By such vigorous measures were the rights of these claimants asserted, while the country assumed an attitude of defence. The French Directory became less intolerable, and negotiations were invited again, with assurance that the former rudeness should not be renewed. John Adams was President, and for the sake of peace he seized the opportunity of this overture, by appointing Chief Justice Ellsworth, Patrick Henry, and William Vans Murray as a second plenipotentiary triumvirate to France. As Mr. Henry declined, Mr. Davie, of North Carolina, was substituted in his place. In adjusting the instructions President Adams himself took a personal part, as appears by a letter to the Secretary of State, where he says: “The principal points, indeed all the points, of the negotiation were so minutely considered and approved by me and all the heads of department that nothing remains but to put them into form and dress: this service I pray you to perform as promptly as possible.”[138] But “all the points” were three only: 1st, Indemnity for spoliations of American commerce; 2d, The unquestionable wrong of seizing American vessels for want of the paper known to French law as rôle d’équipage; 3d, The refusal to renew the treaty guaranty of the French West Indies. Such were the ultimata originally settled by the President and his cabinet on the 11th of March, 1799, and afterwards fully developed in the elaborate instructions of Mr. Pickering, dated 22d October, 1799, which, after announcing that “the conduct of the French Republic would well have justified an immediate declaration of war on the part of the United States,” proceeded to declare, as the first point, that the plenipotentiaries, “at the opening of the negotiation, will inform the French ministers that the United States expect from France, as an indispensable condition of the treaty, a stipulation to make to the citizens of the United States full compensation for all losses and damages which they shall have sustained by reason of irregular or illegal captures or condemnations of their vessels and other property.” And the instructions end, as they began, by declaring, first among the terms, “that an article be inserted for establishing a board with suitable powers to hear and determine the claims of our citizens, and binding France to pay or secure payment of the sums which shall be awarded.”[139] Observe the positiveness of the assertion.
These instructions attest the interest of our Government. Placed first among the ultimata adopted in the councils of President Adams, these indemnities were placed first in the diplomatic instructions. There is yet other evidence of the character and amount of the spoliations. The Secretary of State, in a report to Congress, dated January 18, 1799, after attributing them to French feeling on account of the British treaty, proceeds to characterize them in remarkable words: “Yet that treaty had been made by the French Government its chief pretence for those unjust and cruel depredations on American commerce which have brought distress on multitudes and ruin on many of our citizens, and occasioned a total loss of property to the United States of probably more than twenty millions of dollars.”[140] Such were the outrages for which our plenipotentiaries were to seek redress.
The Directory had ceased; but on reaching Paris the plenipotentiaries were cordially received by Talleyrand, the citizen minister of Foreign Affairs, who without delay presented them to the First Consul as he was about to mount for that wonderful campaign which, opening with the passage of the Alps, closed at Marengo. Negotiations commenced at once, Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of the First Consul, and afterward King of Spain, being at the head of the commission on the part of France. “Appreciating,” as they announced, “the value of time,” the American plenipotentiaries, in a brief note, on the 7th of April,—the very day when the exchange of powers was completed,—proposed “an arrangement to ascertain and discharge the equitable claims of the citizens of either nation upon the other, whether founded on contract, treaty, or the Law of Nations”; all of which was to be done in order “to satisfy the demands of justice, and render a reconciliation cordial and permanent.”[141] Thus instantly were these claims presented. The French plenipotentiaries in their prompt reply admitted that “the first object of the negotiation ought to be the determination of the regulations, and the steps to be followed, for the estimation and indemnification of injuries for which either nation may make claim for itself or for any of its citizens.”[142] Here was the suggestion of claims, not only “individual,” but also “national,” under which loomed the counter claims of France.
The American plenipotentiaries, while professing to be free from “apprehension of an unfavorable balance,” protested against the consideration of any “national” claims until some “convenient stage of the negotiation, after it shall be seen what arrangement would be acceptable for the claims of citizens.”[143] The French plenipotentiaries rejoined by enforcing “national” as well as “individual” claims.[144] The issue seemed to be made. On the one side were the “individual” claims of American citizens, on the other side the “national” claims of France. The American plenipotentiaries were not authorized to recognize the “national” claims alone. The French plenipotentiaries were not authorized to recognize the “individual” claims, without a previous recognition on our part of the “national” claims. At last, after various efforts at harmony, it was officially announced that “the negotiation was at a stand on the part of France,” as her plenipotentiaries were constrained by instructions of the First Consul to make “the acknowledgment of former treaties the basis of negotiation and the condition of compensation.”[145] The First Consul was then on the Italian slope of the Alps, about to pounce upon the astonished Austrians. Claims and counter claims were of little concern to him.
Thus far the Committee have exhibited our claims in their origin and history. The time has come to change the scene, and to exhibit those counter claims which played such part in the successive negotiations, and finally produced that memorable dead-lock, when the two powers stood face to face with antagonist pretensions, unable to go forward, and unwilling to go backward.
II.
COUNTER CLAIMS OF FRANCE, THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY.
The counter claims of France differ widely from the claims of American citizens. They were not “individual,” but “national,” being founded on alleged violations of treaty stipulations assumed by the United States in return for the aid of France in the establishment of national independence. During the protracted controversy between the two republics they were detailed in numerous official notes; but they were brandished by Talleyrand, with offensive skill and effect, in the very faces of our insulted plenipotentiaries, under date of March 18, 1798, when, while driving them from Paris, he insisted “that the priority of grievances and complaints belonged to the French Republic,” and “that these complaints and these grievances were as real as numerous, long before the United States had the least grounded claim to make.”[146] Careful inquiry enables us to see that this allegation, thus confidently uttered, was not without a certain foundation; and here we revert to the history of our country.
The triumph with which the War of Independence happily ended came tardily, after seven years of battle, suffering, and exhaustion; but it was hastened, if not assured, by the generous alliance of France. From Bunker Hill to Saratoga the war was checkered with gloom, which even the surrender of Burgoyne did not suffice to dispel. Then came the dreary winter of Valley Forge, when soldiers of Washington, after treading the snows barefoot, were obliged, for want of blankets, to huddle all night by the fires, and even the stout heart of the commander-in-chief bent so far as to announce, in formal letter to Congress, that, “unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place, the army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things,—starve, dissolve, or disperse.”[147] But the scene changed with the glad tidings that France, by solemn treaty, signed by Franklin, February 6, 1778, had bound herself to “guaranty to the United States their liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and unlimited.” The camp broke forth with the mingled joy of soldier and patriot, as it turned gratefully to Lafayette, already by the side of Washington, glorious forerunner of armies and navies promised to our cause. Congress took up the strain, and, by unanimous vote, ratified the treaty which opened to our country the gates of the Future.
It is difficult to estimate the value of this treaty in money, especially when we consider its consequences. According to the report of Calonne, the French Minister of Finance, the war which ensued in the support of this guaranty cost France fourteen hundred and forty millions of francs, or about two hundred and eighty millions of dollars. But French blood, more costly than money, was shed on land and sea in the same cause, until at last the army of Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown to the allied forces of Rochambeau and Washington, and the war closed by the recognition of our national independence. If liberty be priceless, if life be priceless, then was the aid lavished by France infinite beyond calculation.
The engagements were not all on the side of France. Beyond gratitude due for this powerful alliance, were express obligations solemnly assumed by the United States, not only in the Treaty of Alliance, but also in the Treaty of Amity and Commerce negotiated on the same day. These obligations, constituting the consideration of the weighty contract, were of two classes: first, a guaranty by the United States of the possessions of France in America; and, secondly, important privileges for the armed ships of France, with a promise of American convoy to French commerce.