[306] By the ordinance of Aug. 30, 1784. See Annals of Congress, Jan. 13, 1794, p. 192.
[307] The National Convention, immediately after the outbreak of war, on the 17th of February, 1793, gave a great extension to the existing permission of trade between the United States and the French colonies; but this could not affect the essential fact that the trade, under some conditions, had been allowed in peace.
[308] In fact Monroe, in another part of the same letter, avows: "The doctrine of Great Britain in every decision is the same.... Every departure from it is claimed as a relaxation of the principle, gratuitously conceded by Great Britain."
[309] Mr. Jay seems to have been under some misapprehension in this matter, for upon his return he wrote to the Secretary of State: "The treaty does prohibit re-exportation from the United States of West India commodities in neutral vessels; ... but we may carry them direct from French and other West India islands to Europe." (Am. State Papers, i. 520.) This the treaty certainly did not admit.
[310] See letter of Thos. Fitzsimmons, Am. State Papers, vol. ii. 347.
[311] The pretexts for these seizures seem usually to have been the alleged contraband character of the cargoes.
[312] Am. State Papers, vol. ii. 345.
[313] It will be remembered that the closing days of May witnessed the culmination of the death struggle between the Jacobins and Girondists, and that the latter finally fell on the second of June.
[314] Am. State Papers, vol. i. pp. 284, 286, 748.
[315] Ibid., p. 372.