Revolutionary History, will be glad to see the narrative of the French commander merely as such, in an English dress. It was necessary to abridge it, and there is some dryness in the details: We have, however, what is most important, the simple and genuine exposition of this respectable foreigner's views of our situation and movements, and of his own, during the period of his efficacious co-operation with us in the war of our independence, as the leader of the French auxiliaries. We have the satisfaction, too, as in the case of M. de Marbois' work, of reading our panegyric in the pages of a European stranger of the most exalted rank and worth;-of being enabled to adduce another authority, still less to be suspected and equally imposing, in favour of the elevation and purity of our native character.

We will not regret being reminded of the obligations we owe to the French nation of 1779. I say nation, because the French government did not enter heartily into the cause of our Independence; and, indeed, this is more than could be expected in any government so constituted. It was compelled to recognize, and, in a certain degree, obeyed the public enthusiasm, after having long and nicely calculated, in that state of abstraction as to feeling which suits the deliberations of a cabinet, in most of the great questions of external policy. There is much light thrown on the subject in a work entitled "A History of French Diplomacy," which was published in Paris in 1811. The author, who was chief clerk at that period, in the Department of Foreign Affairs, has stated, from authentic sources, the calculations of interest which prompted the cabinet of Versailles to countenance our efforts, and the particular circumstances which put an end to its long irresolution about an open military concert. He has copied two autographical letters of Louis XVIth, to the King of Spain, one bearing date the 8th January, 1778, and the other 10th March, of the same year, which I have seen no where else, and in which the leading motives of the policy of the French cabinet, with respect to our struggle, are distinctly set forth.

Louis dwells particularly upon the apprehension of the success of Lord North's plan for a reconciliation between the mother country and the colonies; upon the urgent necessity of preventing this reconciliation, lest France should be assailed by their united forces; the alteration in the face of things, produced by the capture of Bourgoyne, and the position of Howe's army; upon the much that would be subducted from the power of England, by the dismemberment of her empire; and the advantage to result from this circumstance, to France and Spain, &c. The reply of Charles III. of the 22d March, shows that the Spanish government was by no means disposed or resolved at that moment to engage in the contest, though it so soon afterwards, stimu

lated by its own private grievances, and overcome by the_importunities of France, issued a declaration of war against England. The reluctance of Spain to lend her aid to those whom Louis styles in one of his letters, the colonial insurgents, was natural enough, and needs no commentary. She is now making to us, mutatis mutandis, the same complaints on the subject of the equipment of privateers in our ports, &c. which were preferred by the British, in their Manifesto of 1779, against the French government. And, if we recur to the wars of Spain with her subjects of the Netherlands, in the reign of Philip II. we shall find that the English government and nation then furnished her with still stronger grounds for complaints of the sort, which were urged as fruitlessly as they are likely to be in the present instance.

In none of the domestic official papers or confidential communications of the Court of Versailles, respecting the American war, is there a word said about the justice of our cause, or the influence of a generous sympathy. Every measure is referred to the reason of state. In 1782, when the Courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg proposed their mediation, France suggested in her reply, the idea of a truce of many years, in lieu of a definitive treaty between the United States and Great Britain, while she herself should sign a definitive peace. By this expedient the independence of the United States was to be secured in fact, and England to be spared the mortification of a formal recognition of that independence-the work of France, as the official memoir of M. de Vergennes modestly affirms. In the confi dential report which this minister made to the French ambassador at the Court of Spain, concerning his interviews on the subject of peace, with Mr. Grenville, the private agent, whom the British Cabinet sent to Paris, in April, 1782, I find the following passage:" Mr. Grenville said, that the Independence of Ame"rica being the direct object of the war, and Great Britain "having determined to give entire satisfaction on this head, "there was no further controversy, or obstacle to peace."

"I did not, as you may imagine, let this strange assertion pass without notice. The detail of facts furnished me with "irresistible means of demonstrating, that the Independence of "America was but a very indirect cause of the war, that it would "not even have provoked it, if the British Ministers then in of ❝fice, had not seen with the eyes of pride, the declaration made "to them of our acknowledgment."

When I began to print the "Abstract of the principal Debates of the Fourteenth Congress," it was my intention to include all such as properly fall under this description. But those which I had placed first in order, occupied a space so considerable, that I found myself obliged, in compliance with the general arrangement of the volume, to omit the remainder. I allude

to the debates on the "Treaty-making power," the "Claims' law," the Direct Tax, the National Bank Bill, the Tariff, and the "Compensation law," which particularly illustrate the ability and eloquence of the Congress, and furnish the most instructive general views of our institutions and domestic policy. I inserted at large, in my first volume, the oration of Mr. Pinkney, on the "Treaty-making power;" but this can convey no adequate idea of the range of the debate. The ingenious speeches of Messrs. Calhoun, Forsyth, Gaston, Hopkinson, and Randolph, on the same occasion, embrace an investigation of several fundamental principles of the Federal Constitution. The question was not, indeed, new in our legislative annals, and might have been supposed to be no longer controvertible. The only mischief that could result from the adoption of Mr. Forsyth's Resolutions, was the admission of the principle involved; and as I hold the right asserted for the House of Representatives, to interpret and sanction treaties, as spurious and useless, though not perhaps absolutely dangerous, I rejoice that they were set aside.

It is certainly desirable that all treaties should be discussed in the House of Representatives; and there are various modes of bringing them regularly under examination, without resorting to the pretension just stated. In extreme cases of corruption, incapacity, or mistake in the formation and ratification of them by the constitutional agents, the sure remedy is provided by the paramount law of self-preservation, and will readily suggest itself to the House of Representatives, and to the people. Such cases, may, however, be fairly described as impossible, with the precautions taken in our system.

There appears to be a perfect security furnished in the association of the Senate to the Executive branch in the power of concluding treaties. The Senate is a popular body of representatives, and the House could furnish no additional principle of safety or control, unless in the point of mere number. The practice of the British House of Commons, would seem to favour the pretension of our House of Representatives; yet there is, in fact, no parity of reasoning. In England, the crown is without any other check in the negotiation and conclusion of treaties, but the subsequent reference to Parliament for the means of carrying them into effect and the scrutiny which they there undergo. Even the House of Lords, is excluded from any share in this great prerogative, although the spirit of that Assembly is nearly consubstantial with the royal mind, while that of our Senate,-not to say of our Executive, partakes of the popular genius, just as the human soul is said, in the theory of some metaphysicians, to be an emanation from the Divine essence.

It should be recollected, too, that the British government is collectively omnipotent, and the distribution of faculties in it almost

merely prescriptive. Here, under our federal system, there is a nicely measured and studiously apportioned grant from the people and the States. They have allotted specifically the power of making treaties, that is of binding the Union by contracts, to the Executive and Senate; while they have committed certain other powers to all parts of the government jointly, &c. They were satisfied with the Executive and the Senate, as the sole depositories of the power in question. The concurrence of such an assembly as the House of Representatives, would probably be, in a general point of view, of more detriment than benefit. Unity of deliberation and promptitude of execution were, as the experience of mankind suggested, to be consulted as far as possible, in the authorization to make treaties. There was a signal warning on this head in the example of the Dutch Republic, by the constitution of which all the provinces were to give their separate consent to every treaty. The embarrassments and disadvantages which this formality occasioned, led to what might be expected-frequent infractions of the rule. In the case of the celebrated triple league negotiated by Temple and De Wit, the States General broke through it, rather than incur a delay and uncertainty which often suspended as it were, the safety of the Republic, and always influenced foreign cabinets to the prejudice of her relations with them.

The Act relative to payment for property lost or captured during the war, called the "Claims law," passed at the first session, was, at the second, the subject of an animated and curious controversy, both as to its general principle, and the partial execution which it had received. The government may derive credit for generosity from this measure, but it would seem to have gone beyond what either duty or policy prescribed. I think the precedent will be lamented or its authority disputed, hereafter, as to all cases, other than those reached by the principles to which Mr. P. Barbour and Mr. Calhoun confined themselves in their luminous speeches on the subject. The argument of Mr. P. Barbour was a fine specimen of parliamentary logic, and appeared to me irresistible. It has not, I believe, been reported at large; a circumstance much to be regretted.

The act passed, opens a wide door to fraud, and may induce endless expense and trouble. The treasury should possess Fortunatus' purse, to meet all the demands which might be referred to one or other of the several cases specified. A sufficient prelibation of the consequences was had in the merely inchoate execution, about which the House of Representatives was so long and angrily engaged.

There was something objectionable not only in the latitude of the general principle, but in the arrangements for the execution of the law.

The execution of such a law was too heavy and delicate a charge

for a single commissioner. He could not, however upright or capable he might be, perform the task without incurring suspicion and odium. A case of greater hardship than that of the respectable individual who had the misfortune to be selected for this trust, can scarcely be conceived, when we look to the manner in which his proceedings were investigated and arraigned in Congress. It was a virtual inquisition into character, which admitted of no such opportunity for vindication, as justice, or the feelings of the accused could rest satisfied with, on the supposition of his innocence. It was an awkward entanglement for all parties; for Congress, the President, and the unfortunate commissioner. I cannot think that Congress extricated itself as could be wished.* Several of the speeches delivered on the subject of the Repeal of the Direct Tax, besides those of Mr. Clay, and Mr. Hopkinson, which I have given entire in my first volume, could be cited as ingenious and instructive performances. I would indicate particularly those of Mr. Calhoun, who shines on every occasion which calls for an appeal to general principles, and enlarged views of policy. His language in the debates on the additional Military Academies, on the General Appropriation Bill, on the encouragement of Domestic Manufactures, was that of a statesman "looking before and after." The reduction of the Direct Tax from six to three millions, and the limitation of it to one year, effected in the first session, were the harbingers of its extinction at the next. They might have been considered, too, as ominous of the proposition made in February last, to abolish all the internal taxes, which failed, say its advocates, only because it was introduced so late in the session. God forbid that this should have been the true reason of its failure! We may hope that the sound sense of the majority of Congress enlightened and admonished by the eloquent wisdom of some of the leaders, will not allow the Treasury to be cut off from all supplies, except those which it may be at any time in the power of foreign nations to curtail or intercept.

The reduction of the army would be the natural concomitant of the repeal of the taxes, and was meditated, simultaneously, in the House of Representatives. It was formally and seriously proposed in the Senate, by the hon. Mr. Mason, of New-Hampshire, who trembled for our liberties in viewing the number to which the army now amounts-ten thousand men and would therefore, have reduced it to a moiety! But few senatorial voices were raised in favour of any reduction. It was combated on

So with the Treaty-question, although the respective reports of the Committees of Conference are in themselves able and valuable papers.

In the course of the first session of this Congress, there originated in the Senate, another most alarming proposition which hap