As to the country on the Mississippi above the mouth of the Illinois, its acquisition is not pressing in the present state of things. It might be well to be inquiring into titles, and to claim whatever may have been abandoned or lost by its native owners, so as to prevent usurpation by tribes having no right; as also to purchase such portions as may be found in the occupation of small remnants of tribes nearly extinct and disposed to emigrate.
For the present, it is submitted to the consideration of the Secretary of War, whether instructions should not be immediately given to Governor Harrison to treat with the Piorias and Kaskaskias chiefs; as to the latter, which is most important, it would be easy to solicit and bring over by presents every individual of mature age.
XXXVIII.
Notes on the subject of the consular convention between the United States and France. May 3d, 1803.
In 1784 a convention was entered into between Dr. Franklin and the Count de Vergennes concerning consuls. It contained many things absolutely inadmissible by the laws of the several States, and inconsistent with their genius and character. Dr. Franklin, not being a lawyer, and the project offered by the Count de Vergennes being a copy of the conventions which were established between France and the despotic States on the continent (for with England they never had one), he seems to have supposed it a formula established by universal experience, and not to have suspected that it might contain matters inconsistent with the principles of a free people. He returned to America soon after the signature of it. Congress received it with the deepest concern. They honored Dr. Franklin, they were attached to the French nation; but they could not relinquish fundamental principles. They declined ratifying it, and sent it back with new powers and instructions to Mr. Jefferson, who succeeded Dr. Franklin at Paris. The most objectionable matters were the privileges and exemptions given to the consuls, and their powers over persons of the nation, establishing a jurisdiction independent of that of the nation in which it was exercised, and uncontrollable by it. The French government valued these, because they then apprehended a very extensive emigration from France to the United States, which this convention enabled them to control. It was, therefore, with the utmost reluctance, and inch by inch, that they could be induced to relinquish these conditions. The following changes, however, were effected by the convention of 1788:
The clauses of the convention of 1784, clothing consuls with the privileges of the laws of nations, were struck out, and they were expressly subjected, in their persons and property, to the laws of the land.
The giving the right of sanctuary to their houses, was reduced to a protection of their chancery room and its papers.
Their coercive powers over passengers were taken away; and those whom they might have termed deserters of their nation, were restrained to deserted seamen only.
The clause allowing them to arrest and send back vessels, was struck out, and instead of it they were allowed to exercise a police over the ships of their nation generally.
So was that which declared the indelibility of the character of subject, and the explanation and extension of the eleventh article of the treaty of amity.
The innovations in the laws of evidence were done away; and the convention, from being perpetual, was limited to twelve years.