75. Mr Monroe to the Secretary of State.

Extract.

Paris, December 22, 1795. Sir: The Count Carletti, late envoy, &c. from Tuscany, left Paris some four or five days since. He had refused going until he had heard from the Grand Duke; and remained, notwithstanding the reiterated orders of the directoire. Finally, however, he was ordered to depart in twentyfour hours, (this was not done before as I stated my last) with intimation that force would be used to compel him, in case he did not. He still held out, however, the flag of defiance. The twenty-four hours expired, at which moment a commissary, with a carriage from the Government, waited to receive his orders for departure; or in other words, to take the Count by force, and conduct him safe beyond the bounds of the republic; which was accordingly done. The diplomatic cor s was summoned, by a member either averse to this peremptory mode of proceeding, or friendly to the Count, to inter fere with directoire in his behalf: but several members of that corps were of opinion, that, although sometimes a demand is made on the Government of a minister who gives offence, to recall him, yet there is no obligation on the Government offended, by the law of nations, to take that course; but that it may take any other, and even upon slight occasions, to rid itself of him, more prompt and summary, if it thinks fit; and, in consequence, no steps was taken by the diplomatic corps on the subject.

76. Mr Monroe to the Directory, on presenting his Letter of Recall.

On the 30th of December, 1796.

I have the honor to present you with my letter of recall from the President of the United States of America, which closes my political functions with the French republic; and I have likewise the honor to add, that I am instructed by the President to avail myself by this occasion to renew to you, on his part, an assurance of the solicitude which the United States feel for the happiness of the French republic.

In performing this act, many other considerations crowd themselves upon my mind. I was a witness to a Revolution in my own country. I was deeply penetrated with its principles, which are the same with those of your Revolution. I saw, too, its difficulties; and remembering these, and the important services rendered us by France upon that occasion, I have partaken with yon in all the perilous and trying situations in which you have been placed.

It was my fortune to arrive among you in a moment of complicated danger from within and from without; and it is with the most heartfelt satisfaction that, in taking my leave, I behold victory and the dawn of prosperity upon the point of realizing, under the auspices of a wise and excellent constitution, all the great objects for which, in council and the field, you have so long and so nobly contended. The information which I shall carry to America of this state of your affairs will be received by my countrymen with the same joy and solicitude for its continuance, that I now feel and declare for myself.

There is no object which I have always had more uniformly and sincerely at heart, than the continuance of a close union and perfect harmony between our two nations, I accepted my mission with a view to use my utmost efforts to increase and promote this object, and I now derive consolation in a review of my conduct,

from the knowledge that I have never deviated from it. Permit me, therefore, to express an earnest wish that this harmony may be perpetual.

I beg leave to make to you, citizen directors, my particular acknowledgments for the confidence and attention with which you have honored my mission during its continuance, and at the same to assure you that, as I shall always take a deep and sincere interest in whatever concerns the prosperity and welfare of the French republic, so I shall never cease, in my retirement, to pay you, in return for the attention you have shown me, the only acceptable recompense to generous minds, the tribute of a grateful remembrance.

Mr Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America: By presenting this day to the executive directory your letters of recall, you offer a very strange spectacle to Europe. France, rich in her freedom, surrounded by the train of her victories, and strong in the esteem of her allies, will not stoop to calculate the consequences of the condescension of the American Government to the wishes of its ancient tyrants. The French republic expects, however, that the successors of Columbus, Raleigh, and Penn, always proud of their liberty, will never forget that they owe it to France. They will weigh in their wisdom the magnanimous friendship of the French people, with the crafty caresses of perfidious men, who meditate to bring them again under their former yoke. Assure the good people of America, Mr Minister, that, like them, we adore liberty; that they will always possess our esteem, and find in the French people that republican generosity which knows how to grant peace, as well as to cause its sovereignty to be respected.

As for you, Mr Minister Plenipotentiary, you have combated for principles; you have known the true interests of your country-depart with our regret. We restore, in you, a representative to America; and we preserve the remembrance of the citizen whose personal qualities did honor to that title.

78. Opinion of E. Randolph on the Property of Rivers, to T. Jefferson. On the Seizure of the Ship Grange in Bay of Delaware. Extract.

Phila. May 15, 1793. The high ocean, in general, it is true, is unsusceptible of becoming property. It is a gift of nature, manifestly destined for the use of all mankind-inexhaustible in its benefits-not admitting metes and bounds. But rivers may be appropriated, because the reverse is their situation. Were they open to all the world, they would prove the inlets of perpetual disturbance and discord; would soon be rendered barren by the number of those, who would share in their products; and moreover, may be defined:

“A river, considered merely as such, is the property of the people, through whose lands it flows, or of him under whose jurisdiction that people is." Grot. b.

2. c. 2. s. 12.

Rivers might be held in property; though neither where they rise, nor where they discharge themselves be within our territory, but they join to both, or the sea. It is sufficient for us, that the larger part of water, that is, the sides, is shut up in our banks, and that the river, in respect of our lands, is itself small and insignifi

cant."

Grot. b. 2. c. 3. s. 7, and Barbeyrae, in his note, subjoins, that neither of those is necessary.

"Rivers may be the property of whole states." Puff. b. 3. c. 3 s. 4.

"To render a thing capable of being appropriated, it is not strictly necessary, that we should enclose it, or be able to enclose it within artificial bounds, or such as are different from its own substance; it is sufficient, if the compass and extent of it can be any way determined. And therefore, Grotius hath given himself a needless trouble, when, to prove rivers capable of property, he useth this argument, that although they are bounded by the land at neither end, but united to the others or sea; yet it is enough, that the greater part of them, that is, their sides, are enclosed." Puff. b. 4. c. 5. s. 3.

"When a nation takes possession of a country in order to settle there, it possesses every thing included in it, as lands,lakes, rivers," &c. Vattel,b. 1. c. 22. s. 226. To this list might be added Bynkershoek and Selden. But the dissertation of the former, de dominio maris, cannot be quoted with advantage in detachment; and the authority of the latter on this head may, in the judgment of some, partake too much of affection for the hypothesis of mare clausum. As Selden, however, sinks in influence on this question, so must Grotius rise, who contended for the mare liberum; and his accurate commentator, Rutherforth, confirms his principles in the following passage; "A nation, by settling upon any tract of land, which at the time of such settlement had no other owner, acquires, in respect of all other nations, an exclusive right of full or absolute property, not only in the land, but in the waters likewise, that are included within the land, such as rivers, pools, creeks or bays. The absolute property of a nation, in what it has thus seized upon, is its right of territory." 2 Ruth. b. 2. c. 9. s. 6.

Congress too have acted on these ideas, when in their collection laws, they ascribe to a state the rivers, wholly within that state.

-But suppose that the river was dried up, and the bay alone remained, Grotius continues the argument of the 7th section, of the 3d chapter, of the 2d book above cited, in the following words:

66

By this instance it seems to appear, that the property and dominion of the sea might belong to him, who is in possession of the lands on both sides, though it be open above as a gulf, or above and below, as a strait; provided it is not so great a part of the sea, that, when compared with the lands on both sides, it cannot be supposed to be some part of them. And now, what is thus lawful to one king or people, may be also lawful to two or three, if they have a mind to take possession of a sea, thus enclosed within their lands; for it is in this manner, that a river, which separates two nations, has first been possessed by both, and then divided."

The gulfs and channels, or arms of the sea are, according to the regular course, supposed to belong to the people, with whose lands they are encompassed." Puff. b. 4. c. 5. s. 8.

Valin, in b. 5. tit. 1. p. 635, of his commentary on the marine ordonnance of France, virtually acknowledges, that particular seas may be appropriated. After reviewing the contest between Grotius and Selden, he says, "S'il (Selden) s'en fut donc tenu la, ou plutot, s'il eut distingue l'ocean des mers particulieres,et meme dans l'ocean, l'etendue de mer, qui doit etre censee appartenir aux souverains des cotes, qui en sont baignees, sa victoire eut ete complette." E. RANDOLPH.

79. From President Washington to House of Representatives.

Treaty-making Power. Extract. March 30. 1796.

Having been a member of the General Convention, and knowing the principles on which the constitution was formed, I have ever entertained but one opinion on this subject; and from the first establishment of the government to this moment, my conduct has exemplified that opinion, that the power of making treaties is exclusively vested in the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur. and that every treaty so made and promulgated, thenceforward became the law of the land. It is thus that the treaty making power has been understood by foreign nations; and in all the treaties made with them, we have declared, and they have believed, that when ratified by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, they became obligatory. In this construction of the constitution, every House of Representatives has heretofore acquiesced; and until the present time, not a doubt or suspicion has appeared to my knowledge, that this construction was not the true one. Nay, they have more than acquiesced; for till now, without controverting the obligation of such treaties, they have made all the requisite provisions for carrying them into effect.

There is reason to believe that this construction agrees with the opinions entertained by the state conventions, when they were deliberating on the constitution; especially by those who objected to it, because there was not required in commercial treaties the consent of two-thirds of the whole number of the members of the Senate, instead of two-thirds of the Senators present, and because in treaties respecting territorial and certain other rights and claims, the concurrence of threefourths of the whole number of the members of both Houses respectively was not made necessary.

It is a fact declared by the General Convention, and universally understood, that the constitution of the United States was the result of a spirit of amity and mutual concession. And it is well known that under this influence, the smaller states were admitted to an equal representation in the Senate, with the larger States; and this branch of the government was invested with great powers; for on the equal participation of those powers the sovereignty and political safety of the smaller States were deemed essentially to depend.

If other proofs than these, and the plain letter of the constitution itself, be necessary to ascertain the point under consideration, they may be found in the journals of the General Convention, which I have deposited in the office of the Department of State. In those journals it will appear that a proposition was made" that no treaty should be binding on the United States which was not ratiby a law;" and that the proposition was explicitly rejected.

As, therefore, it is perfectly clear to my understanding, that the assent of the House of Representatives is not necessary to the validity of a treaty, as the treaty with Great Britain exhibits, in itself, all the objects requiring legislative provision, and on these the papers called for can throw no light; and as it is essential to the due administration of the government, that the boundaries fixed by the constitution between the different deparments, should be preserved-a just regard to the constitution, and to the duty of my office, under all the circumstances of this case, forbid a compliance with your request. GEO. WASHINGTON.

80.

To the Minister Plenipotentiary of Great Britain.

Representation on the Western Posts.

Philadelphia, June 19, 1793. Sir, I had the honour to address you a letter, on the 29th of May was twelvemonth, on the articles still unexecuted of the treaty of peace between the two nations. The subject was extensive and important, and therefore rendered a certain degree of delay, in the reply, to be expected. But it has become such, as naturally to generate disquietude. The interest we have in the western posts, the blood and treasure which their detention costs us daily, cannot but produce a correspondent anxiety on our part. Permit me, therefore, to ask, when may I expect the honour of a reply to my letter, and to assure you of the sentiments of respect, with which I have the honor to be, &c. TH: JEFFERSON. Geo. Hammond to Th: Jefferson Secretary of State.

81.

Western Posts.

Phila. June 20, 1793. Sir, There is one passage in your letter of yesterday, sir, of which it becomes me to take some notice. The passage I allude to is that wherein you mention "the blood and treasure which the detention of the western posts costs the United States daily." I cannot easily conjecture the motives in which this declaration has originated. After the evidence that this government has repeatedly received of the strict neutrality observed by the king's governors of Canada, during the present contest between the United States and the Indians, and of the disposition of those officers to facilitate, as far as may be in their power, any negociations for peace, I will not for a moment, imagine, that the expression I have cited was intended to convey the insinuation of their having pursued a different conduct, or that it had any reference to those assertions, which have been lately disseminated, with more than usual industry, through the public prints in this country,that the western posts have been used,by the government of Canada, as the medium of supplying military stores to the Indians now engaged in war with the United States.

I can assure you, sir, that if the delay on the part of my country, in the execution of certain articles of the treaty of peace, is such as to create disquietude in this government, I also experience similar impressions with respect to those articles which have, hitherto, not been carried into effect by the United States; as I am perpetually receiving complaints from the British creditors, and their agents in this country, or if their inability to procure legal redress in any of the courts of law in one or two of the southern states; in which states the greatest part of the debt remaining due to the subjects of Great Britain still continues to exist in the same condition as that in which it was at the conclusion of the war.

I have the honor to be, &c.

GEO: HAMMOND.

82. T. Jefferson to G. Morris, át Paris. Remonstrance to the French Government on M. Genet's illegal proceedings in the U.S. Ext. Philadelphia, August 16, 1793. Sir, The violation of all the laws of order and morality which bind mankind together, would be an unacceptable offering to a just nation. Recurring then only to recent things, after so afflicting a libel, we recollect with satisfaction that in the course of two years, by unceasing exertions, we paid up seven years arrearages and instalments of our debt