5 To elucidate the nature of these injuries : On the 9th of May, 1793, France authorized armed vessels and privateers to arrest and bring into her ports neutral ships, laden wholly or in part either with provisions belonging to neutral nations and destined to an enemy’s ports, or with merchandise belonging to an enemy, and declared that such merchandise should be lawful prize, while such provisions should be paid for according to their value at the place of destination, and just indemnification should be made for the freights and the detention of the ships. This decree was alternately rescinded as to the United States, restored, rescinded again, and finally restored and left in full effect. American vessels known and confessed, but found without passport or certificate, in the exact form prescribed by the 22d article of the Treaty of Amit}' and Commerce, were, by a decree of the 3d of March, 1797, declared lawful prizes. On the 2d of July, 1796, France decreed that she would treat neutral vessels, either as to confiscations, searches, or captures, in the same manner that they suffered the English to treat them—a decree that punished with violence the endurance of aggression committed by another, while it confided in the discretion of the second corsair to determine who, by becoming victims of the first, had offended against so extraordinary a code.. On the 29th of October, 1799, France decreed that any native of an allied or even of a neutral country, found wearing a hostile commission, or serving in an enemy’s crew, should suffer as a pirate, without being allowed to allege duress, by violence, menace, or otherwise. Besides one hundred and three vessels w'hich were detained by the embargo at Bordeaux, there is a list of six hundred and nineteen which were captured and plundered before 1800. The true number of spoliations is said to have been three times greater. Contemporaneous expositions by the authorities of the United States placed the aggregate of damages sustained by the, merchants at more than twenty millions of dollars. Of these , damages, portions amounting to about ten millions of dollars were adjusted and paid chiefly under the convention of 1800, finally carried into effect by the Louisiana treaty in 1803. The exact amount of damages due, however, is not now in question. The bill before the Senate confines itself to unadjusted claims to be actually proved, and awards only five millions, without interest, in satisfaction of all that shall be established. The United States diligently prosecuted the claims from 1793 to 1800, but France did not so long remain a mere respondent. Edmund C. Genet, her minister, claimed, and actually assumed to fit out privateers in American ports, to cruise against British vessels. Under the 22d article of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, he demanded what, in fact, were admiralty powers, for French consuls in American ports, by virtue of article 8th of the Consular Convention ; while, under color of the 17th article of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, he insisted that French vessels had a right to sell their prizes free from all duties in American ports ; and, finally, he complained that British ships were permitted to take French goods out of American vessels, while a reciprocal right was denied to the French marine. All these complaints, however, were disallowed, upon grounds which wfill not now' be questioned. Nor were the relations between the United States and Great Britain les?, disturbed. Besides having offended earlierand more flagrantly than France- against our neutrality, Great Britain still, in violation of the Treaty of Independence, held the military posts on our Western frontiers, and, through, them, the control of the disaffected Indian tribes; nor did she seem unwilling, amidst our domestic distractions, to provoke a new trial of our/
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