The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 / Commander in Chief of the American Forces During the War / which Established the Independence of his Country and First / President of the United States

by John Marshall

The legal right being in the captor, it could only be taken from him by an act of force, that is to say, of reprisal for the offence committed against the United States in the port of Charleston. Reprisal is a very serious thing, ought always to be preceded by a demand and refusal of satisfaction, is generally considered as an act of war, and never yet failed to produce it in the case of a nation able to make war.

Martha Washington

From the portrait by James Sharples

This is one of the three Sharples portraits of the Washington family and the only good profile of Martha Washington that was painted from life. Martha, who was a few months younger than her husband, is described as having been "amiable in character and lovely in person." By the courtesy of the period she was called Lady Washington, and whether in her own home or at the "federal court," she presided with marked dignity and grace. She died at Mount Vernon, May 22, 1802, having survived her husband two and a half years.

Courtesy Herbert L. Pratt

Admitting the case to be of sufficient importance to require reprisal, and to be ripe for that step, the power of taking it was vested by the constitution in congress, not in the executive department of the government.

Of the reparation for the offence committed against the United States, they were themselves the judges, and could not be required by a foreign nation, to demand more than was satisfactory to themselves. By disavowing the act, by taking measures to prevent its repetition, by prosecuting the American citizens who were engaged in it, the United States ought to stand justified with Great Britain; and a demand of further reparation by that power would be a wrong on her part.

The circumstances under which these equipments had been made, in the first moments of the war, before the government could have time to take precautions against them, and its immediate disapprobation of those equipments, must rescue it from every imputation of being accessory to them, and had placed it with the offended, not the offending party.

Those gentlemen were therefore of opinion, that the vessels which had been captured on the high seas, and brought into the United States, by privateers fitted out and commissioned in their ports, ought not to be restored.