The French Claims

MORE than two thirds of a century— a long lifetime — have elapsed since 1800, when the claims for French spoliations were assumed by our government under a convention with France. During this long period resolutions in favor of them by thirteen States have been filed at Washington, and more than three thousand memorials from claimants residing in twentyfive different States have been presented to Congress. No less than fortytwo committees of the House or Senate have reported on these memorials, and all but three in favor of them. Envoys, jurists, and statesmen have indorsed them. Federalists, Democrats, and Republicans have conceded their validity. They have been kept back by the pressure of the Revolution, by Revolutionary debts, embargoes, and wars; yet five times has a bill providing for their payment passed the Senate, and twice have both branches of Congress sanctioned the payment; but the measure failed under the vetoes of Polk and Pierce, when the South was in power.

Under a change of administration it would have become a law, but with Lincoln came our great struggle and its expenses. These have thus far engrossed the time of Congress, and now, with a full treasury and ample means, the measure is once more before the Senate. Again has the Committee on Foreign Relations reported a grant of five million dollars to liquidate this debt of the Revolution so long deferred.

The claimants are not confined to a few States. Less than half of their memorials are addressed to the Senate ; and of these three hundred and fifteen are from Maryland, three hundred and nine from Massachusetts, two hundred and fifteen from Pennsylvania, one hundred and ninety-three from New York, one hundred and fifty-five from South Carolina, one hundred and twenty-one from Virginia, one hundred and thirteen from Maine, one hundred and nine from Connecticut, sixty-nine from New Hampshire, fifty-two from North Carolina, and one hundred and fortythree from New Jersey, Rhode Island, Alabama, Louisiana, Delaware, Ohio, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Vermont, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, and the District of Columbia. The memorials bear the signatures of the merchants of the first decade of our Republic and of their lineal descendants ; they have rarely parted with their claims, for these depend on protests and invoices, and are not easily negotiable like bonds or certificates of debt. The passage of the bill will gladden the hearts of many impoverished families whose means have been appropriated by the state, which cannot under its constitution thus appropriate without giving full compensation.

It is not creditable to the government that for two thirds of a century it has withheld payment of claims recognized by its legislators and chief judicial officers, — claims founded on the immutable principles of justice, — claims based on ample equivalents, — claims used to cancel obligations whose neglect would have involved war or the loss of national honor.

These claims, in the language of Senator Sumner, have become historic, and their history is well set forth in the masterly reports of Everett, Crittenden, and Sumner, now standard books of reference, arsenals well stored with weapons for this discussion. Let us glance at the origin of these claims in our Revolutionary treaties.

Our treaties of alliance and commerce with France were concluded in the darkest hours of the Revolution, under the sage counsel of Franklin. Without income or military stores, with a declining credit, we had struggled manfully against superior force, we had fought with varying success, we had recovered Boston, but we had lost New York. By the gallantry of Stark, Gates, and Morgan, and our Eastern militia, we had arrested the march of Burgoyne, who would have severed the States and left New England out in the cold ; but in the dreary winter that followed our army faded to a shadow, marched barefoot through the snow, and nearly perished with hunger. Nevertheless, the capture of a British army on its march from Canada had aroused France, and the welcome news reached us in the spring that our envoys had concluded treaties of alliance and commerce with the most powerful nation of Europe.

What were those treaties ? They were reciprocal, although between an unfledged republic and an established nation. On the one side France, by the treaty of alliance, guaranteed the freedom and independence of the United States ; and on the other the thirteen States, as an equivalent, guaranteed to France forever all possessions in America she then held or should acquire in case of any rupture between France and any European nation. By the treaty of commerce, we also agreed to give shelter in our ports to her ships of war and prizes, and authorized her consuls to hold courts in those ships in our ports, and further agreed to deny shelter to the ships of her foes, unless driven in by stress of weather. It was also stipulated that free ships should make free goods.

On the one side, the contract of France promised us effectual aid in ships, troops, and treasure ; and faithfully was that aid given, down to the surrender of Cornwallis to the combined armies of France and America. The war of the Revolution was, indeed, more costly to France than to us, for the debt she contracted in this war, $ 280,000,000, exceeded our own, and bore heavily on her resources, contributing to the revolution that followed. The French government had gallantly performed its part of the contract under the treaty of alliance. Our great object was effected. The independence of the United States was recognized. The debt incurred by France exceeded the whole value of our property. The first valuation of Massachusetts, including Maine, was but $ 20,000,000, and these last held one eighth of the property of the Union.

In guaranteeing the American possessions of France forever, we had on our side assumed a heavy liability for the future ; for France then held San Domingo, Guadaloupe, Martinique, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Tobago, Granada, St. Pierre, Marie Galante, Miquelon, and Cayenne. By stipulating to admit the war-ships of France and their prizes and to allow their condemnation in our ports, and by agreeing to exclude her foes, we had exposed ourselves to the hostility of all her enemies. We had virtually concluded with her a treaty against the world, subject to the volition or misfortunes of our ally. We had made, and for good considerations, one of those “ entangling alliances ” to which Washington refers in his farewell message.

The war was over ; the United States resumed its commerce, adopted the Constitution of 1788, and launched its barks on the deep, funded its debts, and commenced its career; while France soon plunged into the vortex of a revolution, dethroned her king, sent her nobles to the scaffold, enfranchised her peasantry, endowed them with lands, and, converting a monarchy into a republic, incurred the hostility of all the kings of Europe. England formed a general alliance, and led a crusade against France, and, within ten years after the close of our Revolution, the fleets of England subdued most of the possessions in America.

France could now call upon us for the fulfilment of our treaties. The change of government had not absolved us. America ever recognizes the government de facto. It was not for a republic to object to a republic. The war was defensive on the part of France, but our guaranty did not apply to defensive wars alone. It applied to wars arising from “ any rupture.” We were bound by our treaty to a nation that had given us full and adequate considerations for the duties we assumed. France, however, did not for months require the absolute fulfilment of the treaty. She was aware that we had no navy, although relying wholly upon exports and commerce. She required supplies, and was disposed to respect for a time the neutrality of America. We desired also to preserve a neutral policy, as we were fast becoming the carrier of nations, while our coast was defenceless ; and in April, 1793, General Washington issued his proclamation of neutrality.

In the course of 1793 England fulminated her decrees against all neutral vessels bound to French ports with provisions, and greatly increased the list of contraband. Many seizures of American vessels were made under these decrees, and France soon responded with similar decrees, notifying, however, all neutrals that she would give them indemnity.

In the fall of 1793 some of the colonies of France called upon the United States for aid. None was accorded, but in the ensuing spring, April 3, 1794, Jefferson, in a letter to Madison, remarks “that our guaranty is binding, and that we ought at a proper time, to interfere and declare, both to England and France, that the islands are to rest with France, and that we will make common cause with the latter for this object.” James Monroe, who was our Minister to France in 1794, states, in his correspondence with our Secretary of State, that he was asked by the French government if he insisted on the fulfilment of our treaty of commerce, but that he declined to insist, because he thought France would, in such case, demand of us the immediate fulfilment of our treaty of guaranty. December 2, 1794, he writes that France does not ask its immediate fulfilment, and yields, to our remonstrance against seizure, the point that “free ships shall make free goods.”

February 2, 1795, President Washington, in a message to Congress, says, “It affords me the highest pleasure to inform Congress that perfect harmony reigns between the two Republics,” and that the claims are in train of being discussed with caution, and amicably adjusted, although Genet, the Minister of France, had informally suggested the fulfilment of the guaranty.

Each nation thus endeavored to preserve the peace ; each was willing to defer or delay the full performance of the treaties. But during the year 1795 events occurred to disturb the harmony of the new Republics. Chief Justice Jay had been sent to England to obtain the restoration of our ports on the frontier, and indemnity for British captures. A treaty was concluded by which we effected both objects. We did so by giving British ships of war and prizes access to our ports, and forbidding other nations to fit out privateers and sell their prizes in our harbors. We also enlarged the list of contraband goods; and, although the rights of France were reserved in one of the articles, her government complained that she had been sacrificed to England, by stipulations in favor of her enemy inconsistent with those we had made with her ; that we had enlarged the list of contraband articles, and had even admitted that provisions might be contraband, at a time when her foes were endeavoring to subdue her by famine. These complaints were urged with the more energy, as we excluded not only the prizes of French privateers equipped in our ports, but all other French prizes.

Soon after this treaty the French agents at San Domingo reported to their government “that, having found no resources, or finance, and knowing that the Americans were unfriendly to our country in its distress, they had armed for cruising, and already eighty-seven cruisers were at sea, and that for three months the administration had subsisted, and individuals been enriched by prizes.” The exclusion of French prizes from our ports, and the reception of those of British ships of war, was a serious deprivation to France, as the French colonies had generally fallen into the possession of England. Adet was now sent as Minister from France to the United States. He failed to obtain satisfaction, and, after a negotiation in which he complained of the British treaty, our government made counter-claims for one hundred and thirty vessels captured or detained, and for supplies to the West Indies, and for recent seizures on the Caribbean Sea.

Adet, on the 15th of November, 1796, announced the order of his government to suspend his functions in the United States, and made a final claim for the guaranty as follows : —

“The undersigned, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic, now fulfils to the Secretary of State of the United States a painful, but sacred duty.

“ He claims, in the name of American honor, in the name of the faith of treaties, the execution of that contract which assured to the United States their existence, and which France regarded as the pledge of the most sacred union between two people, the most free on the earth.”

In the same year the Directory of France decreed “ that the flag of the French Republic will treat all neutrals, either as to confiscation, seizures, or capture, in the same manner as they shall suffer the English to treat the French ” ; and soon after notified us that they regarded their stipulations under the treaty of 1778 as altered or suspended by Jay’s treaty with Great Britain.

After the recall of Adet, March 2, 1797, the French Directory issued further decrees enlarging the list of contraband articles, authorizing the capture of all vessels unprovided with a document called “ the roll of equipage,” which was not carried by American vessels ; and, a few months later, all vessels transporting the products of England and her colonies were declared good prizes. These decrees, with others of like character, were promptly executed, and before July, 1798, nearly two thousand sail of American vessels had been captured. A large proportion of our shipping had been swept from the ocean.

France declined to receive Pinckney as the successor of Monroe, and subsequently she refused to receive our envoys extraordinary, Pinckney, Marshall, and Gerry ; and early in 1798 we passed successive acts authorizing the capture of all armed ships committing depredations on our commerce, another suspending intercourse with France, another to resist searches, and finally, after nearly all our claims for spoliation had accrued, we passed the act of July 7, 1798, purporting to repeal the treaties of alliance and commerce. Congress also authorized an army and levied taxes, and commenced under John Adams the construction of a navy.

These last acts induced more moderate counsels on the part of France, advances were made through our Minister at the Hague, and a second mission, composed of Chief Justice Ellsworth and Messrs. Davy and Murray, in March, 1800, resumed negotiations which terminated in the convention of September 30th in the same year.

The previous mission, which had proved a failure, and of which Chief Justice Marshall was a member, before it left France had an interview with Talleyrand, who met our claims for seizures and confiscations with the counter-claims of France.

The new envoys also were met with the same counter-claims under the treaties. They had been charged in the instructions from Timothy Pickering, our Secretary of State, to base any new treaty upon the express condition that reparation should be made for all losses sustained by illegal captures and confiscations, and in the same instructions these are ascribed “ to the feelings engendered by Jay’s treaty.” “ That treaty,” say the instructions, “ has been made the chief pretence for those unjust and cruel depredations on American commerce, which have brought distress on multitudes, and incurred a total loss of property to the United States of probably more than twenty millions of dollars.” “ The conduct of the French Republic would well have justified an immediate declaration of war on the part of the United States, but, desirous of maintaining peace, and still willing to leave open the door of reconciliation with France, the United States contented themselves with preparing for defence, and measures calculated to defend their commerce ” ; they “ did not even authorize reprisals on merchantmen, but were restricted solely to the giving safety to their own.”

France also took the ground in the negotiations that there was no war between the two Republics, as appears by the letter of Talleyrand to M. Pichon, the French Minister at the Hague, dated August 28, 1798, which led to the mission. “France,” says Talleyrand, “ has a double interest, as a nation and as a republic, not to expose to any hazard the present existence of the United States ; therefore it never thought of making war against them, and any contrary supposition is an insult to common sense.”

There had been no war between the two Republics. Thus wrote the French Ministers to our envoys, August 20, 1800. Thus wrote Chief Justice Marshall to our Minister at London, September 20, 1800. Thus dictated Napoleon at St. Helena to Gourgaud for his Memoir, Vol. II. p. 129. And such is the official record of the French government in the Code Diplomatique for 1800. There had been misunderstandings, captures, and reprisals, but no war. Neither party had declared war. Our Congress alone could have declared it for us. War could be terminated by a treaty only, but our differences were ended by a convention. This is conclusive evidence. By war France might have lost its claims under its treaties. By war America might have lost the claims of its citizens, but had not thus lost them. The two Republics kept each other in countenance, and by both was war studiously avoided.

Joseph Bonaparte, the brother of the First Consul, was placed at the head of the French commission to receive our envoys and conduct the negotiation. Thus in time of peace, but on the verge of war, the two nations by their representatives met to adjust their differences.

America presented two classes of claims for her citizens ; nearly a fifth for demands liquidated in the shape of contracts, awards, and judgments, the residue for more than two thousand vessels seized, captured, and condemned, in violation of the law of nations, amounting in the aggregate to twenty millions of dollars.

France had no claims for her citizens. America had studiously forborne to touch the merchantmen of France. The claims of the latter were national under her two treaties of alliance and commerce. They were for the loss of her colonies guaranteed to her forever by America, for the exclusion of her prizes from the Western hemisphere, for the admission of the ships of her enemy, for vast attendant losses. If the claims of the first party were large, those of the second party were larger and more immeasurable. When our envoys pressed the one, the French commission insisted on the other. France had recognized the justice of our claims, and on this occasion conceded it. She distinctly offered to have their amount ascertained by a commission and assumed by our government as an advance to France, and then to liquidate them by a fair offset of her national claims against the United States ; but this our envoys declined. They proposed to extinguish the treaties and the claims of France under them by a definite sum, and successively offered a million and then two millions of dollars for a relinquishment of the guaranty, and six hundred thousand dollars for the abandonment of the right to shelter; but although France was in need of money, these offers were refused. She declined also a war subsidy of two hundred thousand dollars a year which was tendered by our envoys. And finally, by the convention of September 30, 1800, it was agreed that friendship should be restored, and that debts due from citizens of one country to those of another should be paid or prosecuted, but that this provision should not embrace indemnities for captures or confiscations. By the second article also it was stipulated that, as the two nations could not agree as to the treaties of alliance and commerce, nor on the American claims as to the indemnities due or claimed, they would negotiate further on these subjects, and that their operation should be suspended for eight years. In this form the convention was signed ; but before its final ratification the second article was omitted, and a clause annexed to the effect that, by the retrenchment of the second article, all claims or pretences under it were by the two states renounced. In this shape it received the assent of the First Consul, the assent of our Senate and President, and was promulgated December 21, 1801 ; and thus, to escape the obligations of the treaties, the just claims of our citizens against France, for seizures, captures, and confiscation, rated in the negotiations at little less than twenty millions, were forever renounced and the obligation to meet them was assumed by the nation.

The trustee who appropriates the money of his wards for his own benefit is responsible to his wards. The government of the nation, in its capacity of guardian and trustee, appropriated the claims and property of its subjects for the benefit of the nation, to relieve it from the sacred debt of the Revolution, and from claims which were the price of its freedom. It entitled them to a full equivalent, or at least to all the benefits it derived from a relief from one and possibly two costly wars, and from reparation for the loss of the French colonies, many of them of great value. If the claims of our citizens had been reserved, they would doubtless long since have been recognized and paid as similar claims under like seizures against France, Naples, Spain, Great Britain, and Mexico have been recognized and liquidated. They were founded on the laws of nations, on the immutable principles of justice, and this has been admitted by John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Madison, Clay, Webster, and Livingston, and other contemporary statesmen, in their printed letters and speeches, as well as by Napoleon at St. Helena.

Timothy Pickering, the Secretary of State, under whose instructions the envoys acted, in his letter of November 19, 1824, to James H. Causten, Esq., of Washington, says : “ Thus the government bartered the just claims of our merchants on France to obtain a relinquishment of the French claims for a restoration of the old treaties, especially the burdensome treaty of alliance by which we were bound to guarantee the French territories in America. And on this view of the case it would seem that the merchants have an equitable claim for indemnities from the United States.”

But the treaties were never abrogated until the convention ; one partyalone could not repeal them. And Chief Justice Marshall himself, our envoy, and so long the light of our judiciary, with the best opportunities for forming a judgment, has given an opinion still more decisive than that of Pickering, recorded by the Hon. William C. Preston, in his letter to Mr. Causten of January 29, 1844. He states in this letter, that, after investigating these claims, he was convinced of their justice; “and while they were under discussion in the Senate, they happened to be the subject of conversation between Mr. Leigh, Mr. Calhoun, and myself one evening in our mess-room, when Judge Marshall stepped in, and, having overheard orbeen informed of the subject of conversation, asked to share in it, saying, ‘ that having been connected with the events of that period and conversant with the circumstances under which the claims arose, he was from his own knowledge satisfied that there was the strongest obligation on the government to compensate the sufferers by the French spoliations.’ He gave a succinct statement of the leading facts, and the principles of law applicable to them, in so precise and lucid a way, that it seemed to me a termination of the argument by a judicial decision. It was apparent from his manner that he felt an interest in the circulation of his opinion, arising from deep conviction of its truth.”

Such a decision on the French claims, from such a source, is conclusive as to their validity.

What is their amount? The bill now pending appropriates $ 5,000,000, or one fourth of the amount of the original claims ; but they have been gradually reduced from claims for 2,279 vessels to claims for 898, valued at $ 12,676,380, by failures of proof, and awards under our treaties with other nations for French seizures in their ports. At simple interest, the sum $ 2,600,000, offered to France by our envoys for a relinquishment of her claims under the treaties of the Revolution, would exceed $ 13,500,000. The sum appropriated will probably cover half the face of the remaining claims, without interest. It cannot be urged that the claimants have lost their claims by delay. They began to file their memorials six weeks after the convention was promulgated, and have a venerable advocate at Washington, J. H. Causten, Esq., who has for forty-six years pressed their payment with indomitable courage and perseverance, and still feels confident of success, still predicts their early payment.

What are the objections to this ? The chief difficulty in the way of the claimants has been the reluctance of the country, often in seasons of difficulty and especially when the claims exceeded our revenue, to part with large sums of money. The objections urged are poor and untenable, and founded on misconception. It has been urged that the United States had terminated the treaties of the Revolution by the act of July 7, 1798, and that France had no claims to cede in September, 1800, as an equivalent for the assumption. But it requires either war or the action of both parties to treaties to end their obligations. The debtor cannot, either by evasion or a resolve not to pay, exonerate himself from his debt, and more especially can he not do it upon the pretence that he has been annoyed by the efforts made to collect it. There has been neither war nor release of the claimants to invalidate their demands, there has been no omission to assert them, and the statute of limitation does not refer to such claims against the nation. Its Committee on Revolutionary Claims is still in being and regularly appointed.

But there have been Presidential vetoes. Yes, and they do no honor to the intelligence of those who thereby delayed the steps of justice. Let us glance at the veto of James K. Polk of August 8, 1846. The reasons he assigns for his veto are in substance these : That the bill passed late in the session ; that he has had little time to examine it ; that the sum is large and the nation in debt ; that the claims have been long before Congress, and if just would have been paid before. (Upon this theory the slave would never have obtained his freedom.) But he adds, that he doubts the justice of the claims. Should not his doubts have yielded to the deliberate action of the House and Senate ? His chief objection seems to be that but half of the debt is to be paid, and that in scrip. This he considers injustice to the debtor, and decides to deprive him of the half because he cannot get the whole. Is not half the loaf better than nothing ? The citizen of the United States who finds in our history such a protest of the chief magistrate against the payment of just debts, recognized by our first jurists and statesmen and by both branches of Congress, must blush for his President.

Then comes the veto of Franklin Pierce, dated February 17, 1855, nine years later And what says this Northern Democrat ? First, he devotes three pages to a lame defence of his right to veto for inexpediency. He then suggests that the passage of the bill will inculpate those who have failed for fifty years to pass it. He thus backs up his exemplar, Mr. Polk ; but did he forget that five times it had passed the Senate ? and which are right, five senates and two houses, or Messrs. Polk and Pierce ? Then he urges that France, under the pressure of England, disregarded the rights of neutrals ; that we, after making every effort to obtain redress, became involved in the war and extinguished our claims. Had Pierce forgotten or never read the letter of Talleyrand, in which he urges that France was interested to preserve her treaties and the young Republic, “ that she never designed war, and the contrary supposition ” (the supposition of Pierce) “was an insult to common sense ” ? Let us defer to Talleyrand, the great diplomatist. Pierce further urges that, as the treaties were abrogated by one party, neither party had claims to release under them ; but were they abrogated by both ? and if they were, still our claims did not rest on the treaties only, but were founded on the law of nations, and the claims of both accrued before the abrogation. Then he takes the position that the claims reserved under the convention which were confined to liquidated claims, which excluded captures and confiscations, did include all our claims. This assumption is untenable against the clear terms of the convention. No claims for “torts,” which were the claims presented and discussed, were reserved under the convention, and this is clearly shown by acutal adjustments, for all such claims were rejected under the treaty of Louisiana, three years later. But Pierce says that, after the convention, Jefferson still called on France for payment; and well he might, for she did not pay the liquidated debts she did recognize under the convention, until she realized the amount from the subsequent treaty of Louisiana. The whole protest of Pierce is an illogical argument, founded on a striking misapprehension of the facts of the case.

But we have done with these puerile essays, these weak state papers, so much in contrast with the plain common sense which characterizes the messages of our Republican Presidents.

It must be obvious to our readers, from this brief review of facts, that the nation has assumed these claims, that they are continuous, and that most of them spring from reprisals made by France or Frenchmen for our delays in fulfilling the stipulations of our treaties.

The last of the sufferers by the French spoliations have gone to their narrow homes unrequited. Let us listen to the voice which comes to us from their graves.

APPEAL TO THE NATION.

Hearken to us, the founders of your navy and of your commerce. In the dark hours of the Revolution, when you had neither ships nor treasure, we launched our barks on the deep, fashioned our cannon from the guns we took at Saratoga,¹ and assailed the English on every sea. At the close of the war we held the British Channel against the best ships of England, raised the rate of insurance for crossing it to twenty per cent, and contributed largely to your freedom.

When the war was over, we converted our letters-of-marque into merchantmen ; opened your trade with the Baltic and the Mediterranean, with India and China ; and we discovered the Columbia River, which gave you the Pacific. During the war you entered into treaties of alliance and commerce with your generous ally, France. She guaranteed your freedom ; you guaranteed her possessions, you promised to give her free access to your ports, and to deny it to her foes.

When war came and England seized those possessions and captured your ships, you run up the neutral flag, and to regain your ships gave English prizes free access to your ports, and excluded the French prizes. France, incensed by these acts, made reprisals on us.

You forbid us to arm and take letters-of-marque and defend our rights as we did in the Revolution, and offered to do again ; you gave us no convoy and no protection against the ally you had offended. Our ships were swept from the deep; and when we appealed to you for redress, and France called on you to fulfil your treaties, the price of your freedom, instead of launching a fleet and recovering her islands, you “bartered our claims for hers,” and thus appropriated our property for the state.

For seventy years have we called on you for justice. Five times has your Senate approved our bill, twice has Congress allowed our claim. Twice have the poor steersmen you placed at the helm refused to take us into port, and now that our stormy voyage is over, we call upon you from the ground to do something for the widows and orphans and grandchildren whose heritage you detain.

You have clothed them with the rights of your ancient ally ; they still hold the bills you have dishonored.

If you will grant them neither principal nor interest, grant them at least a moiety of their claims.

If you have other debts, this is your oldest, the sacred debt of the Revolution, and should first be paid.

E. H. Derby.