STATEMENT, &c.-CONTINUED. Species of Merchandise. Tallow. Spices, mace nutmegs cinnamon cloves pepper. Chinese cassia Tobacco, manufactured, other than snuff and cigars Snuff Indigo Cotton Gunpowder Paints, ocre dry in oil white and red lead Lead, pigs, bar and sheet manufactures of, and shot Cordage, cables and tarred Cordage, untarred and yarn Copper, and composition rods and bolts nails and spikes Iron nails in bars and bolts rolled otherwise sheet, rod and hoop Steel Allum Amount of duty. dolls. cts the principal objects of his mission; and he now invites his excellency's attention to a more detailed and formal exposition of one of those objects. The undersigned is sure that the appeal, which he is about to make to the well known justice of his Sicilian majesty, in the name and by the orders of his government, will receive a deliberate and 25 84 candid consideration; and that, if it shall appear, 191 00 as he trusts it will, to be recommended by those 278 40 principles which it is the interest as well as the 140 00 duty of all governments to observe and maintain, 217 00 the claim involved in it will be admitted, effectual-' 16,997 52 ly and promptly. 196 14 177 00 364 32 65 00 1,273 25 The undersigned did but obey the instructions 2,304 84 of the president of the United States, when he assured his excellency the Marquis di Circello, at 8,075 60 their first interview, that his mission was suggested 133 20 by such sentiments towards his Sicilian majesty 3,074 85 as could not fail to be approved by him. Those 1,473 60 sentiments are apparent in the desire which the 1,941 60 president has manifested, through the undersigned, 234 53 that the commercial relations between the terri52 52 tories of his majesty and those of the United 624 66 States should be cherished by reciprocal arrange287 18 ments, sought in the spirit of enlightened friend. 603 52 ship, and with a sincere view to such equal advan374 82 tages, as it is fit for nations to derive from one 52 00 another. The representations which the undersign1,581 92 ed is commanded to make upon the subject of the 190 48 present note, will be seen by his majesty in the 1,050 75 same light. They shew the firm reliance of the 1,899 00 president upon the disposition of the court of Na513 90 ples impartially to discuss and ascertain, and faith15,925 00 fully to discharge its obligations towards foreign 1,003 00 states and their citizens; a reliance which the un3 00 dersigned partakes with his government; and under 100 the influence of which, he proceeds to state the 2,834 00 nature and grounds of the reclamation in question. 1,672 00 It cannot but be known to his excellency the 486 00 Marquis di Circello, that, on the first of July, 1809, the minister for foreign affairs of the then government of Naples, addressed to Frederick Degan, Esq. then consul of the United States, an official letter, containing an invitation to all American vessels, having on board the usual certificates of ori426 00 gin and other regular papers, to come direct to Na501 25 ples with their cargoes; and that the same minis ter caused that invitation to be published in every 1,012 50 possible mode, in order that it might cone to the knowledge of those whom it concerned. It will not be questioned that the promise of security necessarily implied in this measure had every title, in the actual circumstances of Europe, to the confidence of distant and peaceful merchants. The merchants of America, as was to have been expec ted, did confide. Upon the credit and under the protection of that promise, they sent to Naples documented with scrupulous regularity, and in no many valuable vessels and cargoes, navigated and respect obnoxious to molestation, but scarcely had they reached the destination to which they had been allured, when they were seized, without distinction, as prize or as otherwise forfeited to the Neapolitan government, upon pretexts the most frivolous and idle. These arbitrary seizures, were followed, with a rapacious haste, by summary de crees, confiscating in the name and for the use of the same government, the whole of the property which had thus been brought within its grasp; and The undersigned, envoy extraordinary of the these decrees, which wanted even the decent affec. United States of America, has already had the hotation of justice, were immediately carried into nor to mention to his excellency the Marquis di execution, against all the remonstrances of those Circello, secretary of state and minister for foreign whom they oppressed, to enrich the treasury of the affairs of his majesty, the king of the two Sicilies, state. Duck, Russia ravens abore 10 do. 12 responsibility stands upon the plainest foundations of natural equity. The undersigned persuades himself, that it is not in a note addressed to the Marquis di Circello, that it is necessary to enlarge upon the singularly It will not be pretended, that a merchant is callatrocious character of this procedure, for which no ed upon to investigate, as he prosecutes his traffic, apology can be devised, and for which none that is the title of every sovereign, with whose ports, and intelligible has hitherto been attempted. It was, under the guarantee of whose plighted word, he indeed, an undisguised abuse of power, of which trades. He is rarely competent. There are few nothing could well enhance the deformity, but the in any station who are competent to an investigastudied deception that preceded and prepared it; a tion so full of delicacy, so perplexed with facts deception which, by a sort of treason against socie- and principles of a peculiar character, far remov ty, converted a proffer of hospitality into a snare, ed from the common concerns of life. His prediand that salutary confidence, without which nations cament would be to the last degree calamitous, if and men must cease to have intercourse, into an in an honest. search after commercial profit, he engine of plunder. might not take governments as he finds them, and The right of the innocent victims, of this une- consequently rely at all times upon the visiblé exqualled act of fraud and rapine, to demand retri-clusive acknowleged possession of supreme autho bution, cannot be doubted. The only question is, rity. If he sees all the usual indications of estabfrom whom are they entitled to demand it? Those, lished rule; all the distinguishing concomitants who at that moment ruled in Naples, and were in of real undisputed power, it cannot be that he is fact, and in the view of the world, the government at his peril to discuss mysterious theories above of Naples, have passed away before retribution his capacity or foreign to his pursuits, and morecould be obtained, although not before it was re- over, to connect the results of those speculations quired; and, if the right to retribution regards on- with events of which his knowledge is either imly the persons of those rulers as private and ordi- perfect or erroneous. If he sees the obedience of nary wrongdoers, the American merchant, whom the people, and the acquiescence of neighboring they deluded and despoiled in the garb and with princes, it is impossible that it can be his duty to the instruments and for the purposes of sovereignty, examine, before he ships his merchandise, whether must despair forever of redress. it be fit that these should acquiesce or those obey. The undersigned presumes, that such is not the If, in short, he finds nothing to interfere with or view which the present government will feel itself qualify the dominion which the head of the society justified in taking of this interesting subject; he exercises, over it and the domain which it occutrusts that it will, on the contrary, perceive that pies, it is the dictate of reason, sanctioned by all the claim, which the injured merchant was autho-experience, that he is bound to look no farther. rized to prefer against the government of this It can be of no importance to him that, notwithcountry before the recent change, and which, but standing all these appearances announcing lawful for that change, must sooner or later have been rule, the mere right to fill the throne is claimed successful, is now a valid claim against the govern- by, or even resides in, another than the actual ocment of the same country, hotwithstanding that cupant. The latent right (supposing it to exist) change. At least, the undersigned is not at pre- disjointed from and controverted by the fact, is to sent aware of any considerations which, applied to him nothing while it continues to be latent. It is the facts that characterise this case, can lead to a only the sovereign in possession that it is in his different conclusion; and certainly it would be power to know. It is with him only that he can matter for sincere regret, that any considerations enter into engagements. It is through him only 'should be thought sufficient to make the return of that he can deal with the society. And if it be true, his Sicilian majesty's power fatal to the rights of that the sovereign in possession is incapable, on friendly strangers, to whom no fault can be ascribed. account of a conflict of title between him and The general principle that a civil society may another, who barely claims, but makes no effort to contract obligations through its actual government, assert his claim, of pledging the public faith of the whatever that may be, and that it is not absolved society and of the monarch to foreign traders, for from them by reason simply of a change of govern-commercial and other objects, we are driven to the ment or of rulers, is universally received as incon monstrous conclusion, that the society is, in effect trovertable. It is admitted, not merely by wri- and indefinitely, cut off from all communication ters on puplic law, as a speculative truth, but by with the rest of the world. It has, and can have, states and statesmen, as a practical rule; and, ac- no organ by which it can become accountable to, cordingly, history is full of examples to prove, or make any contract with foreigners, by which that the undisturbed possessor of sovereign power needful supplies may be invited into its harbors, by in any society, whether a rightful possessor or not, which famine may be averted, or redundant prowith reference to other claimants of that power, ductions be made to find a market in the wants of may not only be lawful object of allegiance, but by strangers. It is, in a word, an outcast from the many of his acts, in his quality of sovereign de facto, the bosom of the great community of nations, at may bind the society, and those who come after the very moment too, when its existence, in the him as rulers, although their title be adversary to, form which it has assumed, may every where be or even better than his own. The Marquis de Civ-admitted. And, even if the dormant claim to the cello does not need to be informed, that the earlier throne should, at last, by a fortunate coincidence annals of England in particular, abound in instruc-of circumstances, become triumphant, and unite tions upon this head. itself to the possession, this harsh and palsying With regard to just and beneficial contracts, theory has no assurance to give, either to the socieentered into by such a sovereign with the mer-ty or to those who may incline to deal with it, that chants of foreign nations, or (which is the same its moral capacity is restored, that it is an outcast thing,) with regard to the detention and confisca no longer, and that it may now, through the protion of their property, for public uses, and by his tecting will of its new sovereign, do what it could authority, in direct violation of a pledge of safety, not do before. It contains, of course, no adequate upon the faith of which, that property arrived and certain provision against even the perpetuity of within the reach of confiscation, this continuing the dilemma which it creates. If, therefore, a civil society is not competent, by rules in entire posses-high and sacred, contracted by a government in the sion of the sovereignty, to enter into all such pro- full and tranquil enjoyment of power, to perish mises to the members of other societies as neces- with the first revolution, either in form or rulers sity or convenience may require, and to remain un-through which it may happen to pass; or (to sinte answerable for the breach of them, into whatsoever the same proposition in different terms) that it is shape the society may ultimately be cast, or into the natural operation of a political revolution in a whatsoever hands the government may ultimately state, to strip unfortunate traders, who have been fall; if a sovereign, entirely in possession, is not betrayed and plundered by the former sovereign, able, for that reason alone, to incur a just respon- of all that his rapacity could not reach-the right of sibility, in his political or corporate character, to reclamation. the citizens of other countries, and to transmit that responsibility, even to those who succeed him by displacing him, it will be difficult to show that the moral capacity of a civil society is any thing but a name, or the responsibility of sovereigns any thing but a shadow. And here the undersigned will take the liberty to suggest, that it is scarcely for the interest of sovereigns to inculcate as a max im, that their lost dominions can only be recovered at the expense of the unoffending citizen of states in amity, or, which is equivalent to it, to make that recovery the practical consummation of intermediate injustice, by utterly extinguishing the hope of indemnity and even the title to demand it. The wrong which the government of Murat in flicted upon American citizens, wanted nothing that might give to it atrocity or effect, as a rob. bery introduced by treachery; but, however per nicious or execrable, it was still reparable. It left in the sufferers and their nation a right, which was not likely to be forgotten or abandoned, of seeking and obtaining ample redress, not from Murat simply, (who individually was lost in the sovereign,) but from the government of the country, whose power he abused. By what course of argument can it be proved, that this incontestable right, from which that government could never have escaped, has been destroyed by the reaccession of his Sicilian majesty, after a long interval, to the sovereignty of the same territories? The undersigned will now, for the sake of perspicuity and precision, recall to the recollection of his excellency the Marquis di Circello, the situa- That such a result cannot in any degree be intion of the government of Murat at the epoch of ferred from the misconduct of the American claimthe confiscations in question. Whatever might ants, is certain; for no misconduct is imputable be the origin or foundation of that government, it to them. They were warranted in every view of had for some time been established. It had obtain the public law of Europe, in holding commercial ed such obedience as in such times was customary, communication with Naples in the predicament in and had manifested itself, not only by active inter- which they found it, and in trusting to the direct nal exertions of legislative and executive powers, and authentic assurances, which the government of but by important external transactions with old the place affected to throw over them as a shield and indisputable regular governments. It had against every danger. Their shipments were strictbeen (as long afterwards it continued to be) recog-ly within the terms of those assurances; and nonised by the greatest potentates, as one of the thing was done, by the shippers or their agents, by European family of states, and had interchanged which the benefit of them might be lost or im. with them ambassadors, and other public ministers paired. and consuls. And Great Britain, by an order in From what other source can such a result be council of the 26th of April, 1809, which modified drawn? Will it be said that the proceeds of these the system of constructive blockade, promulgated confiscations were not applied to public purposes by the orders of November, 1807, had excepted during the sovereignty of Murat, or that they prothe Neapolitan territories, with other portions of Italy, from the operation of that system, that neu. trals might no longer be prevented from trading with them. duced no public advantages, with reference to which the present government ought to be liable? The answer to such a suggestion is, that let the fact be as it may, it can have no influence upon the Such was the state of things when American subject. It is enough that the confiscations themvessels were tempted into Naples, by a reliance selves, and the promise of safety which they violatupon the passports of its government, to which ed, were acts of state, proceeded from him who perfidy had lent more than ordinary solemnity, was then, and for several successive years, the soupon a declaration as explicit, as it was formal and vereign. The derivative liability of the present notorious, that they might come without fear, and government reposes, not upon the good, either might depart in peace. It was under these circum-public or private, which may have been the fruit of stances, that, instead of being permitted to retire such a revolting exhibition of power, emancipated with their lawful gains, both they and their cargoes were seized and appropriated in a manner already related. The undersigned may consequently assume, that if ever there was a claim to compensa. tion for broken faith, which survived the political power of those, whose iniquity produced it, and devolved in full force upon their successors, the present claim is of that description. from all the restraints of principle but upon the general foundations, which the undersigned has already had the honor to expose. To follow the proceeds of these spoliations into the public treasury, and thence to all the uses to which they were finally made subservient, can be no part of the duty of the American claim int. It is a task which he has no means of performing, and As to the demand itself, as it existed against the which, if performed by others, could neither government of Murat, the Marquis di Circello strengthen his case nor enfeeble it. And it may will undoubtedly be the first to concede, not only confidently be insisted, not only that he has no that it is above reproach, but that it rests upon concern with the particular application of these grounds in which the civilized world has a deep proceeds, but that, even if he had, he would be and lasting interest. And with regard to the lia-authorized to rely upon the presumption, that they bility of the present government as standing in the were applied as public money to public ends, or place of the former, it may be taken as a corolla-left in the public coffers. It must be remembered, ry from that concession; at least until it has been moreover, that whatever may have been the destishown, that it is the natural fate of obligations, sony of these unhallowed spoils, they cannot have well |