ACTUAL LOSSES TO CLAIMANTS.
The practical question remains, as to the actual losses of the claimants. Here the evidence is precise and full.
Our own Government, when pressing these claims upon France, gave an official estimate of their value. On one occasion it put them above fifteen million dollars.[255] Afterward it put them at twenty million dollars. The latter estimate is found in a report from the Secretary of State to Congress, under date of January 18, 1799, where it speaks of “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.”[256] Inquiry into the losses confirms this statement. From evidence presented to committees in former years, and now belonging to history, it has been estimated that there were eight hundred and ninety-eight vessels included in the claims released to France.[257]
The American vessels despoiled by France between 1792, the outbreak of the European war, and July 31, 1801, when the Convention of 1800, with its proviso, was ratified by Napoleon Bonaparte, have been reckoned at two thousand two hundred and ninety, embracing as follows: first, vessels captured by the French; secondly, vessels captured by the French and Spaniards conjointly; thirdly, vessels detained by embargo at Bordeaux. The following list shows how the account stands.
List of Vessels in different Classes despoiled by France.[258]
| Whole number | 2,290 | ||
| From which deduct as follows:— | |||
| 1. Vessels paid for by special decrees of France | 14 | ||
| 2. Vessels paid for under the Convention of 1803, viz.:— | |||
| For embargoes | 103 | ||
| For contracts | 270 | ||
| For prize causes under order of restitution | 6 | ||
| —— | 379 | ||
| 3. Vessels rejected under Convention of 1803, viz.:— | |||
| For contracts or supplies | 102 | ||
| For prize causes | 26 | ||
| —— | 128 | ||
| 4. Vessels paid for by Spain under the Florida treaty of 1819 | 173 | ||
| 5. Vessels rejected under Florida treaty | 191 | ||
| 6. Vessels paid for under Convention with France of July 4, 1831, being for captures between the signing and ratification of the Convention of 1800 | 4 | ||
| 7. Vessels rejected for want of merit, neglect of claimants, loss of proof, and other contingencies, reckoned at | 503 | ||
| —— | 1,392 | ||
| ——— | |||
| 898 |
Thus we are brought to the number of eight hundred and ninety-eight vessels bartered to France.
To arrive at the value of these vessels, the Committee have been led to look at the estimate of vessels under conventions with other powers for the payment of similar claims. Here is a list allowed by different powers, with the average of each vessel:—