though objectionable in some of its features, and the increase of native American seamen, will probably obviate all difficulties as to impressment, even should England be again obliged to have recourse to that method of recruiting her navy. It will not be forgotten that our conflicting opinions as to the right of expatriation, were among the efficient causes of our difficulties.

The rule of '56, which subjects to capture the ships of neutrals engaged in the colonial or coasting trade of a belligerent, not usually open in time of peace, was as stoutly maintained by Great Britain as it was denied by us, while we preserved our neutral character. The letter of Mr. Gore, addressed to Mr. Madison, Secretary of State, on behalf of sundry insurance companies of Boston,* and the memorial of the merchants of Baltimore, usually ascribed to the pen of the late Mr. Pinkney,† contain very luminous examinations of this question. To these papers we with confidence refer the advocate of neutral rights. However desirous we may be to establish the principle that free ships make free goods, after the decision of the highest tribunal of the union, we cannot consider this favorite doctrine of the Baltic confederacy a part of the law of nations. The disallowance of freight to the Swedish ship Commercen, (1 Wheat. 382,) was an exercise of summum jus on the part of a belligerent, and went as far as any English decision in extending the rule as to contraband of war. In this case the rule of '56 came incidentally before the Court, but the chief justice declared it not necessary to give an opinion on that question.

As to the policy of the United States binding themselves not to employ privateering in the event of a future war, we entertain serious doubts. The friend of humanity cannot but regret the necessity of settling national disputes by an appeal to arms. While, however, wars are resorted to, no nation ought to abandon any of the means of bringing them to a successful issue, unless the enemy yields what may be esteemed an equivalent. From the nature of our institutions we can never have a very large navy, but our mercantile marine would always do much to counterbalance the losses to which we should be subjected by British cruisers. What would our few frigates, unaided, have effected during the last war, and what did not our privateers accomplish? We speak not now of those victories which have done immortal honor to our naval character, but of the injury to the British commerce,

which brought home to the nation a knowledge of what our citizens had suffered during the many years of masked hos tility, which preceded our appeal to arms, as well as what they were then experiencing in consequence of a state of war. Should the rules which refinement and civilization have established with respect to private property on land be extended to the ocean, we see no objection to the admission of the principle in discussion; but on those terms alone should we accede to it. Such were the nature of our stipulations with Prussia, in the treaty concluded in 1785. The last clause of Art. 23, referring to a state of war between the two nations, says, "And all merchant and trading vessels employed in exchanging the products of different places, and thereby rendering the necessaries, conveniences, and comforts of human life more easy to be obtained and more general, shall be allowed to pass free and unmolested, and neither of the contracting powers shall grant or issue any commission to any private armed vessels, empowering them to take or destroy such trading vessels, or intercept such commerce."* This provision is not to be found in the treaty which was renewed in 1799, for ten years from 1800. Were such stipulations to become general, they would go far, by limiting the sphere of hostile operations, to put an end to war altogether. We must, however, bear in mind that the treaty with Prussia was one of the last acts of Frederick the Great, and that the American plenipotentiaries were John Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin.

Whatever may be the result of this discussion, we feel assured that the motive imputed to our government in an English ministerial work, is wholly without foundation. If the project is accomplished at all, it must be by mutual sacrifices by maritime nations on the altar of humanity; and for the reasons already stated, it would require from our country an abandonment of a greater portion of its belligerent's rights than from any other power. Referring to a notice of this subject in the President's message of last year, the Annual Register makes the following remark: "The ambition of the United States, disguised under a veil of seeming humanity, was likewise strongly marked in a proposal which their minis ters made to France, Russia and Great Britain, that in all future maritime wars, the commerce both of belligerents and of neutrals should be unmolested, except when an attempt was made to break a lawful blockade."†

*

In examining the papers relating to the slave trade it cannot but be a source of sincere congratulation to the people of both countries, that the United States and Great Britain are disposed heartily to co-operate in the abolition of a traffick disgraceful to our common nature. This feeling is somewhat abated by the reflection that France, and other powers having much less territory, where slave labor is employed, lend but reluctant aid to the abolition of a practice which they dare not openly defend. Had the British Admiralty Courts adhered to the decisions made immediately after the establishment of the last peace in Europe, we should ere this have had an opportunity of testing the sincerity of the different continental governments. Although they might not all be zealous in abolishing the African traffick, few would venture to be its open defenders. Had the trade been considered prima facie illegal, on general principles, and the claimant been bound to show a right to engage in it by his own municipal laws, we have reason to believe that no ships employed in it would, at this time; be protected by the laws of their own country, those of Portugal perhaps excepted. There is unquestionably reason to apprehend that the power to condemn vessels by the courts of one nation, when the government of the trader has made the traffick penal by its municipal regulations, would be employed to authorise a general right of search in time of peace. It is, however, difficult to reconcile the recent opiniont of Lord Stowell (Sir W. Scott) with the decision of the Lords of Appeal, or with the former adjudications of the learned judge himself. Though an American decision has gone far towards establishing that doctrine, we are not yet prepared to consider the slave trade as piracy by the general law of nations, but if it is made so, it must be by the legislative acts of different nations in furtherance of conventional arrangements. America and England have led the way in this measure.as they did in abolishing the trade. The establishing of mixed Commission Courts on the coast of Africa not having been admitted by us, and England having yielded to the suggestion of our government to declare the crime of engaging in the slave trade piracy, it is a source of regret that slight difficulties originating here should have prevented the ratification of a treaty calculated to give efficiency to the humane views of the United States and Great Britain. The only alteration made by the Senate in the treaty, which England regarded as mate

* 1 Dodson, 81. Id. 91. ld. 84. n. Acton 240, S. C.
2 Dodson, 210.
2 Mason, 409.

*

rial, was erasing "America" from the coasts where the authorized officers of the two countries were to be empowered, under certain regulations, "to detain, examine, capture, and deliver over for trial and adjudication, by some competent tribunal, of which ever of the two countries it shall be found on examination, to belong to, any ship or vessel concerned in the illicit traffick of slaves," &c. A majority of the senators, but not the constitutional number, were in favor of retaining the clause. The whole subject has been referred by the Executive to Congress, and it is hoped that the engrossing topic of the presidential election will not prevent something being effected by which the two great maritime nations of the world may be enabled zealously to unite in the cause of humanity.

A regard to the dignity of the United States as well as to the interests of individuals, requires that our claims on foreign governments should be definitively settled. Speaking of the spoliations on our neutral commerce during the wars growing out of the French revolution, the President observes, "it will always be recollected that with one of the parties to those wars, and from whom we received those injuries, we sought redress by war. From the other, by whose then reigning government our vessels were seized in port as well as at sea, and their cargoes confiscated, indemnity has been expected, but has not yet been rendered. It was under the influence of the latter, that our vessels were likewise seized by the governments of Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Naples, and from whom indemnity has been claimed and is still expected, with the exception of Spain, by whom it has been rendered."f It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that foreign powers have nothing to do with any change in the government of a state. France under the Bourbons is as much bound for the acts of the late Emperor, as if Napoleon had continued on the throne. This is the principle universally acted on, and is denied by no one. It does not appear that any attempts, subsequent to the ineffectual negotiations of Mr. Pinkney, at Naples, in 1816, have been made to obtain a settlement of our claims on the governments, formerly under the influence of France. The documents accompanying the message of the President, of the date of 2 Feb. 1824, "transmitting part of the correspondence between the governments of France and the United States, in relation to claims of citizens of the United States, for spoliations upon our lawful commerce," present a full view of the ground of our reclamations.

* Documents,&c. p. 16.

+ Message, &c. p. 8.

This subject commanded the earliest attention of our government after the restoration of peace in Europe, and by instructions of the date of 15th April, 1816, the American Plenipotentiary in France was directed to give it his particular care. Mr. Gallatin, in his letter of 9th November, 1816, observes, "That the Berlin and Milan decrees, so far as they declared liable to capture and condemnation neutral vessels, pursuing an innocent commerce, and contravening no municipal laws, were an evident violation of the law of nations, has not been, and cannot be denied." These acts, it was shown, though nominally general, operated almost wholly against the United States. "Other acts were, exclusively, directed against America, appearing sometimes under the form of decrees, as that of Bayonne, of the 17th April, 1808, and that of Rambouillet, of the 23d March, 1810; and at times, being only special orders for seizing or selling certain American vessels and cargoes. To these various acts, must be added, the wanton destruction, at different times, of American vessels on the high seas."'* Illegal as were the decrees, considered in relation to the established usages of nations, the French government have not even their authority for withholding restitution in many Nothing is better understood than that a belligerent can only capture and send in for adjudication vessels of neutrals engaged in trade not permitted to them by the laws of nations. The right which he has to destroy the vessels of his enemy at sea, can never be extended to the case of neutrals engaged in a trade even professedly contraband. A large portion of our claims arise from vessels burnt at sea, and from the sale of cargoes sequestered without the semblance of a judicial sentence. Other property was condemned by Imperial decrees, specially applied to the case, and without the interposition of the prize courts. Compensation, by means of the mixed Belgian and French commission appointed under the treaty of Paris, was afforded to a subject of the Netherlands for some of the property sequestered, but not condemned; while the transfer of the fund from one chest to another was made the ground of refusing to American citizens restitution of the proceeds of parts of the same cargoes. The injury was heightened, by the consideration, that a large portion of the captures were made during the existence of a treaty defining the nature of contraband goods, and establishing the rule that free ships make free goods. In some cases, condemnations took place after the Berlin and Milan decrees had been declared to be comme non

* Message of February, 1824, p. 11.