2 have hidden themselves again in the earth, and paper credits had everywhere collapsed. The chaplain of Congress implored Washington “to give over the ungodly war in which he was engaged.” The discomfited army, without recruits, pay, or sufficient food, had tracked their way with bleeding feet into winter quarters on the Schuylkill. Two hundred officers had resigned and retired; the hospitals and the neighboring farmers’ firesides were crowded by soldiers without blankets or shoes; and the great leader, in the midst of discontents fast growing into mutiny, announced to the loosely constituted Legislature, which was now convulsed with distrust and faction, that “ unless some great and capital change should occur, the troops under his care must starve, dissolve, or disperse.” A great and capital change did occur. Allied armies, fresh, vigorous, and well appointed, co-operating with a gallant fleet, met the invader, and his surrender at Yorktown opened the way to peace, sovereignty, and independence. An auspicious star had led Franklin, Deane, and Lee, the first of American ambassadors, to Paris ; and it was an alliance with France, a hereditary foe, but thenceforth a fraternal nation, that wrought out this great and capital change, and effected that triumphant consummation. The courses of the allies immediately separated, and thenceforward widely diverged. The United States completed their union in peace and tranquillity, and established their Constitution on the unremovable foundations on which loyal citizens hope, and wise men throughout the world believe, that it stands firmly fixed forever; while, by well-directed devotion of the national revenues to the payment of their debts and the establishment of their credit, and a wise cultivation of arts and industry, they prepared the way for permanent and extended empire. France, on the contrary, began the descent towards revolution in the- very year when the United States emerged from its dangerous labyrinths; and thereafter, distracted herself, for thirteen years she convulsed all Europe. It was during this period that these claims for indemnities for spoliations arose. The political and commercial relations between France and the United States had been defined by treaties. First. The Treaty of Amity and Commerce, the most ancient treaty of the United States, executed on the 6th of February, 1778. It stipulated [Art. 1] a firm, inviolable, universal, and perpetual peace. [Art. 2.] That all commercial privileges to be granted by either party to any State should become common to the other contracting party. [Arts. 3 and 4.] The most favored footing for each party in the other’s ports. [Arts. 5 and 6.] Reciprocal protection to vessels in their respective jurisdictions. [Art. 8.] The aid of France in negotiations by the United States with the Barbary Powers. [Art. 12.] The mutual exhibition-of passports and certificates of cargo in cases of suspicious vessels making the ports of an enemy of one of the parties. [Art. 14.] That goods of either party should be forfeited if laden in ships of an enemy of the other. [Art. 17.] That armed vessels of one party might freely carry prizes into the other's ports, without paying duties to courts, and might freely depart to the places designated in their commissions, and that neither party should give shelter to captors of prizes from the other. [Art. 22.] That privateers of an enemy of one party should not be allowed to be fitted out or to sell prizes in the ports of the other. [Art. 23.] That free ships should make free goods. [Art. 24.] Defined articles contraband of war, and excepted from that class many articles not free by the law of nations. [Art. 25.] In case one party should be at war, the vessels of the other should be furnished with sea letters, or
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