you some observations on different passages of your letter.

You again lay it down as a fact, that the justice of the claims of the United States is incontestable and uncontested; that France has ad. mitted the obligation to satisfy them, and that I myself have acknowledged it. Once more, sir: never has the king's government pronounced itself to that effect. It may have expressed the opinion that several of those claims, provided a thorough examination should not alter their character, inspired some interest in an equitable point of view, but never has it acknowledged, or can it have acknowledged them to be founded on a positive and incontestable right. It has constantly held all decision on this point dependant upon a verification which had not yet taken place, which was an indispensable preliminary to it; and, on the other hand, it has thought itself justified in refusing to enter into the examination of a ques. tion so completely litigious, so long as you should not satisfy it on another question which, in its view, was not susceptible of any serious difficulty -that which relates to the execution of the eighth article of the treaty of cession of Louisiana.

You object that it is not natural that France should exact a com. plete satisfaction, such as an acknowledgment of the meaning she attaches to the article in question, as the price of her simple consent to examine the claims of the United States, and to admit such as might appear to her to be well founded. To this I will reply, that this alleg. ed peculiarity results from the very nature of things: the claims of the United States comprehend a multitude of varying questions, which can only be decided separately, which render necessary a previous and detailed examination; the claim of France, on the contrary, em.

braces but one very simple question, which a single word can resolve. Until now, the government of the United States has constantly declared that it rejected our claim: it would therefore have been truly idle to demand of it to examine it again, since a new examination, according to every appearance, and particu larly to judge from the terms of your letter of March 27th, would again produce a negative answer. On the contrary far, our consent to discuss the claims of American subjects carries with it the presumption that we are disposed to admit them, at least in part. It suffices to say, that we are in the alternative of exacting a previous acknow. ledgment of the right we claim, or of contenting ourselves, as the price of a real concession, with a promise illusive and altogether devoid of meaning. I could have conceived that the government of the United States, in order to introduce some sort of equality into the positions of the two governments, should have wished to stipulate, in acknowledging our right, that acknow. ledgment should be of no effect unless we consented to liquidate the legitimate credits of its subjects. Such a pretension, without, by a great deal, satisfying strict justice, would at least have presented itself in a specious manner, and the French government might have taken it into consideration. But I repeat it, sir, the pretended equality which you wish to make me see in a mutual engagement to examine the respective claims would, in reality, constitute to our prejudice an enor. mous inequality. That is too evident for it to be possible to suppose that my predecessors ever entertained an opinion different from mine. If their expressions were less precise, less formal, it is because the issue was not so distinctly join

re.

ed as now. Besides, the government of the United States, in repelling, with an energy always increasing, the principle of our clamation, has rendered more evident to us, every day, the inutility, and even insignificance, of a mere promise to examine.

I remark that you now revert to an argument which I did not think it necessary to notice in your first communications, not supposing that you attached any great importance to it. You say that the claim which we oppose to those of the United States has no relation to the latter: you seem thence to conclude that your government would be justified in refusing to treat of them conjointly, and in deferring the discussion of the one until the others should be settled. I have, sir, but one thing to reply: if the United States have, in effect, such a right, France has it equally, and she also would be justified in exerting it conversely, that is, in demanding not only (as she does) the recognition of the right conferred upon her by the eighth article of the treaty of cession of Louisiana, but also, (which she does not,) the payment of the indemnities which are due to her for the deprivation of the right, for fifteen years, before examining the claims of the United States. From that moment, and if, as it is probable, neither government would yield, no further negotiation would be possible. It may be boldly affirmed, that a right leading to such consequences can belong to nobody. It is much more consistent with reason and equity that each, in rendering justice, should require, at the same time, satisfaction for its own complaints.

To place, in a more prominent view, the justice of the claims which you are charged to support, you state that the product of the confis. Ii

cated property of the subjects of the United States was applied to the payment of expenses which otherwise would have fallen upon the French nation. I suppose, without the proof that such, in effect, was the appropriation of the product of the confiscations, as it generally is, that of all that goes into the treasury; but I confess that I do not well understand how that circumstance can operate more especially in your favour, for there is no pecuniary claim in support of which it may not be invoked, and it can neither fortify nor weaken the validity of any claim whatsoever.

You repel the authority of the treaties concluded in 1814 and 1815, between France and the other European powers; you may remark that the United States cannot be bound by acts in which they did not participate. This observation would be conclusive did it not rest upon an incorrect view of my meaning. I cited to you the treaties in question, only because your government has repeatedly endeavoured to take advantage of them against us in the present question: I wished to prove to you that they do not pronounce against us, as had been given to understand, but, on the contrary, in our favour. Without pretending to give them, with regard to the United States, an obligatory character, I thought, as the government at Washington had thought, that they constituted at least a precedent of respectable authority; the more so, as principles of public law applied by victorious powers could not be suspected of excessive indulgence.

After having denied, in general terms, the inference from those treaties, you make the subsidiary objection that the position of the United States is essentially different from that of the powers coalesced

against France; that the losses sustained by the subjects of the former was a natural consequence of war, whilst the wrongs inflicted up. on Americans were in violation of the law of nations. Not to enter, with respect to this, into a discussion which would demand a detailed examination of the claims them selves, I will beg you to observe, that if there was not war between the imperial government of France and the United States, there was at least a state of demi-hostility, arising both from the measures of France, and from the reprisals exercised by the government at Washington; reprisals which, far more contrary to public law than the acts which occasioned them, might be regarded by us as signally impairing the principle of the claims raised by the United States. Whether those reprisals, however, have or have not compensated completely for the result of the acts which they were intended to repress, is a circumstance which in nothing alters the state of the question; and what I wish particularly to establish is, that the position of the United States towards us has more analogy than you suppose with that in which we stood, in 1814 and 1815, towards the allies.

As a final objection on the subject of the treaties made at that period, you quote to me the additional articles concluded with England, the 30th May, 1814; the treaty of 20th July with Spain; the convention relating to the spoliation of the bank of Hamburg, &c. You thence conclude that I was mistaken in affirming that the claims which we then acknowledged had no analogy with those now presented by the United States. I might remark to you, that this want of analogy still exists, at least in some of the examples of which you remind

me; but without pausing upon collateral points, I will content myself with observing that, when I adduced the treaties of Paris, I had in view the general treaties, the only ones which can be considered as fixing principles of public law, since they alone were common to all the powers; for the private stipulations exacted in favour of certain states, and contained either in additional articles or in special conventions, must evidently be considered as so many exceptions, extorted by force of arms or the dominion of circumstances, and which only serve to confirm the rule.

You then pass, sir, to what concerns the meaning we attach to the eighth article of the treaty of ces. sion of Louisiana. Permit me, in the first place, to observe to you, that we do not interpret that article ; we appeal to the text itself. It is the government of the United States that is obliged to comment upon it at great length, in order to extract the signification which it gives it. This observation answers the astonishment you manifest to me repeatedly at the right of interpretation alleged to be reserved by us to the exclusion of the United States. That reproach could be justly addressed only to the Federal government. We limit ourselves to repelling its interpretation, for the reason that the text, perfectly clear, needs none, and that it is contrary to all the principles of the matter to pretend to interpret a stipulation, the terms of which present a single and precise meaning. After this preliminary objection, I will not repeat all that I have already had the honour to submit to you on this important subject in my letter of 20th May. I think I have anticipated most of the arguments which you now offer, and, in the state which the discussion has reached, it would

be more than superfluous to refute them over again. You yourself admit, moreover, that the eighth article of the treaty of cession of Louisiana, interpreted in your sense, would in reality offer us no advantage: you add only that there might occur a state of things in which it would offer us real benefits. I leave you to judge whether, from a general view of circumstances, from the maxims of political economy professed in the United States, the change which you suggest, has the slightest probability, and whether, therefore, it is natural to presume that negotiators can have had the puerility to stipulatate a clause which, except in some all but impossible event, was to be entirely void of meaning.

You quote to me the second article of the first treaty concluded between France and the United States, at the period of the foundation of the American Republic. That article provided that France should enjoy all favours granted by the United States to other nations freely, if the concession was freely made, and, if it was conditional, for the same compensation. From this you infer that the eighth article of the treaty of cession of Louisiana

must be understood with this restriction. Just the reverse: the single fact that it is omitted in the latter treaty, while it is found in an analogous and antecedent act, removes even the slightest possibility of supposing it to be understood, and this inference is not one of the least proofs in support of our opinion.

You remind me that the convention relating to the cession of Louisiana and to the rights which France reserved to herself there, is not the same as that which fixed the pecuniary indemnity stipulated in our favour. It would follow,

according to you, from this circumstance, that the advantages, whatever they may be, granted to us by the eighth article, do not form an integral part of the price of the cession. I do not comprehend, I confess, such a distinction: the eighth article does not, it is true, form a part of the treaty relating to the indemnity in money, but it forms a part of the treaty of cession, and to annul it is to annul also the article which stipulates the cession itself; for you will agree with me that one of the contracting parties cannot rescind a treaty in order to retain what is favourable to itself, and reject what is unfavourable; and the passage which you cite on this subject, from a work published by Mr. Barbé Marbois, seems to me to be totally immaterial to the question.

As to the argument you draw from the amount of the pecuniary indemnity paid for the cession of Louisiana, an amount so much greater, according to you, than the proper price of that cession, that it cannot be supposed to have been necessary to add to it further advantages, I shall not undertake to calculate the value of that beautiful region; I will not inquire whether the United States are disposed or not to consider as advantageous the treaty which gave it to them; whether they would consent to annul that treaty, if that were possible: I will only say that, even if it did grant us excessive advantages, which I am far from allowing, that would not be a reason for taking them away from us if they flowed, like that which we claim, from its express provisions.

I will not push further the discussion of the passages of your let ter which have appeared to me susceptible of refutation. Many others also might furnish ground