the proposed aid, the work must be entirely suspended. He had made notes of some of the objections that had been already so ably answered, that he should not trouble the House with any further remarks.

The question being now called for, and being about to be put

Mr. LIVINGSTON intimated an intention to address the House, and requested, on account of the late hour, an adjournment; which was agreed to.

IN SENATE.-FRIDAY, JAN. 21, 1825.
SUPPRESSION OF PIRACY.

The Senate again proceeded to the consideration of the bill "for the suppression of Piracy."

Mr. TAZEWELL rose, and moved to strike from the bill the third section thereof, which is as follows:

"And be it further enacted, That, if any of the said pirates should escape from the fresh pursuit of the commanding officers and crews of any armed vessel of the United States, and find refuge in any of the cities or ports of the said island of Cuba, or other islands aforesaid, the President of the United States, on being informed of the fact in a manner satisfactory to him, of its authenticity, shall be, and he is hereby, authorized, at his discretion, to declare the said port or city to be in a state of blockade, and shall cause the same to be invested by the naval force of the United States, till the said pirates shall have been secured and punished by the authorities of the said island, or until satisfaction shall otherwise have been made, whereupon he shall deem it just and expedient to discontinue the said blockade."

In support of this motion, Mr. T. said—

[JAN. 20, 21, 1825,

commended, we shall lose much of that moral force which constitutes the great power of the people of the United States at this moment, while we shall not add a single sprig of laurel to the garland which now adorns our brow. Suppose we allow there is just cause of war with Spain; does it follow that any obligation is thereby imposed on us to exercise the right thus acquired? Because a nation has a just cause of war, is it to be argued, that she must, of necessity, engage in it? She surely may waive the right of waging war, if she thinks proper so to do; and when she waives this right, it must be admitted its incidents and mere consequences follow the right so waived, and she can no longer claim the shadow, after she has voluntarily waived and abandoned the substance which produced it.

If this be so, it is not correct to argue that, because we have just cause of war, we may, in times of peace, adopt a measure which belongs to war alone; and, least of all, does it result, that, while you are maintaining these relations of peace and amity with all nations, you are at liberty to put in practice measures of war, which will not fall on the offending party alone, but on the innocent and meritorious only. Here, then, exists the first and great difference between the advocates of this measure and myself. They say that the measure proposed is designed to act, and must act, "upon the guilty alone." In my view, it can only affect the innocent and meritorious; and, if this position be established to their satisfaction, I venture to hope the advocates of the bill themselves, when they find that this measure, instead of promoting the end they had in view, is cal culated to produce an effect diametrically opposite, will unite with me in the effort to expunge this section. I say, sir, that this measure, authorizing the Executive to institute a blockade, can operate on none but neutral

Mr. President: In proposing this measure, I do not by any means, wish to be considered as being opposed to the great object of the bill. So far from opposing it there is no member of the Senate, no member of the commit-states. tee, not even my honorable friend and colleague, to whom so much is due for the zeal and ability he has displayed on this occasion, who is more favorable to the application of every proper means of obtaining the object than myself. Sir, it is precisely because I do not consider the means proposed by the third section of the bill, to be either proper or sufficient to obtain the end the bill has in view, that I have proposed to strike it out. It is unnecessary to recite again the phrases of this section, It is sufficient to observe, that its object is to authorize the President of the United States, under certain circumstances, to institute a blockade of certain Spanish ports.

The advocates of this measure, at the very moment they recommend its adoption to the Senate, acknowledge it is a war measure. They acknowledge, moreover, that the United States maintain, at this moment, the most cordial relations of amity, not only with this power, but with every nation upon the globe, and they declare that it is not their purpose to change, in any way, these relations of peace and amity, whilst they practise this measure of war. The argument my friend and colleague urges on this subject, is this: "We have just cause for war against Spain, and therefore, although at peace ourselves, we have a right to practise against her this war measure." It is not necessary, sir, for me, at this time, or in this place, to inquire whether the proposition, which asserts we have just ground of war against Spain, is correct or not; but I think I am authorized in saying, if the statement my friend and colleague made yesterday is well founded, that the existency of piracy within her dominions, is ascribable to the weakness and not to the will of Spain, it belongs not to a just or generous people to declare this weakness a just ground for war. Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos, was the maxim the poet teaches as that which was inculcated by the wisdom of the dead upon the magnanimous enterprise of the living, in past times; and trust me, sir, whenever we depart from the course this advice re

A war measure practised in peace is an anomaly, such as history no where records, and where parallel even prescience has never yet foretold. We have no standard, then, by which to try its character or ascertain its effects, and there is no reasoning that can be applied to this non-descript. Ithink, however, I shall approximate the truth in contending, that a blockade, in time of peace, can confer no more right, and impose no more duties, than a legitimate blockade exercised in war, by one of the belligerant parties. I assume this as a postulatum, then, that this war measure, practised in peace, places all parties in the predicament a similar measure practised in war would do. I know well, sir, what are the rights and duties given and imposed by a blockade declared in time of war, but, in relation to this peace measure, I am ignorant of its consequences, and can bring it to no other standard than that I have thus stated. I can reason on it in no other way than by supposing that this blockade, instituted in time of peace, gives to all the parties, on whom it may operate, just the same rights and no more, than a blockade in time of war would do.

If it be contended that it gives more, I call upon its advocates to shew from whence they derive the excess. I might, perhaps, contend that it did not confer so many rights, but I am content to concede this, and to place the two measures on the self-same footing.

Mr. President, wherever war exists, all the inhabitants of the world must occupy one of two relations: either they are belligerants, or they are net. In the former case, there can also exist but two relations: those claiming and practising the right of blockade, and those against whose ports the right of blockade is directed. This blockade, if it acts at all, must, therefore, operate on one of three parties: 1st, On the citizens or subjects of the nation declaring the blockade; 2dly, On the citizens or subjects of the power whose port is blockaded; 3dly, On any others, that is to say, on neutrals.

Let us now consider the case of citizens or subjects of the blockading nation. It has never been said, it has

Do you want further evidence of this? Do you want to be further satisfied, that the right of blockade is never exerted by a nation against its own citizens? You will find it in these considerations. Would you not capture him before the blockade began, or after it was raised, or even during its continuance, if he is found any where engaged in this purpose, although not seek. ing to violate it? Yes, and the principle is always the same; you always capture and condemn him as a traitor, holding intercourse with the enemies of his country, contrary to his allegiance, and never as a mere blockade breaker. As, then, the institution of a blockade produces no new effect upon the subjects of the nation declaring it, will it act upon the power whose ports are The Dominican friars of old, when they clothed their blockaded? This is a fallacy still greater than the other. victim in the habit of San Benito, and led him to the In war, you capture and condemn your enemy, it is true, auto-da-fe, while he writhed in the midst of the connot because he is attempting to break the blockade, how-suming flames, calmly told him it was for his own good. ever, but because he is your enemy. You assign no oth- We seem disposed to act the same part, and arrogating VOL. I.-20

Senate.]

Suppression of Piracy.

[JAN. 21, 1825.

to ourselves these inquisitorial rights, wish to clothe eve-derived the right of taking his property wheresoever it ry neutral power in such garments, and leading them to is found beyond the protection of a neutal state. Under the flames, tell them we do so for their good. But will this right of preventing any augmentation of these rethey believe us? If it be true, as my honorable colleague sources, is derived the right of capturing even neutral yesterday asserted, that necessity and right go hand in property when found upon the high seas, destined for hand, then their necessity will be as strong as ours; and the enemy's port, and being contraband of war. while it gives us the right to enforce, equally bestows Under these rights of capturing the property of the upon them the right to resist, our assumed functions. enemy, and the contraband property of neutrals, desAnd if it be true, as my honorable friend yesterday con- tined for his ports, is derived the right of visitation and tended, that we have the right to interpolate a new search. For it would be vain to allow such rights, unprinciple in the public law, they have, at least, as strong less the only means by which they could be enforced a claim to do so. were also conceded.

And what, sir, must be the inevitable effect of all these various readings of the holy text, under which different and discordant rights are claimed? No one can doubt it must be war, horrid, interminable war, unless we are content to return to the fold from whence we shall be said to have strayed, to come again within the pale of civil society, and consent to be governed once more by the ancient rules which the necessities, not of one, but of all, produced, which the wisdom, not of one, but of all, digested, and for the preservation of which, unaltered by any, the peace of all requires the guarantee of each.

Mr. President, my colleague and myself differ very much in the idea we entertain respecting this right of instituting a blockade. He considers it as an independent, substantive right, "which may be exerted, (to use his own words,) per se.' But is this so? Can it be so? The right of instituting blockades is not a substantive right, nor will its exercise be permitted per se. The right of instituting blockades is a mere incident, a consequence growing out of the exercise of the higher right of war, and can be exerted only by those placing themselves in a state of war.

If a nation has just cause of war, the question whether she will wage it or not, is one resting solely on its own discretion; and if, in the exercise of this discretion, it is found expedient to waive the right of waging war, then the moment it waives the right of waging war, it waives its right to the exercise of all the incidents, consequences, and accessorial rights of war. To urge the contrary, would be to argue that you had a right over the shadow, after having given up the substance. No, sir. Nations waive all the benefits when they avoid all the risks of war.

And, under this right of limiting the enemy to his own resources, is derived the right of investing his cities by land, and his ports and harbors by sea, and so cutting off his intercourse with the rest of the world.

The right of visitation and search, and the right of blockade, are three twin sisters, born of the same mother-war. They come into being at the same moment, with the existence of war; they continue during the same period while war continues; and, unlike the twins of the heathen mythology, they die at the same instant, when peace returns. Now, sir, if we are justified to exercise in peace one of these rights of war, we are jus tified in exercising the other; and if we claim the right of blockade in peace, we cannot deny to any nation the right of visitation and search in peace also. Is the Senate prepared to make this concession?

My honorable friend may say, perhaps, that the circumstance of the existence of piracy makes this case peculiar. He may contend, that this bill does not assert the right of blockade generally in times of peace, but only when piracy exists. This is certainly so: but are there not other pirates in the world besides those who infest the coast of Cuba? Have you not declared the slave trade piracy? and has not Great Britain, at your invitation, done the same? and is he not as much a pirate who deals in slaves, then, as he who takes a vessel off Cape Antonio?-and if the existence of piracy in Cuba justifies you in undertaking a blockade there, to suppress that piracy, can you deny to Britain, or any other nation, the right of visitation and search-to suppress the other piracy, the slave trade?

My honorable friend yesterday described, in language of true pathos, the horrid atrocities perpetrated by the If, in the exercise of its discretion, a nation having monsters of Cuba. The picture was drawn by a master's just cause of war, sees fit to use its perfect right of wag- hand, its colors were most vivid, and its similitude, I ing war, the instant war exists, it requires no statute to doubt not, most just. If, Mr. President, I dared to borgive the right of blockade, and none can take it away. row his pencil for a moment, and to exhibit a more raIt is then derived from the high law which the wisdom pid sketch of the slave trade, I could present you a and convenience of the whole world dictated, and which scene, over which philanthropy cannot but weep, at is consecrated by the holy hand of time. Let no auda- which the human heart sickens, and the bare represen cious editor dare to pollute, by any blot, erasure, or in- tation of which rouses even calm justice, and makes terpolation, the sacred page. The common good of all her cry aloud for vengeance on the wrong-doer. Yes, mankind requires, that what the common wisdom of all sir, in the scale of moral beauty, the vilest wretch who dictated, and the common and long acquiescence of all haunts Cape Antonio, prowling for rapine, and delighthas sanctioned, should neither be repealed nor abridgeding in blood, compared with the slave trader who trafby any. If you choose to judge for yourselves, and blot one page, every nation will have a right to follow your example, and then indeed we shall behold the Prophet's scroll alluded to yesterday, written on the inside and out with nothing but lamentation and woe.

fics on the coast of Africa, is as Hyperion to a Satyr. He stands as a pure angel of light to the foulest demon of darkness-and every circumstance which can be urged to justify you in claiming the right of practising this measure of war in times of peace, in order to exterminate one pirate, may be urged " a fortiori," to justify every other nation in using the other measure of war in order to exterminate the other pirate.

If, in the exercise of her discretion, having a just cause of war, a nation declares war, she thus immediately invests herself with the right of straitening her enemy by every means in her power. She may limit him exclu- Mr. President: for half a century we have been strugsively to his own resources. She may diminish these as gling, sincerely, I know, and I hope successfully, to estafar as she can, and take care that they receive no aug-blish the reputation of being a just people-to acquire mentation from any other power: and all this she is allowed to do to attain the only legitimate end of war-a just and honorable peace. To secure the benefits of peace, the right of war is given, and war justifies the belligerants in employing all those means to accomplish this its great end.

Under this right of depriving him of his resources, is

the character of doing unto others what we would to be done to ourselves in similar circumstances. If we mean to preserve this character, we must take special care to act cautiously and consistently; for, if it is found in any one page of our history, that we are asserting for ourselves a privilege, which elsewhere we had denied to others, we forfeit this character of moral rectitude.

Now, sir, (all other considerations apart,) is it wise to do so? Of all the nations of the civilized world, the United States is that where physical, detached from its moral strength, is least. It ever has been so, it ever must be so, while this Government continues. Unite the two, and at home you may defy the world in arms against you, while abroad your influence will be felt far beyond the limit to which your physical force can ever enable you to reach, by the means of your example, that is by your mere moral power. It is this at least, sir, that constitutes the material, out of which are formed the pillars of strength and beauty, the Jachin and the Boaz, standing before the vestibule of our temple. While these stand, your edifice is secure; it will continue as now, fair to behold, and safe to inhabit. But, once corrode this material; once impair this moral power; and we sink into decrepitude before we have yet attained maturity. Ought we not then to beware how we depart from the right-lined course our predecessors have pursued; how we assert principles in relation to foreign states, now, which they disavowed formerly? Our moral strength, like chastity, once lost, can never more be regained. Now, sir, let us look back into our own history for parallel cases; let us find what were the principles we asserted then, and inquire whether our practice now will accord with them. If they are at variance, we should shun them as we would every thing that tends to evil. There are many members of the Senate who will all re- | collect the incidents that occurred in the interval between the years 1793 and 1798, and what was the doctrine we then asserted and practised? It was during the period of the French Revolution, when England and France were belligerants, and the United States was the neutral. In consequence of this neutral position, our ports and harbors were filled with our own vessels, as well as with the vessels of both the belligerants and of other powers, not only with their merchant vessels, but with their fleets. What was the practice then? The moment one of the belligerants found vessels of the other in these ports, no matter whether it was a vessel of war or a merchantman, they blockaded them, in fact, although not in name. Every harbor and bay of the United States was subject to this blockade. What was our language then towards these belligerants? You are at war with each other, and may, on the high seas, exercise the rights of war; but you have no right to come here and shut our ports as you have done. We are at peace with each of you, and with all the world besides. You cannot, therefore, claim the right of blockading us in name, and hence, ought not to exert the power of blockading us in fact. Exercise your right of visitation and search on the high seas, and when you there find the property of your enemy, or the contraband property of neutrals, destined for your enemy, take it and apply it to your own use. We do not complain of this. But you must not place yourself at our very door, in order to examine our visitors and friends. By so doing, you harass our lawful trade; you annoy our fair commerce; and you subject us, although at peace, to most of the inconveniences we should feel from flagrant war.

This reasoning was just, and at last prevailed; both parties became satisfied of the rectitude of our claims, and yielded to them.

Now, Mr. President, if the actual presence of an enemy's fleet, in a neutral port, in time of open war, cannot justify blockade, can the presence of a piratical vessel, in any port, justify it? If the French, finding an English fleet in the Chesapeake, ought not to blockade them there, surely you, a neutral, finding a fleet of pirates in the neutral port of Matanzas, cannot blockade it, and so do that which one belligerant power would not be justified in doing towards another.

Mr. President, if we really wish to preserve our good name and moral strength, by acting towards others as we would they might act towards us, we ought not only

[Senate.

to refrain from doing any improper action, but even from doing that which, although permissible in itself, might yet fairly justify suspicion of our motives. Terrible would be the result, were we to act on a new principle, and yet leave a shadow of suspicion as to our motives for asserting it. Now, what are we about to do? Are we going to war with Spain, and so to acquire the right of blockade? No! we are going to blockade Spanish ports, and yet keep ourselves at peace. If we go to war with Spain, neutrals must submit to our blockades, and will do so willingly; for your war, by imposing new disabilities upon yourself, must, in fact, impart new advantages to neutrals, which will abundantly compensate them for any inconvenience your belligerant rights create. But if, in peace, you blockade, then, when by your blockade, you have created necessities, the supply of which must yield inordinate profits, you may raise the blockade, and, satisfying the wants which that produced, thus create for yourself great profit at the expense of others, and in which none will be allowed to participate with you. Suppose that, by the blockade of the Havana, you raise the price of flour to $50 per barrel, and then raise your blockade, who will enjoy the benefit of this high price? The merchants of the neighboring ports in the United States. Thus, it will happen, then, that, by your own power, you create wants which you will not suffer others to prevent, and, when they have attained their highest point, you withdraw your measures of war, assume the attitude of peace, and so satisfy the necessity, and enjoy the profit your own act has occasioned. Neutral states will never submit to this, sir,-they will not suffer you thus to blow hot and cold through the same lips; but will tell you, that, if you choose to war with Spain, do so; for, when, by war, you cut yourself off from all peaceful intercourse with her, the trade you give up becomes theirs, subject only to your belligerant rights. That they will thus be compensated for the inconvenience to which you subject them. But if, by the measures of war, you create wants which, under the garb of peace, you yourself may satisfy, they, and they only, feel the evils of the war, while you, and you only, can enjoy the benefits of peace. They will say to you, that this Centaur form, half war, half peace, is a deformed monster, which the friends of humanity must extirpate; and more than one Nestor will be found at this feast of the Lapithe, ready and willing to essay the task.

Sir, it is a fraud on neutral rights, and it cannot be expected they will submit to it. If you go to war you enjoy its benefits, and take the consequences; but here you take the benefits to yourselves, and throw the hardships and annoyance on the innocent.

There is one more view of the subject to which I should wish to call the attention of the Senate, if it were not for the contempt with which my honorable colleague seems to consider every thing like detail. I cannot jump, however, at once, to my conclusions, as he does-I must go step by step, and satisfy myself of its operation every way, before I can pronounce that any measure is good. It is my misfortune, sir, and you must pardon me, if, accustomed as I have been, through my whole life, to arrive at conclusions only by the slow process of reasoning, I still adhere to my old course; and, having no pretension myself to intuition, I am distrustful of its apparent effects upon others. I do not pretend, sir, to argue by conclusions-I must plod on, and ask, at each step, not merely quare, but quo modo, also. In this instance I have done so, and I do not see my way clear. If we mean to institute blockades, take it for granted we mean to enforce them when instituted. If so, we must presume, sir, that there will be cases of capture, and, of course, efforts at condemnation. But where is condemnation to be made? Will the committee tell me by what forum this question of condemnation will be tried, and what allegation they will prefer to attain it? If it had

been a war measure, it would have been brought before |
a prize tribunal; but the bill has directed no prize tribu-
nal to be instituted, and indeed, it would have been
strange if it had A prize without war would be as
great an anomaly as a blockade in peace.
Suppose a vessel is brought before a prize court,
however, and you say she is an enemy, or that she has
conducted herself quasi enemy, because she has violated
your blockade yes, sir, your blockade, declared by sta-
tute-what will your prize judge first ask? Does war
exist? The answer may be given in the language of
the advocates of this bill themselves, war does not exist,
but we are merely practising a measure of war in time
of peace, and therefore ask you to help us out by your
decree. But what must that decree be? It must be
this, and this only: Prize, the fruit of war, is not to be won
by the acts of peace; he who asks it must have risked
his life, his liberty, and his property for its acquisition.
You who have risked nothing, can take nothing, at least
from this court, but must seek the boon which you ask
elsewhere.

Suppose that you apply to some other than a prize tribunal, to some court of admiralty, or other forum, bound to administer the jus gentium, and there ask the confiscation of the property of a neutral captured on the high seas, for a breach of your statutory blockarlewhat will the judge there tell you? He will tell you, as he has often done, that municipal power is, in its very nature, territorial; it cannot reach beyond the bourne of the country where it is exerted, except over the persons or property of its own subjects, and that he cannot condemn the property of strangers for the breach of a law, in the enaction of which they had no share, and by the obligation of which they are not bound.

You must then be driven at last into a mere municipal tribunal, to some court of fisc, to ask the condemnation of the property of an alien, for some act done by one who never owed you obedience, and without your territory. Sir, those who ask this, are either not aware of its consequences, or cannot be serious in expecting their application to be granted.

[JAN. 21, 1825.

Its operation is confined to your own territory, the same as in any other municipal law. A man commits a murder, and is hanged for it. This might as properly be called a measure of war as an embargo.

In themselves, they are measures of peace and tran. quillity, a mere extension of the municipal powers of the state over those who ought to submit to such powers and no one ever considers them as otherwise. Look back to the time of Washington. He laid an embargo for 60 days, and afterwards extended it to 90 days. Did any one consider it as a measure of war or force? Embargo may be resorted to as a means of preparing ourselves for war, and so may the construction of fortifications. You are building forts on Old Point Comfort and Huri Gate; yet no one considers these as measures of force or war, because they may be useful in war. Nor can we say more of embargoes. Thus much for embargoes, then.

As to letters of reprisal, they are always understood as measures of peace, designed to prevent war. I grant that they often lead to war; but, in themselves, they are as much measures of peace as an embargo, and their object always is certainly to prevent war.

But, as to blockade, the effect is very different. Letters of reprisal act on the guilty, and the guilty alone; and embargo acts on all alike, but it acts municipally on all within the territory; whereas, blockade acts beyond the territory, and acts directly upon the innocent only. It now only remains to inquire into the only precedent that has been cited in support of this proceeding. I allude to the blockade of Cadiz by the French. I say that France was perfectly justifiable in declaring that blockade; but, in the course she pursued, there is nothing to justify the present measure. War then existed, and, as a consequence of war, blockade was adopted by France. It is said that France declared she was not at war with Spain. Sir, is not this the language which every ally, under similar circumstances, is compelled to use? When a part of a nation attempts to separate itself from the rest, or to establish a new sovereignty, the effort, while it is in progress, is declared, by the ancient sovereign of Mr. President: I have chosen to exhibit the subject to the whole, to be rebellion, and force is used to bring you thus, through the medium of your own courts, rather back the rebellious member to its duty. This force, han ask you to accompany me to London, or to St. Pe- when resisted, makes war exist; and such a war is distersburg, to witness the scene that must take place tinguished, not as public, but as civil war. All but the there, when your representative undertakes to announce belligerants give it this denomination, and the revolugravely to these sovereigns, that the Congress of the tionary party calls it by the same name; the ancient soveUnited States has passed an act confiscating their pro-reign, and its allies, however, will never acknowledge perty, not jure belli, but for acts done under their au- it to be war at all—they say it is insurrection and rebelthority, and out of your territory. This scene I leave to lion; and there never has been an instance known of the imagination of those who may find mirth in it. To any nation, endeavoring to regain a revolted portion of me it would give none. her state, that had severed itself from her, calling the rebellious parties enemies. No, they style them rebels and traitors, and the moment they catch them, hang them. Were they once to acknowledge them as enemies, they could not thus punish them, because they would be entitled to the privileges granted by civilized warfare, which forbid us so to punish an enemy, or to exert over him our municipal means. We, ourselves, The moment you announce this doctrine, you stand stand a memorable example of this: in the year '76 we on the principle that force gives rights; and, when you declared ourselves independent-Britain declared us to interpolate it into the page of the public law that ex-be rebels, and used all her power to reduce us again to pressly denies it, you place yourself beyond the pale of civil society; the whole civilized world will rise against you, and declare you in a state of barbarism as well as blockade.

How then, sir, I ask, is this blockade to be carried into effect? [Mr. BARBOUR said, By force.] Sir, force is not right. It never did convey the property of one neutral into the possession of another, where the public law forbade it; and we know not yet on which side of the question the conclusion of this ultima ratio may apply.

It is contended, sir, that, as we have a right, in peace, to lay embargoes, and to grant letters of reprisal, and as these are war measures, therefore, we have a right to institute a blockade, which is not more a war measure. I have never understood that embargoes and reprisals were war measures, and should like to be informed from what authority such assertions are derived. Embargo is no more a measure of war than the infliction of the sanction of any other municipal law is a measure of war.

the slavery from which we were doing our utmost to free ourselves. She put forth all her physical means, and had she not been fearful of a dreadful retaliation, all the prisoners she took would, no doubt, have suffered as rebels and traitors, and not as enemies. She never could acknowledge us to be enemies until she admitted us to be independent.

France, some years since, by one of her arrets, declared St. Domingo in a state of blockade, and announced her purpose of executing any who should presume to enter it in violation of this law. None ever doubted the perfect right of France so to rule her own posessions if she thought proper; and, until either France or the Uni