against France; that the losses sustained by the subjects of the former was a natural consequence of war, whilst the wrongs inflicted upon 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 col lateral 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 con sidered 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 cession 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 bene. fits. 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 unfavoura ble; 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 pos. sible: 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 letter which have appeared to me susceptible of refutation. Many others also might furnish ground

able to concur in the views expressed by your excellency.

Your excellency first offers a series of arguments for the purpose of showing that France is entitled to demand of the United States the admission of the claim asserted by her under the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty, as the condition of any examination of the American claims. This condition, so contrary to the usual course and true ends of negotiation, is alleged to result, in the present instance, from the nature of things, inasmuch as the American reclamations are complex in their character, requiring an examination of details, while the claim of France is simple, which a single word would suffice to resolve. Without stopping to compare the claims of the two governments in this respect, I will only remark that I cannot perceive, in the simplicity of a demand, an adequate reason for its acknowledgment, as demands the most inadmissible in principle, are often, and indeed generally, the most simple and absolute in form.

Your excellency next remarks, that, as an examination of the American claims would involve an admission of them, in part at least, while an examination of the claim of France, under her construction of the Louisiana treaty, would probably terminate in its rejection, a mutual engagement of the two go. vernments to examine, at the same time, their respective pretensions, would be attended with a real inequality to the disadvantage of France. If such should be the result of an examination, I know no other means of explaining it, but the difference existing in the intrinsic character of the pretensions themselves; and an inequality of that sort, created by the immutable principles of reason and justice, cannot

be remedied by any arrangement of diplomacy.

Your excellency suggests that the government of the United States might have been expected, at least, to make a contingent admission of the claim asserted by France, under the Louisiana treaty, to be binding only in the event of an adjustment of the American claims by the government of France. This suggestion proceeds upon a misapprehension of the true spirit of the objec tions urged by the United States. The government of the United States would, at once, admit the construction put by France upon the 8th article of the Louisiana treaty, if it could persuade itself that that construction was correct, without seeking to connect with it any condition or stipulation for its own benefit. It will never demand a price for admitting a claim which it believes to be just in itself. But being convinced, after the most anxious and candid search of the true meaning of the article in question, that the construction put upon it by the government of France is not correct, it does not perceive with what reason it can be required to assent to that construction as the sole condition upon which it can obtain justice for the wrongs of its citizens.

Your excellency seems to labour under a like misapprehension of what has been said by the government of the United States respecting the want of connexion between these two subjects and the unreasonableness of making one an offset to the other. Deducing from thence the supposition that the government of the United States considers itself entitled to refuse a discussion of the claim of France, under the Louisiana treaty, until its own claims for indemnities should be first resolved,

your excellency remarks that, if such a right exists for the United States, it belongs equally to France; that France, in the exercise of it, might demand, not only the acknowledgment, but the satisfaction of her claim, before she would consent to examine the reclamations of the United States; that, if neither go vernment should yield, as is probable, no negotiation would be possible; and that it may be boldly affirmed that a right leading to such consequences can exist for no one. I will first remark that your excel lency is entirely mistaken in imputing such a pretension to the government of the United States. Its whole procedure has been altogether different. When the reclamation of France, founded on her construction of the eighth article of the Loui. siana treaty, was presented to the American government at Washing. ton, it did not refuse, (whatever sanction the example of the government of France might have afforded it in doing so,) to consider that reclamation, until its own reclamations were first acknowledged; but without any reference to that sub. ject, it promptly entered into an examination of the pretension brought forward on the part of France, candidly discussed all the arguments adduced in support of it, and has ever since been willing to renew the discussion in the same manner, and in a spirit of perfect candour and good faith, whenever the government of France should desire it. While such has been the procedure of the government of the United States, the government of France has, in effect, adopted that very course which your excellency says could be justified only as a retaliation of a similar pretension on the part of the United States; and the consequence which your excellency justly invokes as demonstrating the

absolute nullity of any pretetension that would lead to it, now results from the sole pretension of France herself; for what could more com pletely destroy the possibility of any negotiation, than to demand the preliminary admission of the truth of a proposition, (unconnected, too, with the real subject of negotia. tion,) which one of the parties had invariably believed to be unfounded and inadmissible?

Having answered, satisfactorily I trust, the observations made by your excellency to justify the posi tion recently assumed on the part of his majesty's government with regard to the incipient terms of negotiation, I will not reiterate what I have already had the honour to address to your excellency in a late communication respecting the true nature and character of that posi tion. The views there expressed coincide too plainly with the spontaneous dictates of justice, to require to be urged on the acknow. ledged loyalty of his majesty's government. Not doubting the result of a candid exercise of that loyalty on the present question, I pass to what your excellency is pleased to say concerning the reclamations themselves, which form the objects of negotiation.

Your excellency first informs me that his majesty's government has never, in any manner, recognised the justice of any part of the American reclamations; but that it has always held its opinion, on that point, dependant on the result of a verification which has never yet taken place. If this be the case, the government of the United States has been labouring under a great delusion. It certainly had flattered itself that its long and patient representations, though they had hitherto failed to be crowned by that final and practical success to which