DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE CONTROVERSY OVER NEUTRAL RIGHTS BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND FRANCE, 1797-1800.

Extract from Notes to Treaties and Conventions, 1889, relating to the United States and France1

On the 25th of January, 1782, the Continental Congress passed an act authorizing and directing Dr. Franklin to conclude a Consular Convention with France on the basis of a scheme which was submitted to that body. Dr. Franklin concluded a very different convention, which Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Congress did not approve. Franklin having returned to America, the negotiations. then fell upon Jefferson, who concluded the Convention of 1788. This was laid before the Senate by President Washington on the 11th of June, 1789.

On the 21st of July it was ordered that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs attend the Senate to-morrow and bring with him such papers. as are requisite to give full information relative to the Consular Convention between France and the United States. Jay was the Secretary thus "ordered." He was holding over, as the new Department was not then created. The Bill to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs had received the assent of both Houses the previous day, but had not yet been approved by the President." Jay appeared, as directed, and made the necessary explanations. The Senate then Resolved that the Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the former Congress be requested to peruse the said Convention, and to give his opinion how far he conceives the faith of the United States to be engaged, either by former

1Treaties and Conventions, 1889.

21 D. C., 1783–89, 232.

3 Annals 1st Sess. 1st Cong., 52.

4Ib., 685.

5Ib., 52.

6Ib.,

NOTE. The footnotes in this section are reproduced exactly as they appear in the original document excepting necessary changes in exponents.

agreed stipulations or negotiations entered into by our Minister at the Court of Versailles, to ratify in its present sense or form the Convention now referred to the Senate.1 Jay made a written report on the 27th of July that in his judgment the United States ought to ratify the Convention; and the Senate gave its unanimous consent.3 The Statute to carry the Convention into effect was passed the 14th of April, 1792.

Three articles in the treaties with France concluded before the Constitution became the cause of difference between the two Powers:

1. Article XI of the Treaty of Alliance, by which the United States, for a reciprocal consideration, agreed to guarantee to the King of France his possessions in America, as well present as those which might be acquired by the Treaty of Peace.

2. Article XVII of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, providing that each party might take into the ports of the other its prizes in time of war, and that they should be permitted to depart without molestation; and that neither should give shelter or refuge to vessels which had made prizes of the other unless forced in by stress of weather, in which case they should be required to depart as soon as possible.

3. Article XXII of the same Treaty, that foreign privateers, the enemies of one party, should not be allowed in the ports of the other to fit their ships or to exchange or sell their captures, or to purchase provisions except in sufficient quantities to take them to the next port of their own State.

Jefferson, who was the Minister of the United States at the Court of Versailles when the Constitution went into operation, was appointed Secretary of State by President Washington on the 26th of September, 1789. He accepted the appointment and presented Short to Neckar as chargé d'affaires of the United States.5

Gouverneur Morris, of New York, who had been in Europe from the dawn of the French revolution, and had been in regular friendly correspondence with Washington, was appointed Minister to France on the 12th of January, 1792. At the time of the appointment Wash

1 Annals 1st Sess. 1st Cong., 52.

2Ib., 54.

3Ib.

41 St. at L., 254.

53 Jefferson's Works, 119.

61 F. R. F., 379–399.

ington wrote him a friendly and admonitory letter: "The official communications from the Secretary of State accompanying this letter will convey to you the evidence of my nomination and appointment of you to be Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Court of France; and my assurance that both were made with all my heart will, I am persuaded, satisfy you as to that fact. I wish I could add that the advice and consent flowed from a similar source. * * * Not to go further into detail I will place the ideas of your political adversaries in the light in which their arguments have presented them to me, namely, that the promptitude with which your lively and brilliant imagination is displayed allows too little time for deliberation and correction, and is the primary cause of those sallies which too often. offend, and of that ridicule of character which begets enmity not easy to be forgotten, but which might easily be avoided if it was under the control of more caution and prudence. In a word, that it is indispensably necessary that more circumspection should be observed by our representatives abroad than they conceive you are inclined to adopt. In this statement you have the pros and cons. By reciting them I give you a proof of my friendship if I give you none of my policy or judgment."

Morris entered upon the duties of his office with these wise cautions in his hand, but he did not succeed in gaining the good-will of a succession of governments with which he had little sympathy:2 for he writes Jefferson on the 13th of February, 1793: "Some of the leaders here who are in the diplomatic committee hate me cordially, though it would puzzle them to say why."

When Morris was appointed Minister, the commercial relations between the two countries were satisfactory to neither. Exceptional favors to the commerce of the United States, granted by royal decree in 1787 and 1788, had been withdrawn, and a jealousy was expressed in France in consequence of the Act of Congress putting British and French commerce on the same basis in American ports. No exceptional advantages had come to France from the war of the revolution, and American commerce had reverted to its old British channels.

110 Washington's Writings, 216-18.

21 F. R. F., 412.

3Ib., 350.

4Ib., 113, 116.

5 See Short's correspondence, Ib., 120.

*

Jefferson greatly desired to conclude a convention with France which should restore the favors which American commerce had lost, and bring the two countries into closer connection. On the 10th of March, 1792, he instructs Morris: "We had expected, ere this, that in consequence of the recommendation of their predecessors, some overtures would have been made to us on the subject of a Treaty of commerce. Perhaps they expect that we should declare our readiness to meet on the ground of Treaty. If they do, we have no hesitation to declare it." Again, on the 28th of April, he writes: "It will be impossible to defer longer than the next session of Congress some counter regulations for the protection of our navigation and commerce. I must entreat you, therefore, to avail yourself of every occasion of friendly remonstrance on this subject. If they wish an equal and cordial treaty with us, we are ready to enter into it. We would wish that this could be the scene of negotiation." Again, on the 16th of June, he writes: "That treaty may be long on the anvil; in the mean time we cannot consent to the late innovations without taking measures to do justice to our own navigation.'

"3

The great revolution of the 10th of August, and the imprisonment of the King, were duly reported by Morris; and Jefferson replied on the 7th of November: "It accords with our principles to acknowledge any government to be rightful which is formed by the will of the nation substantially declared. There are some matters which I conceive might be transacted with a government de facto; such, for instance, as the reforming the unfriendly restrictions on our commerce and navigation."

* *

To these instructions, Morris answered on the 13th of February, 1793, three weeks after the execution of the King, and a fortnight after the declaration of war against England: "You had * instructed me to endeavor to transfer the negotiation for a new treaty to America, and if the revolution of the 10th of August had not taken place, I should, perhaps, have obtained what you wished. * The thing you wished for is done, and you can treat in America if

**

1 Jefferson's Works, 338-9.

2Ib., 356.

3Ib., 449.

41 F. R. F., 333.

53 Jefferson's Works, 489.