The recent changes which have been made in the ministry, of which I have already informed you, do not justify any very strong expectation that a change of measures in relation to our affairs at this Court will follow. The same individuals fill different places in the ministry from those which they formerly held, but in all probability adhere to their former opinions in relation to the subjects of discussion between the United States and France. On the point to which my letter to the Baron de Damas particularly relates the Count de Villele has already given his deliberate views in his letters to Mr. Gallatin dated 6th and 15th November, 1822, and I have every reason to believe that they remain unchanged. Having bestowed much attention on the subject, it is probable his opinion will be in a great measure decisive as to the answer which shall be given to my letter. It is the opinion of many well-informed men that in the course of a few months important changes will be made in the composition of the ministry. As these changes, however, will proceed from causes wholly unconnected with foreign affairs, I am by no means sanguine in my expectations that under any new composition of the ministry we may hope for a change of policy as it relates to our claims. The eighth article of the Louisiana treaty will be continually put forward as a bar to our claims and its adjustment urged as often as we renew our claim for indemnity.
The Journal des Débats of this morning states that at a superior council of commerce and of the colonies at which His Majesty yesterday presided Mr. De St. Cricq, president of the bureau de commerce, made a report on the commercial convention of the 24th June, 1822, between the United States and France.
Mr. Brown to Baron de Damas.
PARIS, October 22, 1824.
His Excellency BARON DE DAMAS,
Minister of Foreign Affairs, etc.
SIR: I availed myself of the earliest opportunity to transmit to my Government a copy of the letter which I had the honor to address to the Viscount de Chateaubriand on the 28th day of April last, together with a copy of his answer to that letter, dated 7th of May.
After a candid and deliberate consideration of the subject of that correspondence, my Government has sent me recent instructions to renew with earnestness the application, already so frequently and so ineffectually made, for indemnity to our citizens for claims notoriously just, and resting on the same principles with others which have been admitted and adjusted by the Government of France.
In reply to that part of the Viscount de Chateaubriand's letter in which he offers to open with me a negotiation upon American claims if that negotiation should also include French claims, and particularly the arrangements to be concluded concerning the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty, I have been instructed to declare that any just claims which the subjects of France may have upon the Government of the United States will readily be embraced in the negotiation, and that I am authorized to stipulate any suitable provision for the examination, adjustment, and satisfaction of them.
The question relating to the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty is viewed by my Government as one of a very different character. It can not be blended with that of indemnity for individual claims without a sacrifice on the part of the United States of a principle of right. Every negotiation for indemnity necessarily presupposes that some wrong has been done, and that indemnity ought to be made; and the object of every treaty stipulation respecting it can only be to ascertain the extent of the injury, and to make provision for its adequate reparation. This is precisely the nature of the negotiation for American claims which has been for so many years the subject of discussion between the Governments of the United States and of France. The wrongs done to our citizens have never been denied, whilst their right to indemnity has been established by acts done by the French Government in cases depending upon the same principles under which they derive their claim. By consenting to connect with such a negotiation that relating to the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty the United States would abandon the principle upon which the whole discussion depends. When asking for reparation for acknowledged wrong the United States have been told that France will not discuss it with them unless they will first renounce their own sense of right and admit and discuss in connection with it a claim the justice of which they have hitherto constantly denied. In any negotiation commenced under such circumstances the situation of the parties would be unequal. By consenting to connect the pretensions of France under the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty with claims for indemnity for acknowledged injustice and injury the United States would be understood as admitting that those pretensions were well founded; that wrong had been done to France for which reparation ought to be made. The Government of the United States, not having yet been convinced that this is the case, can not consent to any arrangement which shall imply an admission so contrary to their deliberate sense of right.
I am authorized and prepared on behalf of the United States to enter upon a further discussion of the eighth article of the Louisiana treaty in any manner which may be desired, and by which they shall not be understood previously to admit that the construction of that article claimed by France is well founded; and also to renew the separate negotiation for American claims, embracing at the same time all just claims winch French subjects may have upon the Government of the United States.