DOCUMENTS

ACCOMPANYING THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE OF JAN. 19,

1797.

[Continued from Vol. II.]

No. 148.

The Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of Ameri ca, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republick. Paris, 15th of March, 1796, 25th Ventose, 4th year of the French Republick, and 20th of the Independence of the United States of America.

CITIZEN MINISTER,-I was lately honoured with your note of the 19th of Ventose (9th of March) objecting to several of the measures of our government that have occurred in the course of the present war, and to which I presume I shall herein render you a satisfactory answer. For this purpose, I shall pursue in reply the order you have observed in stating those objections, and according to the light I have on the subject give to each the answer it requires.

These objections are comprised under three distinct heads, a summary of which I will first expose, that my reply to each may be better understood.

1. Your first complaint is that we have failed to execute our treaties with you, and in the following respects. 1st. By submitting to our tribunals the cognizance of prizes brought into our ports by your privateers. 2d. By admitting English vessels of war into our ports against the stipulation of the 17th article of our treaty of commerce, even after such vessels had taken prizes from you, and in some cases with their prizes. 3d. By omitting to execute the consular convention in two of its most impor

tant clauses, having failed to provide, as you suggest, suitable means for carrying those clauses into effect, the first of which secures to your consuls within the United States the exclusive jurisdiction of all controversies between French citizens, and the second the right to pursue and recover all mariners who desert from your vessels. 4th. By suffering in the port of Philadelphia the arrestation of the captain of the corvette Cassius for an act committed by him on the high sea, and which you say is contrary to the 19th article of the treaty of commerce, which stipulates "that the commandants of publick and private vessels shall not be detained in any manner," and the rights of nations, which put such officers under the protection of their respective flags. And by likewise suffering the arrestation of that corvette, though armed at the Cape, upon the pretext that she was armed in the United States.

2. Your second complaint states that an outrage which was made to this Republick in the person of its minister, citizen Fauchet, by an English vessel (the Africa) in concert with an English consul, in arresting within the jurisdiction of the United States the packet boat in which he had embarked, searching his trunks, and afterwards remaining within the waters of those States for near a month to watch the movements of the vessel in which he finally sailed, was left unfinished, since you urge that the measures which were taken by our government in regard to that vessel and the consul, were not taken in a suitable time to remedy the evil, and were produced by a subsequent outrage, and of a very different kind.

3. Your third and last complaint applies to our late treaty with England, and which you say not only sacrifices in favour of that power our treaties with France, but departs from that line of impartiality which as a neutral nation we were bound to observe. Particular exemplifications are given of this charge in your note, and which I shall particularly notice when I come to reply to it.

This is a summary of your complaints, and to each of which I will now give a precise, and I flatter myself a satisfactory answer.

1. Of the inexecution of our treaties with this Republick, and of the first example given of it, "the submission

to our tribunals of the cognizance of prizes brought into our ports by your privateers."

Permit me in reply to this charge to ask whether you insist as a general principle that our tribunals are inhibited the right of taking cognizance of the validity of your prizes in all cases, or are there exceptions to it? As a general principle without exception, it cannot, I think, be insisted on, because examples may be given under it of possible cases, which prove it cannot be so construed and executed without an encroachment upon the inherent and unalienable rights of sovereignty in both nations, which neither intended to make, nor does the treaty warrant. Suppose, for instance, a prize was taken within our jurisdiction not upon the high sea, nor even at the entrance or mouths of those great rivers and bays which penetrate and fertilize our country, but actually in the interior and at the wharf of some one of our cities; is this a case over which our tribunals, or some other branch of our government, have no right to take cognizance? Do you conceive that the true import of the treaty imposes upon us, and likewise upon you in turn, the obligation thus to abandon, as a theatre of warfare in which you bear no part, the interior police of your country? Can it be done consistently with the dignity or the rights of sovereignty? Or suppose that the privateer which took the prize, and led it into port, was fitted out within the United States, the act being unauthorized by treaty, could we tolerate this, and refuse the like liberty to the other nation at war, without departing from that line of neutrality we ought to observe? You well know that those rights which are secured by treaties form the only preference in a neutral port, which a neutral nation can give to either of the parties at war; and if these are transcended, that the nation so acting makes itself a party to the war, and in consequence merits to be considered and treated as such. These examples prove that there are some exceptions to the general principle, and perhaps there are others which do not occur to me at present. Are then the cases in question, and which form the basis of your complaint, within the scale of these exceptions? If they are, and I presume they are, I am persuaded you will concur with me in opinion that the complaint is unfounded, and that we have done our duty: a duty we were bound to per

form as well from a respect to our own rights as a sovereign and free people, as to the integrity of our character, being a neutral party in the present war.

You will observe that I admit the principle if a prize was taken upon the high sea, and by a privateer fitted out within the Republick or its dominions, that in such case our courts have no right to take cognizance of its validity: but is any case of this kind alleged? I presume none is or can be shown.

2. The second article in this charge of failing to execute our treaties with this Republick states, that in contravention of the 17th article of the treaty of commerce we have admitted British vessels of war into our ports, even such as have taken prizes from you, and in some cases with their prizes. The article referred to stipulates the right for your vessels of war and privateers to enter our ports with their prizes, and inhibits that right to your enemies. enemies. It does not stipulate that the vessels of war belonging to your enemies shall not enter, but simply that they shall not enter with their prizes. This latter act is I presume therefore the subject of your complaint. Here too it only stipulates that in case such vessels enter your or our ports, proper measures shall be taken to compel them to retire as soon as possible. Whether you were rightly informed with respect to the fact is a point upon which I cannot decide, as I know nothing about it. Our coast is extensive, our harbours numerous, and the distress of the weather may have forced them in; or they may have entered wantonly, and in contempt of the authority of our government. Many outrages have been committed on us by that nation in the course of the present war, and this may likewise be in the catalogue. But I will venture to affirm that no countenance was given by our government to those vessels whilst they were there, and that all suitable means were taken to compel them to retire and without delay. You know we have no fleet, and how difficult it is, without one, to execute a stipulation of this kind with that promptitude, which your agents in our country, ardent in your cause and faithful to your interest, might expect.

3. The third article under this head states that we have omitted to execute the consular convention in two of its most important clauses, the first of which secures to the

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,