until the Chambers should meet, when the ministers could have an opportunity of consulting some of the leading members of the two Houses, was successfully resisted by Mr. Rives.

The committee have not adverted to the negotiation, which terminated in the treaty of indemnity, for the purpose, of drawing from it any justification for the failure of the Government of France, hitherto, to fulfill the solemn stipulations of that treaty. It affords no such justification. If anticipated difficulties in the Chambers have really occurred they ought to have been weighed, and were probably weighed, by the French Government prior to the signature or prior to the ratification of the treaty. They were, no doubt, deemed to be of a nature not insuperable. At all events they are the affair of the French Government, not ours. But the committee do think that in candor and fairness these difficulties, which were known to both parties, of which we were so often warned, ought to inculcate upon the American Government a spirit of the utmost indulgence and forbearance consistent with ultimate justice to our injured citizens. If, after the apprehended opposition presented itself in the Chambers, the French ministery, with sincerity and good faith, has fairly exerted its power to weaken and subdue it; if the King's Government is honestly still laboring to accomplish that end, however painful past delay may be, it would not only be unjust as to the French Government but unwise, as it respects the interests of the United States and the American claimants themselves, that we should interpose any obstacle to final success. A rash and precipitate measure on our part would not only tend to confirm prepossessions already existing against the treaty, but would probably convert some of the warm friends

This brings us to the consideration of what has transpired, since the exchange of the ratifications of the treaty, for the purpose of executing it. The committee have deliberately examined all the evidence submitted to them, to satisfy themselves whether the Government of the King of France has sincerely and faithfully endeavored to obtain the appropriations necessary to execute the stipulations of the treaty. The statement contained in the message of the President, respecting the periods of the meeting, and the termination of the sessions of the French Chambers, the presentation of the bill of indemnity, and the disposition made of it, is believed to be substantially correct, with the exception that it appears that the treaty was referred to a committee for examination, on the 16th June, 1833, and it was deemed necessary to collect all the documents calculated to throw light upon the question, which, requiring time, prevented a report at that session. Standing alone, without explanation, the delay would imply indifference, if not culpable neglect, in procuring from the Chambers the requisite appropriation to fufill a national engagement. But the apprehensions entertained and expressed by the French ministers, in the progress of the negotiation, as to the fate of the treaty before the Chambers, appear to have been constantly felt by them, and to have influenced all their proceedings. They profess to have been desirous to remove all difficulties, by suitable explanations, and by persuasion and conciliation, and to have thought that the support of the Chambers was more likely to be secured by these means, and by time, than by urging an immediate decision. The committee beg leave to call the attention of the Senate to certain parts of the correspondence, which are calculated to enlighten it in respect to the conduct and motives of the King and his ministers. In reply to a note of Mr. Niles, the American chargé d'affaires, complaining of the protest of the draft, and the nonexecu

tion of the treaty, the French minister of foreign affairs, in a note, under date the 26th March, 1833, says:

It was well known in Washington that, according to a constitutional principle, which is also rigorously observed in the United States, the treaty of July 4, 1831, could not take effect in France, until it had received the assent of the legislature in all its financial particulars. Circumstances, over which the King's Government have no control, have hitherto prevented it from asking such sanction; and although the treaty does not contain any express stipulation, as regards the necessity of such assent, yet it should not the less be considered as implied, inasmuch as it necessarily arises from the nature of things, and the fundamental maxims of our public law.

And, in a subsequent part of the same note, the minister further remarks:

But I can assure you that, although there may be some delay in the acquittal of the sums mentioned in the treaty, yet that delay, which circumstances render unavoidable, will not be greater than necessity requires.

He adds:

Your Government, sir, will appreciate duly the parliamentary considerations, and the constitutional principles on which they are founded; and I doubt not that the affair will end by inspiring them with greater confidence in the King's Government.

There can be no doubt that the allusion of the French minister to circumstances over which the King's Government had no control, and to parliamentary considerations which would be duly appreciated at Washington, referred to the opposition to the treaty in the Chamber of Deputies. This supposition is confirmed by a passage in a note of Mr. Harris, the successor of Mr. Niles, as American chargé d'affaires, addressed to the French minister on the 1st July, 1833, in which, referring to repeated interviews between them, he says:

He was then assured that there was some opposition in the Chambers with regard to the treaty, but that great hope was entertained of its being surmounted. The undersigned, therefore, employed himself, on the one hand. agreeably to the invitation that he would do so, in visiting the most influential members, and setting the principles of the treaty before them in their true light, so as to make them comprehend the whole importance of the question; and on the other, in transmitting to the Cabinet at Washington accounts of all that took place herein as well as the promises and assurances given him by the French ministry.

The case must have been an extraordinary one in which a foreign minister could have invoked, or a representative of the American Government would have yielded to, such an irregular interposition.

In his answer to this note the French minister, after expressing his opinion that it was unnecessary, the minister of France, at Washington, having been charged to make suitable representations, proceeds to say:

Thus, his Majesty's Government, in demanding from the Chamber of Deputies, during the first session, the appropriation indispensable for discharging the engagements of the treaty, proceeded agreeably to rule: but it evidently did not depend upon the Government to have such appropriation voted in that session; and, certainly, it is not to Mr. Harris that the undersigned could think himself obliged to urge such a consideration.

As to the session which began on the 25th of April, its shortness is sufficient, alone, to explain how the vote, which was rejected in the preceding one, should have been again deferred; and upon this point, likewise, the King's Government is fully authorized to consider itself clear of all imputation.

No doubt, as Mr. Harris observes, the Cabinet at Washington had a right to rely upon the exact fulfilment of the engagements subscribed in the name of France; and it is to be hoped that this its confidence has not been diminished; but it is too enlightened, and understands too well the duties imposed by representative institutions, as well as by the parliamentary system, not to have judged that the King's

Government would necessarily have, above all things, to preserve the proper line of conduct with respect to the Chambers. In fact, whilst the charter recognizes in the King the right of concluding and ratifying treaties, it, at the same time, renders the sanction of the legislative body indispensable for the execution of those parts of their stipulations, the examination of which is among their special attributes.

The difficulties, of which our representative at Paris was apprised, in passing through the Chambers the bill of appropriation were communicated to the American Government by the French minister here. In a note from him to the Secretary of State, under date the 19th May, 1833, he says:

With regard to the explanations requested by the Secretary of State, as to the delay of the French legislature in giving its sanction to the financial clauses of the convention, the Duke de Broglie observes to the undersigned, that it must be well known at Washington how much circumspection (menagemens) is necessary in a representative government, and how many parliamentary difficult es are to be met with, especially when a treaty is in question which, on account of the obligations it imposes on the country, has against it strong prejudices in the Chambers, and public opinion without.

The minister of foreign affairs adds that—

This delay has been entirely unavoidable (independent de sa volonte); that he will in a few days submit to the Chambers a bill on the subject, and that he will do all that could be expected from the known loyalty of the King's Government to effect its passage as speedily as possible, and to abridge a delay which he has been only able to regret.

Again, on the 31st August, 1833, the French minister at Washington, by the express orders of his Government, addressed a note to the Secretary of State, from which the following extract is taken:

It is easy to conceive that Congress should not hesitate to sanction a convention so advantageous to the citizens of the United States, and that the Federal Government should be eager to require its approval. But in France the case is different; prejudices, doubtless unreasonable, yet, from their nature, likely to exercise a disagreeable influence upon the minds of men, have been openly manifested against the validity of the American claims, and the King's Government, under the conviction that justice absolutely required the admission of a part of them, yet was far from expecting unanimous assent to its opinion. It was the more necessary to take these prejudices into account, as they had found their way into the Chambers, where it was matter of notoriety that the convention of July 4, 1831, would be violently opposed. Good faith, therefore, rendered it necessary to enlighten the public mind beforehand, and to prepare the way for an impartial discussion, and the King's Government might, indeed, have been fairly taxed with want of foresight, had it, under such circumstances, called at once on the legislature for its assent to the treaty. Indeed. such a mode of proceeding was that best calculated to endanger the accomplishment of the affair, and could only have been adopted by a government less anxious to fulfill its engagements. On the contrary, the plan pursued by the King's Government attests the purity of its intentions. As soon as it considered the moment propitious the treaty was communicated to the Chamber of Deputies and an appropriation was demanded in order to its execution, and the reproach that an opportunity had not been given to the Chambers of pronouncing upon the treaty is sufficiently obviated by the parliamentary communications made twice on the subject.

Mr. Livingston, the minister of the United States, having reached Paris, and had an audience with the King on the 5th of October, 1833, addressed a note to the Duke de Broglie, in which he says:

The verbal assurance which his majesty was pleased to give the undersigned, when he had the honor of being presented to him, and those which he received in the conference before alluded to from the minister of foreign affairs can leave no doubt of the desire his majesty has faithfully to perform the stipulations entered into with the United States.

In the reply of the duke, under date the 23d of the same month,

after commenting on other parts of Mr. Livingston's note, he expresses the following emphatic assurance:

The undersigned will conclude, therefore, by assuring Mr. Livingston again most positively that, at the next session, and on the day after the Chamber of Deputies shall have been constituted ready for business, the King's Government will lay before it the projet de loi relative to the convention of 4th July, 1831.

In a subsequent note of the duke to Mr. Livingston, under date the 23d November, 1833, he repeats:

The undersigned is as anxious as the minister plenipotentiary of the United States can be for the definitive conclusion of an affair, the delays in which are completely independent of the will of the King's Government.

The committee have thus traced the correspondence down to the approach of that session of the Chamber of Deputies during which the bill of appropriation was rejected. The extracts from it might have been enlarged and multiplied, but those which have been presented account, and the committee think satisfactorily, for the delay on the part of the King's Government in passing the bill to a final decision. They demonstrate also, up to that period, the sincere desire with which the King and his minister of foreign affairs were animated to carry the treaty faithfully into execution. Whilst the American Government very properly remonstrated against the delay, it appears nevertheless to have been satisfied with the sincerity and good faith of the King's Government. Mr. Livingston, an eyewitness on the spot, declares, as late as October, 1833, that the assurances received by him directly from the King and from the Duke de Broglie left not a doubt on his mind of the desire of the King faithfully to perform the stipu lations with the United States.

The committee next felt it incumbent upon them to examine into the proceedings and discussions in the French Chamber of Deputies, of which a copy has been communicated by the Executive to the Senate, on the subject of a bill making an appropriation to carry into effect the treaty. The right of the Chamber freely to examine the treaty, and to grant or refuse the supplies necessary to execute it, appears, throughout those proceedings and discussions, to have been generally conceded, or at least never contested. On the presentation of the bill in June, 1833, the president of the Chamber remarked:

The right of the Chamber is clearly established. No treaty of the sort now presented to us is perfect, or can be carried into execution in any of its parts, until the Chamber has given the Government the means of executing it. Nothing can be considered as definitive which is subject to the vote of the Chamber.

Accordingly, all the documents and papers connected with the negotiation were submitted to the committee to which the bill was referred, and were canvassed by them as freely and fully as if the treaty had never been actually concluded.

On this right, depending as it does upon a just construction of the provisions of the French charter, the committee do not feel it necessary, if they were competent, to express any opinion. Whether the Chamber have the right or not, they clearly possess the power to refuse an appropriation to carry the treaty into effect. The injury to us is the same in both cases, or varies only in degree. In either case satisfaction is withheld for claims of American citizens, which we believe to be founded in justice, and which would have justified in their origin an appeal to arms; and these claims are admitted to be just by a treaty concluded with the authority of the King, ratified by him, and bearing upon its face all the testimony of a complete and perfect national compact.

The bill to carry into effect the treaty having been twice presented at previous sessions of the Chamber of Deputies, was again submitted to it on the 13th January, 1834, by the minister of finance. It was referred to a committee, which, on the 10th of March following, made an elaborate and able report, concluding by recommending the adoption of the bill. The debate opened upon it on the 28th of March, and was continued until the 1st of April, when, by a vote of 176 to 168, it was rejected. It is not the intention of your committee to exhibit even a sketch of the facts and arguments brought forward, either in the report or the discussion, in which several of the King's ministers shared. But they do no more than justice in rendering, their humble testimony to the masterly ability and statesmanlike bearing exhibited by the minister of foreign affairs in the Chamber of Deputies. That minister immediately resigned his place in consequence of the vote of the Chamber.

The committee have looked into the proceedings and discussions to discover, if they could, the cause of the rejection of the bill. The principle of indemnity seems to have been generally admitted. The diversity of opinion was chiefly as to the amount. But besides this, widespread and deep-rooted prejudices prevailed in the Chambers. Some of the members appear to have thought that France was a prey to the rapacity of foreign powers; that the United States owed her a debt of gratitude, growing out of her assistance in our struggle for independence, that ought to have restrained them from presenting any claim, or at least have greatly moderated their demands; that the decrees of France, out of which a large part of the claims sprung, were no more than a just retaliation upon the belligerent edicts of Great Britain; that the claims were in the hands of a few speculators; that upon a fresh negotiation the amount of indemnity would be materially reduced; and that, as to eight of the twenty-five millions of francs, the United States were seeking a double satisfaction, first from Spain in the Florida treaty, and then from France in the treaty of 1831. Your committee can not but think that this last objection, utterly groundless and derogatory from our national honor as it is, exerted a considerable influence upon the Chambers. It was suddenly sprung toward the close of the debate, and the supporters of the bill being taken by surprise, all the satisfactory explanations of which the Spanish treaty is susceptible were not made. The controlling motive, however, of the majority is believed to have been a conviction entertained by them that the treaty stipulates the payment of a greater sum than is justly due from France.

Unfortunately we are, perhaps, not altogether free from the reproach of having contributed to make this unfavorable impression of the treaty upon the mind of the French Chamber. In his dispatch, under date the 8th July, 1831, accompanying the treaty and addressed to the Secretary of State, after explaining some of its provisions, and referring to the opinion of Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Rives says:

If the opinion here expressed be correct, and certainly none enjoys or is entitled to more respect, the sum stipulated to be paid by the French Government will be amply sufficient to satisfy all the just claims of our citizens of every description, comprehended in the scope of the negotiation.

Again he remarks:

The result which has been gained in the interest of the claimants has not been achieved without the greatest difficulty. The correspondence of Mr. Crawford, of Mr. Gallatin, and of Mr. Brown with the Department of State (the unfavorable parts of which have, for obvious reasons, not heretofore been given to the public) shows that they regarded this whole subject as almost entirely hopeless.