Thus recklessly did these spoliations begin. The National Convention associated itself with this injustice, when, on the 9th May, 1793, only seventeen days after the Proclamation of Neutrality, but before it had arrived in France, a retaliatory decree was issued in response to the British attempt at starvation,—arresting all neutral vessels laden with provisions and destined to an enemy port. The decree itself did not disguise that it was a violation of neutral rights; but the necessity of the hour was pleaded, and indemnity was promised to neutrals suffering by its operation.[117] Unwilling to await the dilatory performance of this promise, our minister at Paris remonstrated against the application of the decree to vessels of the United States. Amidst vacillations of the National Convention, which, under the urgency of our minister, at one time seemed to relent, the decree continued to be enforced against property of American citizens. Here were spoliations, confessed at the time to be in violation of neutral rights, which still rise in judgment.
As this intelligence reached the United States, our whole commerce was fluttered. Merchants hesitated to expose ships and cargoes to such cruel hazards. It was necessary that something should be done to enlist again their activity. The National Government came forward voluntarily, with assurance of protection and redress, in a circular letter, dated 27th August, 1793, when Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, in the name of the President, used the following language: “I have it in charge from the President to assure the merchants of the United States concerned in foreign commerce or navigation, that due attention will be paid to any injuries they may suffer on the high seas or in foreign countries, contrary to the Law of Nations or to existing treaties, and that, on their forwarding hither well-authenticated evidence of the same, proper proceedings will be adopted for their relief.”[118] This circular was confirmed by President Washington, in his message of December 5, 1793, where he speaks as follows: “The vexations and spoliation understood to have been committed on our vessels and commerce by the cruisers and officers of some of the belligerent powers appeared to require attention. The proofs of these, however, not having been brought forward, the description of citizens supposed to have suffered were notified, that, on furnishing them to the Executive, due measures would be taken to obtain redress of the past and more effectual provisions against the future.”[119] Here, then, was a double promise from the National Government, and under its encouragement our merchants resumed their commerce, venturing once more upon the ocean. Their Government had tempted them, and, on the occurrence of “injuries on the high seas,” these good citizens, according to instructions, made haste to lodge with the Department of State the “well-authenticated evidence of the same.” Their children and grandchildren are waiting, even now, the promised redress.
Thus, at the very beginning, these spoliations were recognized by both Governments in their true character. The National Convention, even in its arbitrary edict, confessed them. The Administration of Washington, in its solemn assurance of protection, also confessed them. Offspring of wrongful violence in the heat of war, they were regarded on both sides as indefensible. Ministers, in this respect, reflected the sentiments of the two Governments. Fauchet, the French minister at Philadelphia, in a communication to the Secretary of State, under date of March 27, 1794, expressed himself in this manner: “If any of your merchants have suffered any injury by the conduct of our privateers, (a thing which would be contrary to the intention and express orders of the Republic,) they may with confidence address themselves to the French Government, which will never refuse justice to those whose claims shall be legal.”[120] Mr. Morris, our minister at Paris, under date of March 6, 1794, gave vent to his feelings: “These captures create great confusion, must produce much damage to mercantile men, and are a source of endless and well-founded complaint. Every post brings me piles of letters about it from all quarters, and I see no remedy.… In the mean time, if I would give way to the clamors of the injured parties, I ought to make demands very like a declaration of war.”[121] But M. Buchot, the French Commissioner of Foreign Relations, addressed Mr. Morris the following soothing words, under date of July 5, 1794: “The sentiments of the Convention and of the Government towards your fellow-citizens are too well known to you to leave a doubt of their dispositions to make good the losses which the circumstances inseparable from a great revolution may have caused some American navigators to experience.”[122] Such was the testimony, at that day, of ministers on both sides.
Meanwhile, Genet, the French minister, was recalled, at the instance of President Washington, on account of presumptuous interference in our affairs, especially hostile to the Proclamation of Neutrality; and John Jay reached London to negotiate the treaty of 1794 which goes under his name. The latter event added to the exasperation of France. But Mr. Monroe, who took the place of Mr. Morris at Paris, was full of sympathy for the new republic, even when he frankly discharged his unpleasant duties. In a communication to the Committee of Public Safety, under date of October 18, 1794, he exposed “a frightful picture of difficulties and losses, equally injurious to both countries, and which, if suffered to continue, will unavoidably interrupt for the time the commercial intercourse between them.”[123] Notwithstanding this strong language, his influence was thought to have prevailed so far that President Washington ventured to announce, in a confidential message of February 28, 1795, good news for our plundered merchants. “It affords me,” he said, “the highest pleasure to inform Congress that perfect harmony reigns between the two republics, and that those claims are in a train of being discussed with candor, and of being amicably adjusted.”[124] This perfect harmony was short-lived, and the hopes flowering from it were nipped.
The rumor of Mr. Jay’s negotiations with England had already produced uneasiness in France; but when the treaty, on its ratification, in October, 1795, was finally divulged, there was an outburst against us. The treaty was pronounced to be in violation of existing engagements with France, and our whole policy was openly branded by the President of the Directory, in reply to Mr. Monroe, as a “condescension of the American Government to the wishes of its ancient tyrants.”[125] The Directory refused to receive Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, sent by our Government in place of James Monroe. Meanwhile, by a succession of cruel edicts, it unleashed all its cruisers to despoil our commerce, and cry havoc wherever they sailed. On the 2d July, 1796, it was declared that “the French Republic will treat neutral vessels, either as to confiscation, as to searches, or capture, in the same manner as they shall suffer the English to treat them.”[126] The indefinite terms of this edict were justly denounced by our Government, as “giving scope for arbitrary constructions, and consequently for unlimited oppression and vexation.”[127] These results were soon manifest. With contagious injustice, the French commissioners at San Domingo reported to the Government at home, “that, having found no resource in finance, and knowing the unfriendly disposition of the Americans, and to avoid perishing in distress, they had armed for cruising, and that already eighty-seven cruisers were at sea, and that for three months preceding the Administration had subsisted and individuals been enriched with the products of those prizes.”[128] So extensively did this brutality prevail, that it was announced that American vessels “no longer entered the French ports, unless carried in by force.”[129]
This spirit of hostility broke forth in another edict of the Directory, which became at once a universal scourge to American commerce. This fulmination, bearing date March 2, 1797, after enlarging the list of contraband, and ordaining other measures of rigor, proceeds to declare all American vessels lawful prize, if found without a rôle d’équipage, or circumstantial list of the crew:[130] all of which was in violation of existing treaties, and also of American usage, which notoriously did not require, among a ship’s papers, any such list. No edict was so comprehensive in its sweep; for, as all our vessels were without this safeguard, they were all defenceless. Numberless spoliations ensued, so absolutely lawless and unjust that John Marshall did not hesitate to record of them in his journal, under date of December 17, 1797, “The claims of the American citizens for property captured and condemned for want of a rôle d’équipage” constituted “as complete a right as any individuals ever possessed.”[131] This right, thus complete, according to the judgment of our great authority, enters into a large part of the claims still pending before Congress.
As if to perfect this strange, eventful history, a third edict, at once inhospitable and unjust, was launched by the Directory, January 18, 1798, prohibiting “every foreign vessel which in the course of her voyage shall have entered into an English port from being admitted into a port of the French Republic, except in case of necessity,” and, still further, handing over to condemnation “every vessel found at sea loaded in whole or in part with merchandise the production of England or of her possessions.”[132] This edict was promptly denounced by the American plenipotentiaries newly arrived at Paris. In earnest, vigorous tones, they said that it invaded at the same time the interests and the independence of neutral powers,—that it took from them the profits of an honest and lawful industry, as well as the inestimable privilege of conducting their own affairs as their own judgment might direct,—and that acquiescence in it would establish a precedent for national degradation, authorizing any measures power might be disposed to practise.[133] Our plenipotentiaries depicted the spirit in which French spoliations had their origin, and the humiliating consequences of submission to the outrage; but the personal sufferers are, down to this day, without redress.
Perplexed and indignant, the United States constituted a special mission of three eminent citizens, Mr. Pinckney, Mr. Marshall, and Mr. Gerry, who were charged to secure indemnity for these spoliations. In his elaborate instructions, dated July 15, 1797, the Secretary of State, Mr. Pickering, lays down the following rule of conduct: “In respect to the depredations on our commerce, the principal objects will be to agree on an equitable mode of examining and deciding the claims of our citizens, and the manner and periods of making them compensation.… The proposed mode of adjusting those claims, by commissioners appointed on each side, is so perfectly fair, we cannot imagine that it will be refused.” Although this reparation was not made “an indispensable condition of the proposed treaty,” yet the plenipotentiaries were enjoined “not to renounce these claims of our citizens, nor to stipulate that they be assumed by the United States as a loan to the French Government.”[134] Thus fully were these claims recognized at the time by our Government, and most carefully placed under the protection of our plenipotentiary triumvirate.
The triumvirate found the French Republic in no mood of justice. Bonaparte was then triumphant at the head of the army of Italy, and Talleyrand was exhibiting his remarkable powers at the head of the foreign relations of France. Victory had given confidence, and the exulting Republic was standing tiptoe, more disposed to strike than negotiate, unless it could dictate, and implacable always towards England and all supposed to sympathize with that power. After exactions and humiliations hard to bear, the plenipotentiaries were compelled to return home without any official reception by the intoxicated Government to which they were accredited, but not before they had encountered the masterly ability of Talleyrand, who, in reply to their statement of the claims of the United States, presented the counter claims of France. Though in Paris merely on sufferance, they had unofficial interviews with various agents of the Republic, and even with Talleyrand himself; but without dwelling on details not pertinent to the occasion, it is enough to say, that, while refusing to offer a loan or bribe, they were able to declare frankly “that France had taken violently from America more than fifteen millions of dollars, and treated us in every respect as enemies”;[135] and also to receive from Talleyrand a concession, recorded in one of their despatches, that “some of those claims were probably just,” with the inquiry, “whether, if they were acknowledged by France, we could not give a credit as to the payment,—say, for two years?”[136] Here again was an admission not to be forgotten.
The return of our disappointed plenipotentiaries was aggravated by circumstances which an eminent Continental writer has not hesitated to brand as “unique in the annals of diplomacy.”[137] They had been invited to contribute a gratification of twelve hundred thousand francs, and the whole desperate intrigue, conducted by persons known in the correspondence as W, X, Y, Z, was unveiled to the world. The country was indignant, and war seemed imminent. By various acts of legislation Congress entered upon preparations, summoning Washington from retirement to gird on his sword once more as Lieutenant-General. The claims for French spoliations were never absent from mind. By Act of the 28th May, 1798, public vessels of the United States were authorized to capture all “armed vessels sailing under authority or pretence of authority from the Republic of France,” “which shall have committed, or which shall be found hovering on the coasts of the United States for the purpose of committing, depredations on the vessels belonging to citizens thereof”; and this statute was introduced by a preamble asserting “depredations on the commerce of the United States, … in violation of the Law of Nations and treaties between the United States and the French nation.” By Act of June 13, 1798, all commercial intercourse was suspended between the United States and France, until “the Government of France … shall clearly disavow, and shall be found to refrain from, the aggressions, depredations, and hostilities which have been and are by them encouraged and maintained against the vessels and other property of the citizens of the United States.” By Act of June 25, 1798, merchant vessels of the United States were authorized to resist search or seizure by any French armed vessel, to repel assaults, and to capture the aggressors, until “the Government of France … shall disavow, and shall cause the commanders and crews of all armed French vessels to refrain from, the lawless depredations and outrages hitherto encouraged and authorized by that Government against the merchant vessels of the United States.” By Act of July 7, 1798, the treaties with France were declared to be no longer obligatory on the United States; and this statute was introduced by a preamble asserting that “the just claims of the United States for reparation of injuries have been refused, and their attempts to negotiate an amicable adjustment of all complaints between the two nations have been repelled with indignity.” Thus, by express words, in repeated acts, did Congress recognize these claims.