The gentleman from Massachusetts says there is no evidence of fact. What fact? Surely he will not say there is no evidence of the French having condemned our vessels, and of their having committed vast spoliation. If this were so, how happens it that an American embassy had demanded compensation; and that, on the ulterior negotiations of the Government, the Government had said we will abandon it, that we may release ourselves from guaranteeing to France her colonial possessions. Had this not been so, France might have called upon us to guarantee her West India possessions, and to supply her with men and money. From this situation we have been kept by those negotiations which terminated in an abandonment of the just Claims of your merchants on the French Government or her citizens. And this constitutes your good bargains.
If these are facts, we possess sufficient evidence not only to justify, but to compel our paying the merchants, if under the influence of common honesty. The amount is perfectly immaterial. Whatever it is we must pay it. It is true that of the millions claimed, Government may not in law or equity be compelled to pay more than a small part. But if you establish the principle that there shall be an indemnity made, you enable your committee to devise the mode of collecting evidences of and settling the validity of the claims.
But the gentleman from Massachusetts says these taxes, right or wrong, must be repealed. For, he says, the public expectation has already decided the question; and that, indeed, the public officers could not now collect them. But I hope, for the honor of the Government, and of the American people, this opinion is not correct.
Mr. Mitchill begged to be indulged in making a few observations on what had fallen from the gentleman from South Carolina. I do not know that these observations will satisfy his mind, but they will at least serve to justify my own character as a Representative of a portion of the Union respectable for its mercantile opulence. I believe the subject of indemnities, in the contemplation of gentlemen, has swelled much beyond its real magnitude. I believe that a large portion of losses were so covered by insurance that Government will not be obliged to pay for them. I feel as sincerely for the merchants as any gentleman; yet I do not wish to swell the subject to an improper magnitude. Suppose, as the gentlemen wish, we say we will indemnify, does that pay the claims?
Besides, it is not so evident, as some gentlemen assert, that our merchants have been deprived of valuable rights by the mode in which the French Convention has been ratified. Let gentlemen recollect the mass of depredations committed by Great Britain, and the engagements, under treaty, of the British Government to make reparation for them. Yet, notwithstanding this engagement, reparation has been to this day evaded, under the pretext that the claims under one article depend on the construction given to a preceding article. Now, suppose in the French Treaty there were the same provisions as in the British Treaty, would this have produced payment? No. The operations under the treaty might have gone on as long as under the British Treaty, with the like effect, and without any substantial provision being made. I state these circumstances barely to show that the renunciation in the French Treaty is not so grievous as some gentlemen imagine.
It is manifest that an inattention to similar claims has been considered as less a departure from right among nations than among individuals. And, judging of the future by the past, my opinion is that a retention of the article stricken out of the French Convention, would not have benefited the claims of our merchants, or afforded them any adequate eventual compensation. In France, as on the other side of the Channel, there would have been claim raised against claim, pretext against pretext, and the boards for adjusting the several claims might have been, in this case, as in the other, dissolved.
It is said by the gentleman from Delaware, that it is the object of gentlemen on his side of the House to prevent a repeal of the internal taxes. Though I admire the gentleman's candor, I believe it is needful to repeal these laws. I believe, too, the people wish them repealed. But I further believe, that if future events shall show the necessity of restoring these taxes, the good sense of the people will restore them; and if the indemnities agreed to be made shall require them, I believe they will be restored. The work of examining these claims will be the work of years. What is the consequence? Will the present repeal of the internal taxes interfere with the doing substantial justice to our merchants? Suppose these taxes are removed, are not the products of the country increasing? and are not our resources increasing with our population? The truth is, whenever your Treasury wants a fresh supply of resources, the people will submit to what their Representatives desire. Are we to legislate for succeeding ages? No. We are to suffer our successors to act for themselves; and I have no doubt either of their ability or their inclination to do justice.
Mr. Dana.—If I understood the honorable member from New York, he admitted the propriety of making some indemnity; and if so, I could not understand why he dwelt so elaborately upon the minutiæ of detail, to show why we ought not to indemnify. Nor can I yet understand him, unless his object be to let the subject sleep, and to say that the longer it is delayed, the less chance of reparation.
The gentleman says, property insured cannot be recovered. But is that gentleman, coming as he does from the first commercial city in the Union, yet to learn that, in the case of loss, the insurer stands precisely in the place of the insured? Is he so ignorant of this fact as not to know that the underwriter, in such circumstances, becomes entitled to the same indemnity with him who is underwritten?
With regard to the analogy attempted between the British Treaty and the French Convention, it is totally incorrect. For, in the British Treaty, we had insisted upon the claims of our merchants to reparation by Britain, or her subjects; whereas, in the French Convention, we had renounced all claim. Nor were the remarks of the honorable member more fortunate respecting the operations under the British Treaty; for he must know that our merchants have, in many cases, received compensation under it.