that France should endeavor to engage by fair means our assistance in the war, if she thought it would be useful to her, but it is just matter of bitter complaint that she should attempt against our will to ensnare or drive us into it.

Fauchet succeeded Genet. It was a meteor following a comet No very marked phenomena distinguish his course. But the little twinkling appearances which here and there are discernible, indicate the same general in him which governed his predecessor. The Executive of our country, in consequence of an insurrection, to which one of them had materially contributed, had publicly arraigned political clubs. Fauchet, in opposition, openly patronizes them. At the festivals of these clubs he is always a guest, swallowing toasts full of sedition and hostility to the gov ernment. Without examining what is the real tendency of these clubs, without examining even the policy of what is called the President's denunciation of them, it was enough for a foreign. minister that the Chief Magistrate of our country had declared. them to be occasions of calamity to it. It was neither friendly nor decent in a foreign minister after this, to countenance these institutions. This conduct discovered towards us not only unkindness but contempt. There is the more point in it, as this countenance continued after similar societies had been proscribed in France; what were destructive poisons there, were in this country salutary medicines. But the hostility of the views of this minister is palpable in that intercepted letter of his, which unveils the treachery of Randolph. We there learn, that he pretended to think it was a duty of patriotism to second the western insurrection; that he knew and approved of a conspiracy which was destined to overthrow the administration of our government, even by the most irregular means.

Another revolution of party in France placed Mr. Adet in the room of Mr. Fauchet. Mr. Adet has been more circumspect than either of his predecessors-and perhaps we ought scarcely to impute it to him as matter of reproach, that he openly seconded the opposition in Congress to the treaty concluded with Great Britain. This was a measure of a nature to call forth the manoeuvres of diplomatic tactics. But if we are wise, we shall

endeavor to estimate rightly the probable motives of whatever displeasure France or her agents may have shown at this measure. Can it be any thing else than a part of the same plan which induced the minister of Louis XVI. to advise us to treat with Great Britain without the previous acknowledgment of our Independence? Can it be any thing else than a part of that policy which deems it useful to France, that there should perpetually exist between us and Great Britain germs of discord and quarrel? Is it not manifest that in the eyes of France the unpardonable sin of that treaty is, that it roots up for the present those germs of discord and quarrel? To pretend that the treaty interferes with our engagements with France, is a ridiculous absurdity-for it expressly excepts them. To say that it establishes a course of things hurtful to France in her present strug gle, is belied by the very course of things since the treaty-all goes on exactly as it did before.

Those who can justify displeasure in France on this account, are not Americans, but Frenchmen. They are not fit for being members of an independent nation, but prepared for the al state of colonists. If our government could not without the permission of France terminate its controversies with another foreign power, and settle with it a treaty of commerce, to endure three or four years, our boasted independence is a name. We have only transferred our allegiance! we are slaves!

THE ANSWER.

December 6, 1796.

The French republic have, at various times during the present war, complained of certain principles and decisions of the American government, as being violations of its neutrality, or infractions of the treaty made with France in the year 1778.

These complaints were principally made in the year 1793, and explanations, which till now were deemed satisfactory, were made by Mr. Jefferson's correspondence, in August of that year. They are now not only renewed with great exaggeration, but the French government have directed that it should be done in the tone of reproach, instead of the language of friendship. The apparent intention of this menacing tone, at this particular time, is to influence timid minds to vote agreeably to their wishes in the election of President and Vice-President, and probably with this view the memorial was published in the newspapers. This is certainly a practice that must not be permitted. If one foreign minister is permitted to publish what he pleases to the people, in the name of his government, every other foreign minister must be indulged with the same right. What then will be our situation. on the election of a President and Vice-President, when the gov ernment is insulted, the persons who administer it traduced, and the election menaced by public addresses from these intriguing agents? Poland, that was once a respectable and powerful nation, but is now a nation no longer, is a melancholy example of the dangers of foreign influence in the election of a Chief Magistrate. Eleven millions of people have lost their independence from that cause alone. What would have been the conduct of the French directory, if the American minister had published an elaborate and inflammatory address to the people of France against the government, reprobating the conduct of those in power, and extolling that of the party opposed to them? They would have done as the parliament of England did in 1727, when the emperor's resident presented an insolent memorial to the king, and published it next day in the newspapers. All parties concurred in expressing the highest indignation and resentment at the affront offered to the government by the memorial delivered by Monsieur Palm, and more particularly at his audacious manner of appealing from the government to the people, under the pretext of applying for reparation and redress of supposed injuries. In consequence of an address from both houses, Monsieur Palm was ordered to quit England immediately. And is it not necessary that we should adopt some remedy adequate to

this evil, to avoid those serious consequences which may otherwise be apprehended from it?

The conduct of the American government to preserve its neutrality, has been repeatedly justified by arguments drawn from the law of nations, and in the application of its principles they have gone as far, in every instance, and in one particular instance, farther in favor of France, than the strict rule of neutrality would justify. It would therefore answer no valuable purpose, to state the same principles, and deduce the same consequences, in order to justify ourselves on the same ground, that we have already done: but as the reproaches of the French republic are founded on an idea, that our construction and application of the law of nations is erroneous, partial, and inimical, it may be worth while to examine whether we cannot justify ourselves by the example of the French nation itself. I presume a better rule of justification against any charge cannot be required, than the conduct of those who have made it in like cases.

I propose, therefore, to compare the decisions of the American government, in the several points wherein they have been complained of in Mr. Adet's memorial, with the laws of France on the same points.

It is asserted that the American government has violated the 17th article of the treaty of 1778, by arresting French privateers and their prizes; and that it has exercised shocking persecutions towards them.

It will be found on an accurate inquiry, that all the prizes brought in under French commissions, that have been restored, have been found to be in one or the other of the following des criptions:

1. Those captured within a marine league of the shores of the United States.

2. When the captured vessel was owned, and principally manned by American citizens.

3. When the capturing vessel was armed in our ports.

As to the jurisdiction exercised by the United States, over the sea contiguous to its shores, all nations claim and exercise such a jurisdiction, and all writers admit this claim to be well

founded and they have differed in opinion, only as to the distance to which it may extend. Let us see whether France has claimed a greater or less extent of dominion over the sea, than the United States. Valin, the king's advocate at Rochelle, in his new commentary on the marine laws of France, published first in 1761, and again by approbation in 1776,* after mentioning the opinions of many different writers on public law on this subject, says, "as far as the distance of two leagues the sea is the dominion of the sovereign of the neighboring coast; and that whether there be soundings there or not." It is proper to observe this method in favor of states whose coasts are so high that there are no soundings close to the shore, but this does not prevent the extension of the dominion of the sea, as well as in respect to jurisdiction as the fisheries, to a greater distance by particular treaties, or the rule herein before mentioned, which extends dominion as far as there are soundings, or as far as the reach of a cannon shot; which is the rule at present universally acknowledged. "The effect of this dominion," the same author says, "according to the principles of Puffendorf, which are incontestable, is, that every sovereign has a right to protect foreign commerce in his dominions, as well as to secure them from insult, by preventing others from approaching nearer to a certain distance." In extending our dominion over the sea to one league, we have not extended it so far, as the example of France and the other powers of Europe would have justified. They therefore can have no right to complain of our conduct in this respect.

The second description of cases, which has induced the American government to restore prizes claimed by the French, is when our citizens have made the capture under a French commission.

The third article of the ordinances of the marine of France which the commission now given to French privateers requires to be observed (Valin, vol. 2, 235), is as follows: "We prohibit all our subjects from taking commissions from foreign kings, princes, or states, to arm vessels for war, and to cruise at sea under their colors, unless by our permission, on pain of being treated as pirates." The commentator says these general and indefinite

Book 5, Title 1.