sums equivalent to the depredations made by the corsairs of the Republic on the American commerce, and to the contracts made with their citizens by France; and this advance, instead of benefitting the citizens of the United States, would leave them precisely what they now are, the creditors of the French Republic; the more extensive the depredations, and the more considerable the contracts uncomplied with, the more would the Government of France receive from the United States. Independent of these objections, the Ministers of the United States cannot engage to assume, in any form, the debts due from France to their fellow-citizens; they have no such power.

4. If the negotiations be opened, and the propositions for a loan, or any other propositions, exceeding the powers of the Ministers, be made, the Government of the United States will be consulted thereon with expedition.

5. This, or any other proposition, having for its object the claims of the two nations on each other, or an accommodation of differences, will be embraced with ardor by the Ministers of the United States.

6. It cannot escape notice, that the question of the Rôle d'équipage may involve in it every vessel taken from the United States: the Ministers, however, consider it, and wish to take it up as a subject of negotiation.

7. On this article it is only to be observed, that the season of the year is such, as, probably, to render a return, within six months, of the Envoy who might sail to the United States, impracticable : provision should be made for such an event.

If the difficulties attending the propositions for a loan, and a compensation for past injuries, be such as to require time for their removal, the Ministers of the United States propose that the discussions on the relative situation of the two countries, may commence in the usual forms, that the relation to each other may be so regulated, as to obviate future misunderstandings; and that the adjustment of the claims of the citizens of the United States, whose vessels have been captured, may be made after a decision on the point first mentioned. No diplomatic gratification can precede the ratification of the treaty.

No. 314.

Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, to Mr. Fulwar Skipwith, Consul General of the United States, dated Paris, Dec. 20, 1797.

[EXTRACT.]

"Although we have very little hope that a certificate of the seamen and passengers on board, can be of any service to our oppressed and injured commerce, yet, we think it advisable to give such certificates if requested; we conceive that no injury can result from it, and we are more inclined to advise it, as such a practice has, we understand, prevailed in some of the ports of the United States, and although we give this opinion, we deem it unquestionable that our treaty with France

dispenses with the necessity of any such paper, and therefore, care must be taken to avoid any expression which might be construed to imply such necessity."

We are, &c.

No. 315.

Extract of a note transmitted in a letter from Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, to the Secretary of State, under date of December 24, 1797.—No. 4.

"He said that the information M. Bellamy had given me, was just, and might always be relied on: but that he would reduce to writing bis propositions; which he accordingly did; and after he had shown them to Mr. Gerry, he burnt the paper. The substance was as follows: That the Envoy should come forward generally, and say:

France has been serviceable to the United States; and now they wish to be serviceable to France: understanding that the French Republic has sixteen million of Dutch rescriptions to sell, the United States will purchase them at par, and will give her further assistance when in their power.

The first arrangement being made, the French Government will take measures for reimbursing the equitable demands of America, arising from prizes, and to give free navigation to their ships in future."

No. $16.

Extract from a document marked B, transmitted in a letter from Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, to the Secretary of State, under date of December 24, 1797.-No. 4.

EXTRACT FROM GENERAL MARSHALL'S JOURNAL.

"December 17, 1797, I stept into Mr. Gerry's apartment, where I saw M. Bellamy. He expressed his regret at having been disabled to dine with us at M. de Beaumarchais', by an inveterate tooth-ache. He then asked me whether I had seen M. de Beaumarchais lately? I told him not since he dined with us, and that he had left us much indisposed. He then observed that he had not known until lately, that I was the advocate for that gentleman in his cause against the State of Virginia; and that M. de Beaumarchais, in consequence of that circumstance, had expressed sentiments of high regard for me. plied, that M. de Beaumarchais' cause was of great magnitude, very I reuncertain issue, and consequently that a portion of the interest he felt in it would very naturally be transferred to his advocate. He immediately said, (low and apart) that M. de Beaumarchais had consented, provided his claim could be established, to sacrifice 50,000 pounds sterling of it, as the private gratification which had been required of us; so that the gratification might be made without any actual loss to

the American Government. I answered, that a gratification on any terms, or in any form, was a subject which we approached with much fear and difficulty, as we were not authorized by our Government to make one; nor had it been expected that one would be necessary : that I could not undertake to say whether my colleagues would consent to it, in any state of things; but I could undertake to say no one of us would consent to it. unless it was preceded, or accompanied, by a full and entire recognition of the claims of our citizens, and a satisfactory arrangement on the objects of our mission. He said it was in the expectation of that event only that he mentioned it. We parted; and I stated the conversation to General Pinckney, who was disinclined to any stipulation of the sort, and considered it as a renewal of the old reprobated system of indirect, unauthorized negotiation. Hav. ing been originally the counsel of M. de Beaumarchais, I had determined, and so I informed General Pinckney, that I would not, by my voice, establish any agreement in his favor; but that I would positively oppose any admission of the claim of any French citizen, if not accompanied with the admission of the claims of the American citizens of property captured and condemned for want of a rôle d'equipage. My reason for conceiving that this ought to be stipulated expressly, was a conviction, that, if it was referred to Commissioners, it would be committing absolutely to chance, as complete a right as any individual ever possessed. General Pinckney was against admitting the claim at any rate."

No. 317.

Extract of a letter from Messrs. Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the French Republic, dated

PARIS, 17th January, 1798.

"Desirous of establishing, not the dependence of a weak on a powerful nation, but that real and cordial friendship, the willing and spontaneous offering of generous minds, which can only be lasting when evidenced to be mutual, and can only be preserved when bottomed on reciprocal justice, the undersigned will now represent, with candor and frankness, the well-founded complaints with which they are charged. These complaints consist

Of claims uncontroverted by the Government of France, but which remain unsatisfied, and

Of claims founded on captures and confiscations, the illegality of which has not yet been admitted.

In the first class are arranged

1st. Those whose property has been seized under the decree o the National Convention, of the 9th of May, 1793.

2dly. Those who are entitled to compensation in consequence of the long detention of their vessels at Bordeaux, in the years 1793 and

1794.

Sdly. The holders of bills and other evidences of debts due, drawn by the Colonial Administration in the West Indies.

4thly. Those whose cargoes have been appropriated to public use, without receiving therefor adequate payment; and

5thly. Those who have supplied the Government, under contracts with its agents, which have not yet been complied with on the part of France.

These well-founded claims of American citizens, thus originating in voluntary and important supplies, in the forcible seizure of valua ble property, accompanied with promises of payment, and injurious detentions, constitute a mass of debt which the justice and good faith of the French Government cannot refuse to provide for, and which is too considerable to be unnoticed by that of the United States. The undersigned are instructed to solicit your attention to this subject, and they would persuade themselves that they do not solicit in vain.

So many circumstances concur to give force to the application, that they leave it to your Government in the confidence that no additional representations can be necessary.

They pass to complaints still more important for their amount, more interesting in their nature, and more serious in their consequences.

On the 14th Messidor, 4th year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, (July 2d, 1796.) the Executive Directory decreed, "That all neutral or allied powers shall, without delay, be notified that the flag of the French Republic will treat neutral vessels either as to confiscation, as to searches or capture, in the same manner as they shall suffer the English to treat them." This decree, in any point of view in which it can be considered, could not fail to excite in the United States the most serious attention. It dispenses at once, as they conceive, with the most solemn obligations which compact can create, and consequently asserts a right on the part of France to recede at her discretion, from any stipulations she may have entered into. It has been demonstrated that Governments may, by contract, change, as between themselves, the rules established by the law of nations, and that such contract becomes completely obligatory on the parties, though it can in no manner affect the rights of others; yet, by this decree, allies, with whom such stipulations exist, are to be treated, without regard to such stipulations, in the same manner as they are treated by others, who are bound by a different rule. This, as it respects the United States, is the more unfriendly, because a readiness has been manifested on their part, so to modify, by consent, their treaty with France, as to reinstate the rules established by the law of nations.

The general terms, too, in which this decree is conceived, threatened but too certainly the mischiefs it has generated, and the abuses which have been practised under it. Neutrals are to be treated as they shall permit the English to treat them. No rule extracted from the practice of England is laid down, which might govern the cruisers of France or instruct the vessels of neutrals. No principles are stated, manifesting the opinion entertained of the treatment received from England, which might enable a neutral to controvert that opinion,

and to show that the English were not permitted to treat its flag as was supposed by the Government of France. To judge from the decree itself, from any information given concerning it, or from the practice under it, those who were to be benefitted by its abuse, were to decide in what manner it should be executed, and the cruiser who should fall in with a valuable vessel had only to consult his own rapacity, in order to determine whether an English privateer, meeting a vessel under similar circumstances, would capture and bring her into port. Multiplied excesses and accumulated vexations could not but have been apprehended from such a decree, and the fact has realized every fear that was entertained concerning it. It has been construed, even in Europe, to authorize the capture and condemnation of American vessels for the single circumstance of their being destined for a British port. At no period of the war has Britain undertaken to ex-. ercise such a power. At no period of the war has she asserted such a right. It is a power which prostrates every principle of national sovereignty, and to which no nation can submit without relinquishing at the same time, its best interests, and sacrificing its dearest rights. This power has been exercised by France on the rich and unprotected commerce of an ally, on the presumption that that ally was sustaining the same injuries from Britain, at a time when it is believed that the depredations of that nation had ceased, and the principle of compensating for them had been recognized.

In the West Indies similar depredations have been experienced. On the first of August, 1796, the special agents of the Executive Directory, to the Windward Islands, decreed that all vessels loaded with contraband, should be seized and confiscated for the benefit of the captors.

On the seventh Frimaire, 5th year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, (27th November, 1796,) the Commission. delegated by the French Republic to the Leeward Islands, resolved that the captains of French national vessels and privateers are authorized to stop, and bring into the ports of the colony, American vessels bound to English ports, or coming from the said ports.

On the nineteenth Pluviose, 5th year of the French Republic, one and indivisible, (February 1st, 1797,) Victor Hughes and Lebas, the special agents of the Executive Directory to the Windward Islands, passed a decree, subjecting to capture and confiscation neutral vessels destined for the Windward and Leeward Islands of America, delivered up to the English, and occupied and defended by the emigrants. These ports are said to be Martinico, St. Lucie, Tobago, Demerara, Berbice, Essequibo, Port au Prince, St. Marks, L-Archaye, and Jeremie. The decree also subjects to capture all vessels which have cleared out for the West Indies generally.

The undersigned will not detain you, Citizen Minister, for the purpose of proving how directly and openly these decrees violate both the law of nations, and the treaty between France and the United States.

They have been executed on the officers and crews of the captured vessels, in a manner by no means calculated to mitigate their rigour.