without complaint or regular information, to cause the privateers to be prosecuted in virtue of the law above mentioned, (No. 4.)

When the ministers of the Republick have asked justice of the government, for the vexations experienced by the privateers, in contempt of the 17th article of the treaty, they have never been able to obtain satisfaction.

Thus, when on the 9th Fructidor, 3d year (26th Aug. 1794,) the predecessor of the undersigned, addressed a complaint to the government, on this subject, the Secretary of State answered, on the 3d September, 1794, by a phrase indicative of delay.

Thus, when the same minister, on the 27th Vindemiaire, 3d year, (17th October, 1794,) reminded the Secretary of State, of the means he had proposed to him, for putting an end to the measures adopted against the French privateers; when he caused him to see that this means, which consisted in requiring security from those who claimed the prizes as illegal, would prevent the enemies of the Republick from instituting so many suits of which they themselves perceived the injustice; he obtained no other answer than that his proposition relative to securities was inadmissible.

When on the 13th Floreal, 3d year, the same minister expressed himself in these terms, in a letter to the Secretary of State: "You have alleged, sir, that the Executive of the United States cannot interfere in the affairs of which the tribunals have taken cognizance. In admitting this objection for all the business now in suit, I do not the less think that your government could, by general measures, bring back the jurisdiction of the American tribunals, concerning prizes made by our vessels within the limits prescribed by our treaties, which make part of the supreme law of the land: It might make known that the facility with which your courts of admiralty admit, without distinction, all the chicanery which our enemies create against us, in the present war, is evidently contrary to the spirit of the treaty." The government paid no attention to these reflections, and the answer of the Secretary of State, merely notices the particular fact which had occasioned the note of citizen Fauchet.

What was the undersigned minister plenipotentiary able to obtain in the affair of the Casius and of the Vengeance?-Nothing.

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The government of the United States must have seen. however, by the claims which the ministers of the Republick addressed to it, and by the great number of facts, of which it has had a knowledge, how much the execution of the measures of the President, and of the law of the 5th of June, 1794, was contrary to the 17th article of the treaty; how much the agency of the tribunals, who ought not to have any cognizance of the validity or invalidity of prizes, tended to annul that article, and to deprive the Republick of the advantage which it assures to her. In fact, was it not evident, that when the powers at war with the Republick had the privilege, in virtue of the law of the 5th of June, 1794, of causing to be arrested the privateers and their prizes; of detaining them in the ports of the United States; of ruining them by considerable costs, by the excessive expenses which they occasioned them, they drew from that privilege an immense advantage, to the detriment of France. Doubtless it was of little import to them, that sometimes the privateers obtained justice, in the last resort, if they detained the privateer for a length of time, and if they by that means sheltered from their pursuit the commerce of the enemy of France. The neutrality of the United States in this case, was altogether to their advantage; and the federal government, on seeing this state of things, should, out of respect to its neutrality and to treaties, have solicited from the Congress the means of conciliating the duties of the former, with the obligations of the latter.

The government very well knew how to solicit the law of the 5th of June, 1794, when that law was to bear on France alone; when it gave to the tribunals a right which has been abused, and which enables them to decide upon prizes: why, on seeing the inconveniences of this law, has it not endeavoured to remedy them? Should it wait to be solicited on this head? Should it not anticipate all claims, and when these were presented by the ministers of the Republick, should it not do justice?

Besides, if the government had been impartial, as it has pretended to be, it would not have adopted that slow and circuitous mode, so favourable to the enemies of France, for deciding the cases relative to its neutrality; it would have preferred the measures proposed by Mr. Jefferson, on the 25th of June, 1793, to the minister of the Repub

lick These measures were simple; they were in conformity with the duties of neutrality, and the interests of the Republick.

The federal government had decided questions which interested its neutrality, upon informations furnished by the state governours and the agents of the Republick; the prizes remained in the hands of the French consul until this decision took place; the stipulations of the 17th article of the treaty of 1778 were not violated; and the government at the same time satisfied the obligations of duty and justice. In vain would it say that it had not this power. Notwithstanding the law of the 5th of June, 1794, giving to the tribunals the right of taking cognizance of cases in which neutrality had been violated, did not the President on the 21st of June, 1794, decide that the ship William, taken out of the limits of the waters of the United States, should be delivered to the captor; and on the 3d July, 1794, did he not decide that the Pilgrim had been taken in the waters of the United States, and that, of course, she should be given up to the owners? In these cases the President not only decided on matters, the cognizance of which had been consigned to the tribunals, but likewise gave a retrospective effect to his own decision upon the protecting line of the United States, which was not notified to the minister of the Republick till the 8th of November, 1793.

Not satisfied with permitting the 17th article of the treaty to be violated by its agents and tribunals, the federal government also suffered the English to seize upon the advantages interdicted to them by that article. They armed in the ports of the United States, brought in and repaired their prizes, and, in a word, found in them a certain asylum.

Thus the English privateer Trusty, captain Hall, was armed at Baltimore to cruise against the French, and sailed, notwithstanding the complaints of the consul of the Republick. At Charleston, one Bermudian vessel, several English vessels, and one Dutch vessel, from the 24th of May to the 6th of June, 1793, took in cannon for their defence, and sailed without opposition.

What answer did the government give to the representations of the minister of the French Republick, in this respect? It said, that these vessels sailed too suddenly;

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that it was not able to cause them to be stopped.-But the treaty was not less violated. Some inhabitants of the United States had aided in these illegal armaments: What measures were taken against them? Was any search made to discover them, to prosecute them? Never: and yet government of the United States no sooner learnt that, in consequence of an implied stipulation which the treaty of Versailies seemed to contain, the French were arming in the ports of the United States, than the most energetick orders were sent for stopping these armaments. Even citizens of the United States were imprisoned, upon suspicion that they had participated in them. The minister cannot omit citing here the following passage of a letter from the Secretary of State, Edmond Randolph, to Mr. Hammond, dated June 2, 1794. "On a suggestion that citizens of the United States had taken part in the act, [he speaks of the armaments in the United States] one who was designated was instantly committed to prison for prosecution: one or two others have been since named and committed in like manner, and should it appear that there were still others, no measures would be spared to bring them to justice." What more could the American government do in favour of the English, if they had a similar treaty to that with France, and had been sole possessors of the advantages assured to her by positive stipulations?

However, in contempt of these very stipulations, the Argonaut, an English ship of war, in January, 1795, conducted into Lynnhaven bay the French corvette L'Esperance, which she had taken upon the coast; she there had her repaired, in order to send her upon a cruise. Letters were in consequence written by the Secretary of State to the governour of Virginia, and to Mr. Hammond. What was the result? Nothing. On the 29th of May, 1795, the federal government had not yet done any thing positive, as to the acts which produced the complaint of the minister of the Republick. The Secretary of State announced, "that these facts shall be examined, and that, if they are verified, the federal government will not be in the rear of its obligations." To that has the reparation demanded by the Republick been limited.

What are we to think of these delays, when we see the officers of the government acting with so much activity.

against the French, on the slightest suspicion that they have violated the neutrality,-when in his letter of 29th April, 1794, the Secretary of State answers the complaints of the English minister-"We have received no intelligence of the particular facts to which you refer: But to prevent all unnecessary circuity, in first inquiring into them, and next transmitting to this city the result, the proper instructions will be given to act, without further directions." How did the federal government conduct towards the autumn of 1794? The English frigate Terpsichore took the privateer La Montagne into the port of Norfolk. The French vice-consul claimed the execution of the treaty, of the governour of Virginia: The gover nour answered him, that he would have the necessary investigation made, and would afterwards take the proper measures. The predecessor of the undersigned then interposed with the federal government; and the Secretary of State assured him that he would write to the governour of Virginia, to have justice rendered. But this justice was limited to investigations made with such slowness, that five months after, this affair was not finished; and on the 24th of February, 1795, the Secretary of State contented himself with sending to the predecessor of the undersigned, the despatches of the lieutenant governour, dated Oct. 10, 1794, by which he announces, that he ordered the commandant of the militia of Norfolk to make the necessary inquiries, for enabling the executive of Virginia to render to the Republick the justice it had a right to expect. The result of these inquiries is not known. However, the fact about which the minister Fauchet complained to the Secretary of State, was notorious, and painful researches were not necessary to convince himself of it. Do we not find in this proceeding a formal desire to elude the treaties, and to favour the English?

If the government of the United States had wished to maintain itself in that impartiality which its duties prescribed, if it had wished freely to execute the treaties, it would not have waited, every time that the English infringed them, for the minister to solicit its justice: Should it not have given instructions so precise, that the gover nours of the states, and subaltern officers of the federal government, might know what duties they had to fulfil, in order to maintain the execution of treaties? Why have the