consuls of each nation in the ports of the other the exclusive jurisdiction of controversies between their own citizens, and the second of which gives to the consuls a right to recover such mariners as desert from the vessels of their respective nations.

Upon the first point, the supposed incompetency of the law provided on our part to execute the judgments of your consuls within our jurisdiction, I can only say that as no particular defect is stated, so no precise answer can be given to the objection. And upon the second, which states that the judges charged by our law to issue warrants for arresting such of your mariners as desert from their vessels have latterly required and against the spirit of the treaty the presentation of the original registers of the vessels to which they belonged as the ground whereon to issue those warrants, I have to observe that by the clause in question (the 9th article) the originals seem to be required, and that the copies spoken of in another part of the treaty (the 5th article) obviously apply to other objects and not to this. More fully however to explain to you the conduct of our government upon this subject, permit me here to add an extract from our law passed on the 14th of April, 1792, expressly to carry into effect the convention in question, and which applies to both cases. "The district judges of the United States shall within their respective districts be the competent judges for the purposes expressed in the 9th article of the said convention, and it shall be incumbent on them to give aid to the consuls and vice consuls of France in arresting and securing deserters from the vessels of the French nation, according to the tenour of the said article. And where by any article of the said convention, the consuls and vice consuls of France 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 tenour of the stipulations." By this extract you will clearly perceive that it was not the intention of our government to frustrate or embarrass the execution of this treaty on the contrary, that it was its intention to carry it into full effect, according to its true intent and meaning,

and that it has done so, so far as it could be done by suitable legal provisions.

It may hereafter be deemed a subject worthy consideration whether the first of these clauses in that convention had not better be expunged from it. The principle of a foreign court established within any country, with jurisdiction independent of that country, cannot well be reconciled with any correct idea of its sovereignty: nor can it exercise its functions without frequent interference with the authorities of the country, and which naturally occasions strife and discontent between the two governments. These however are not the only objections to the measure, though with me they are unanswerable. Under circumstances the most favourable, it were difficult for these consular tribunals to serve their process and execute their judgments: a limited jurisdiction to a town or village only admits of it. In the United States therefore and in France. where the territory is immense and the number of citizens of each country in the other considerable as is now the case it becomes impossible. Many of these in each country dwell perhaps in the interior and not within one hundred leagues of any consul of their nation; how compel their attendance before him? How execute the judgment afterwards? For the tribunals of one country to call in the aid of the officers of another to execute its decrees or judgments is an institution at best objectionable, but to send those officers round the country through the range of one hundred leagues is still more so. Permit me then to

ask what are the motives on your or our part for such an institution? In what-respect are you or we interested that your or our consuls should have the exclusive jurisdiction of controversies between your and our citizens in each other's country? Why not submit those controversies in > common with all others to the tribunals of each nation? Some considerations in favour of the institution it is true occur, but yet these are light and trifling when compared with the numerous and strong objections that oppose it. So much however by way of digression.

4. Your fourth and last example under this head states that the captain of the corvette Cassius was arrested in Philadelphia for an act committed on the high sea, contrary as you suggest to the 19th article of the treaty of commerce, which stipulates "that the commandants of ves

sels publick and private shall not be detained in any manner whatever," and of the well known rights of nations which put the officers of publick vessels under the safeguard of their respective flags, and that the said corvette was likewise seized though armed at the Cape, upon the pretext that she was armed some time before in Philadelphia.

As you have not stated what the act was, with the commission whereof the captain was charged, I can of course give no explanation on that head. Satisfied however I am that if the crime was of a nature to authorize our courts to take cognizance of it, he would not be exempted from their jurisdiction by the article of the treaty in question, since that article as you will perceive was intended to establish a general principle in the intercourse between the two countries; to give a privilege to the ships of war of each to enter and retire from the ports of the other, and not to secure in favour of any particular delinquent an immunity from crimes: nor in my opinion does the law of nations admit of a different construction, or give any other protection. 1 am happy however to hear that he is released, since it furnishes an additional proof that the whole transaction was a judicial one, regular according to the course of our law, and mingling nothing in it, in any view, that ought to give offence here.

With respect to the seizure of the corvette upon the pretext that she was armed in Philadelphia, I have only to say that if she was armed there it was the duty of our government to seize her; the right to arm not being stipulated by treaty; and if that was alleged upon sufficient testimony, as I presume was the case, there was no other way of determining the question than by an examination into it, and in the interim preventing her sailing. It would be no satisfaction to the other party to the war for us to examine into the case after she was gone, provided the decision was against her. On the contrary, such conduct would not only justly expose us to the charge of committing a breach of neutrality but of likewise doing it collusively.

2. Your second complaint states an outrage which was committed by a British frigate upon your minister the citizen Fauchet, in concert with a British consul, in boarding the packet, in which he embarked, opening his trunks, &c.

within the waters of the United States, and remaining there afterwards to watch the movements of the frigate in which he sailed, and which you say was not resented as it ought to have been by our government, since you add the measures which were taken by it in regard to that vessel and the consul were the effect of another and subsequent outrage.

The punishment which was inflicted by our government upon the parties who committed that outrage by revoking the exequatur of the consul and ordering that all supplies should be withheld from the frigate, as likewise that she should forthwith depart without the waters of the United States, was I think you will admit an adequate one for the offence. Certain it is that as we have no fleet it was the only one in our power to inflict, and that this punishment was inflicted in consequence of that outrage. You will I presume likewise admit after you have perused the act of the President upon that subject, a copy of which I herewith transmit to you, and by which you will perceive that there was in truth no distinct outrage offered to the United States upon that occasion, by the parties in question, but that both the one and the other act (the attempt made upon the packet boat in which your minister had embarked by the captain of a British frigate and which constituted the first, and the writing of an insolent letter by the same captain to the governour of Rhode Island in concert with the British consul there, and which constituted the second) were only several incidents to the same transaction, forming together a single offence, and for which that punishment was inflicted on those parties.

I think proper here to add as a further proof that the President was neither inattentive to what was due to your rights upon that occasion, nor to the character of the United States, that he gave orders to our minister at London to complain formally to that government of that outrage, and to demand of it such satisfaction upon the parties, as the nature of the insult required, and which has doubtless either been given, or is still expected.

3. Your third and last complaint applies to our late , treaty with England, and which you say has sacrificed in favour of that power our connexion with France and the rights of neutrality the most common.

1st. In support of this charge you observe that we have not only departed from the principles of the armed neutrality adopted in the course of the last war, but have abandoned in favour of England the limits which the rights of nations and our own treaties with all other powers, and even England in her treaties with many other, powers, have given to contraband.

2d. That we have also consented that provisions should be deemed contraband, not when destined to a blockaded port only, as should be the case, but in all cases by tacitly acknowledging the pretensions of England to place at pleasure and by proclamation not only your islands but even France herself in that dilemma.

The principles of the armed neutrality set on foot by the empress of Russia in harmony with the other neutral powers at the time you mention, and acceded to by all the powers then at war against England, are extremely dear to us, because just in themselves and in many respects very important to our welfare. We insert them in every treaty we make with those powers who are willing to adopt them, and our hope is that they will soon become universal. But even in the war of which you speak, and when the combination against England was most formidable, all the maritime powers being arranged against her, you well know that she never acceded to them. How compel her then, on the present occasion, when that combination was not only broken, but many of the powers then parties to it against England were now enlisted on her side, in support of her principles. You must be sensible that under these circumstances it was impossible for us to obtain from that power the recognition of those principles, and that of course we are not culpable for having failed to accomplish that object.

I regret also that we did not succeed in obtaining a more liberal scale of contraband from that power than was obtained for as our articles of exportation are chiefly articles of the first necessity, and always in great demand here, and every where else, it was equally an object of importance to us to enlarge the freedom of commerce in that respect, diminishing the list of contraband. Perhaps no nation on the globe is more interested in this object than we are. But here too the same difficulty occurred that had in the preceding case, and it was in consequence