter, "It has not hitherto been supposed that the obligation of the United States to maintain that neu

1 Ib., 4-5. 2 Ib., 5. 311 Op. At.-Gen., 508. H. Ex. Doc. 75, 1st Sess. 31st Cong.; see, also, "Central America."

trality would become perfect, except upon the completion of that railway, as the charge was assumed as a consideration for advantages promised, the realization of which obviously cannot begin so long as the road shall be in an unfinished state. The guarantee, however, by no means implied that the United States are to maintain a police or other force in Honduras for the purpose of keeping petty trespassers from the railway." He also instructed Mr. Torbert, the Minister at San Salvador, to the same effect.3

ITALY.

With two of the independent powers which were consolidated into the Kingdom of Italy, the United States had concluded Treaties prior to the consolidation, viz, with Sardinia and with the Two Sicilies. They had also held diplomatic relations with the Papal States, and had established Consulates in Tuscany and other parts of Italy.

The Treaty of commerce with Sardinia was communicated to Congress by President Van Buren in his Annual Message on the 24th December, 1839, in these words: "That with Sardinia is the first Treaty of commerce formed by that Kingdom, and it will, I trust, answer the expectations of the present Sovereign, by aiding the development of the resources of his country, and stimulating the enterprize of his people."4

The correspondence "touching the origin, progress, and conclusion" of that convention, and also "all consular and other official correspondence in regard to the execution of said treaty," was called for by the Senate and transmitted to that body."5

With the Two Sicilies an important political question was adjusted by a Treaty. "On the 1st day of July, 1809, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the then Government of Naples, addressed to Frederick Degan, esq., then Consul of the United States, an official letter, containing an invitation to all American vessels, having on board the usual certificates of origin, and other regular papers, to come direct to Naples with their cargoes. * Upon the credit of that promise [the merchants of the United States] sent to Naples many valuable vessels and cargoes; but scarcely had they reached the destination to which they had been allured, when they were seized, without distinction, as prizes, or as otherwise forfeited to the Neapolitan Govern* These arbitrary seizures were followed by summary decrees confiscating, in the name and for the use of the same Government, the whole of the property which had thus been brought within its grasp."

ment.

*

1 F. R., 1871, 577. Ib., 581. 3 Ib., 691-692. 4 Globe, 1st Sess. 26th Cong., Ap. 2. 5 H. E. Doc. 118, 1st Sess. 29th Cong. 64 F. R. F., 162.

In 1816 William Pinckney, the U. S. Minister to St. Petersburg, was sent on a special mission to Naples to make reclamations for these spoliations. He laid the matter before the Neapolitan Government, and that government denied its obligation to make reparation. The Marquis di Circello, Minister for Foreign Affairs, verbally told Pinckney that "Monsieur Murat [as he styled him] appropriated to his own use whatever of value he could lay his hands upon, and in particular the vessels and merchandise belonging to our citizens," and he officially informed the American Envoy that the fund received from the confiscation of this property "was always considered as appertaining to the extraordinary and private domain of Murat himself. It is enough to read the account rendered of the cashier of the separate fund to know that the sums paid into it were dissipated in largesses to the favorites of Murat, in marriage portions to some of his relatives, and in other licentious expenses of Murat and of his wife, especially during their visit to Paris. Murat was but the passive instrument of the will of Bonaparte in the confiscation of the American ships."

*

The rejected claims were from time to time the subject of memorials to Congress.3

In bis message at the opening of the first session of the 22d Congress, President Jackson said: "Our demands upon the Government of the Two Sicilies are of a peculiar nature. The injuries on which they are founded are not denied, nor are the atrocity and perfidy under which those injuries were perpetrated attempted to be extenuated. The sole ground on which indemnity has been refused is the alleged illegality of the tenure by which the monarch who made the seizures held his crown. This defence, always unfounded in any principle of the law of nations, now universally abandoned, even by those powers upon whom the responsibility for acts of past rulers bore the most heavily, will unquestionably be given up by his Sicilian Majesty, whose counsels will receive an impulse from that high sense of honor and regard to justice which are said to characterize him; and I feel the fullest confidence that the talents of the citizen commissioned for that purpose will place before him the just claims of our injured citizens in such a light as will enable me, before your adjournment, to announce that they have been adjusted and secured."

It was not until two years later that the President was able to announce to Congress that the ratifications of a convention for the settlement of these claims had been duly exchanged.5 The act to carry this into effect was passed on the 2d of March, 1833.6

Before the consolidation of Italy two Treaties of Amity and Commerce had been concluded between the United States and the Two Sicilies-one in 1845, and one in 1855.

2

4

1 Ibid., 161. Ib., 170-171. 36 F. R. F., 614, 1005. Debates 1st Sess. 22d Cong., Ap. 3. "Debates 1st Sess. 23d Cong., Ap. 3. 64 St. at L., 666.

George P. Marsh was the first Minister accredited to the New Kingdom. In June, 1864, Mr. Seward transmitted to him a full power to negotiate a new Treaty of Commerce to take the "place of the existing Treaties between the United States and the Kingdoms of Sardinia and the Two Sicilies." The Italian Government had already expressed its willingness to include in a Treaty a provision for "the total exemption of all private property not contraband of war from capture at sea by ships of war in all cases."

By the 29th of June, 1865, the negotiations were so far advanced that a draught of the proposed Treaty had been left at the Foreign Office, and Marsh was asking instructions respecting a Consular Convention. He was instructed to confine himself to a Commercial Treaty.3

The Consular Convention, for which he asked instructions, was concluded at Washington in February, 1868. It was followed, in March, 1868, by a convention, also concluded at Washington, for the surrender of criminals.

It was not until February, 1871, that the Treaty of Amity and of Commerce was concluded in Florence. It contains the provision respecting captures at sea suggested by Ricasoli ten years before.

With the States of the Church the United States maintained diplo matic relations for many years; but, in 1868, Congress neglected to make appropriations for the support of a mission, and the Minister was withdrawn. In his annual message to Congress in 1871, President Grant said, "I have been officially informed of the annexation of the States of the Church to the Kingdom of Italy, and the removal of the capital of that Kingdom to Rome. In conformity with the established policy of the United States, I have recognized this change."+

JAPAN.

Mr. Edmund Roberts, a Sea Captain of Portsmouth, N. H., was named by President Jackson his "agent for the purpose of examining in the Indian Ocean the means of extending the commerce of the United States by commercial arrangements with the Powers whose dominions border on those seas."5 He was ordered, on the 27th of January, 1832, to "embark on board of the United States sloop-of-war the 'Peacock,'" in which he was to "be rated as Captain's Clerk." On the 23d of the following July, he was told to "be very careful in obtaining information respecting Japan, the means of opening a communication with it, and the value of its trade with the Dutch and Chinese," and that when he should arrive at Canton he would probably receive further instructions. He had with him blank letters of credence, and on the 28th of

14 D. C., 1864, 328. D. C., 1861, 321. 33 D. C., 1865, 148–149. F. R., 1871, 5. MS. Dept. of State. 5 Ib. 7 Ib.