hostilities upon the subjects, citizens, or property of any prince or State with whom the United States are at peace, or upon the citizens of the United States or their property, or shall take command of, or enter on board of any such ship or vessel for the intent aforesaid, or shall purchase an interest in any vessel so fitted out and armed, with a view to share in the profits thereof, such person or persons so offending shall, on conviction thereof, be adjudged guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars and imprisonment not exceeding ten years; and the trial for such offence, if committed without the limits of the United States, shall be the district where the offender shall be apprehended or first brought.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That nothing in the foregoing act shall be construed to prevent the prosecution or punishment of treason or any piracy defined by a treaty or other law of the United States. (Annals, 5th Cong., 1st sess., 15, 16, 17, 20, 3685; Stat. L., vol. 1, p. 520.)

[See pp. 5, 8, 10, 12, 47, 69, 77, 196.]

FIFTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

May 18, 1798.

On message of President Adams relating to depredations of French privateers, Mr. Goodhue reported as follows:

AN ACT more effectually to protect the commerce and coasts of the United States.

Whereas armed vessels, sailing under authority or pretence of authority from the Republic of France, have committed depredations on the commerce of the United States, and have recently captured the vessels and property of citizens thereof on and near the coasts in violation of the law of nations and treaties between the United States and the French nation; Therefore

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be lawful for the President of the United States, and he is hereby authorized, to instruct and direct the commanders of the armed vessels belonging to the United States to seize, take, and bring into any port of the United States, to be proceeded against according to the laws of nations, any such armed vessel which shall have committed or which shall be found hovering on the coasts of the United States for the purpose of committing depredations on the vessels belonging to citizens thereof, and also to retake any ship or vessel of any citizen or citizens of the United States which may have been captured by any such armed vessel.

(Annals, 5th Cong., 2d sess., 559, 562, 563; Stat. L., vol. 1, p. 561.)

[See pp. 46, 47, 120, 355.]

SIXTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

May 7, 1800.

As to the compensation of public ministers, Mr. Morris reported the following bill:

Be it enacted, etc., That, exclusive of an outfit which shall in no case exceed the amount of one year's full salary to any minister plen

ipotentiary or chargés des affaires, to whom the same may be allowed, the President of the United States shall not allow a greater sum than at the rate of nine thousand dollars per annum as a compensation for all his personal services and expenses; nor a greater sum for the same than four thousand five hundred dollars per annum to a chargé des affaires; nor a greater sum for the same than one thousand three hundred and fifty dollars per annum to the secretary of any minister plenipotentiary.

That where any sum or sums of money shall be drawn from the Treasury, under any law making appropriation for the contingent expenses of intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, the President shall be, and he hereby is, authorized to cause the same to be duly settled annually with the accounting officers of the Treasury in manner following-that is to say, by causing the same to be accounted for specially in all instances wherein the expenditure thereof may in his judgment be made public, and by making a certificate of the amount of such expenditures as he may deem it advisable not to specify, and every such certificate shall be deemed a sufficient voucher for the sums therein expressed to have been expended.

(Leg. Jour., vol. 3, pp. 87, 88; Stat. L., vol. 2, p. 78.)

[See pp. 5, 12, 19, 77, 196.]

NINTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

February 5, 1806.

On spoliation of the commerce of the United States on the high seas, Mr. Smith, of Maryland, reported as follows:

That the capture and condemnation, under the orders of the British Government and adjudication of their courts of admiralty, of American vessels and their cargoes, on the pretext of their being employed in a trade of the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in the time of peace, is an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their national independence.

That the President of the United States be requested to demand and insist upon the restoration of the property of their citizens, captured upon the pretext of its being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, and upon the indemnification of such American citizens for their losses and damages sustained by these captures and condemnations, and to enter into such arrangements with the British Government on this and all other differences subsisting between the two nations (and particularly respecting the impressment of American seamen), as may be consistent with the honor and interests of the United States, and manifest their earnest desire to obtain for themselves and their citizens, by amicable negotiation, that justice which they are entitled to.

That it is expedient to prohibit by law the importation into the United States of any of the following goods, wares, or merchandise, being the growth, produce, or manufactures of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland or the dependencies thereof, that is to say, woolens, linens, hats, nails, looking-glasses, rum, hardwares, slate, salt, coal, boots, shoes, ribbons, silks, and plated and glass ware. The said prohibition to commence from the of — unless previously thereto equitable arrangements shall be made between the

two Governments on the differences subsisting between them, and to continue until such arrangements shall be agreed upon and settled. (Leg. Jour., pp. 22, 33, 37; Annals, 9th Cong., 1st sess., 51, 90; Am. St. Pap., vol. 2, p. 773.)

[See pp. 9, 10.]

February 20, 1806.

On bill to prevent the abuse of the privileges of foreign ministers within the United States, Mr. Adams reported the following as an additional section:

That whenever the President of the United States shall, under the authority of the laws of nations and of this act, send any foreign ambassador, minister, or other person as aforesaid, so offending, home to his sovereign, he shall issue his warrant to any officer, civil or military, under the authority of the United States, commanding him to provide for the departure of the said ambassador, minister, or other person as aforesaid, so offending, taking due precautions to avoid all improper or unnecessary violence in executing the said warrant. And all officers, civil and military, under the authority of the United States, are required to be obedient to such warrant.

(Annals, 9th Cong., 1st sess., 103, 116.)

[See pp. 5, 28, 122.]

ELEVENTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION.

June 23, 1809.

As to expediency of providing by law for the exclusion of foreign armed vessels from the waters of the United States, Mr. Leib reported as follows:

That, in the opinion of the committee, such an interdiction is within the just and neutral rights of the United States, and, under other circumstances, would be highly expedient and proper. So long as a neutral nation shall confine itself to strict measures of impartiality, allowing no benefit to one belligerent, not stipulated by treaty, which it shall refuse to another, no cause whatever is afforded for exception or complaint. The right to admit an armed force into a neutral territory belongs exclusively to the neutral, and when not guaranteed by treaty, as is ofttimes the case, such admission compromits the neutrality of the nation which permits to one belligerent alone such an indulgence.

As a measure of safety as well as of peace, it is incumbent upon the United States to carry into effect such a provision. So long as we are without a competent force to protect our jurisdiction from violation, and our citizens from outrage, and our flag from insults, so long ought no asylum to be given, but in distress, to the armed vessels of any nation. The committee will not bring into view the many injuries and insults which the United States have sustained from the hospitable grant of their ports and harbors to belligerents, nor the facility which has thereby been afforded to them to lay our commerce under contribution. It is sufficient to remark that great injuries have been sustained, and that imperious duty requires arrangements at our hands to guard our country in future from similar aggressions.

The United States are at this moment under no obligation to withhold the restraints within their power upon the admission of foreign armed vessels into their ports; but the committee are strongly impressed with the propriety of avoiding any legislative interference at this time, which, by any possibility, might be construed into a desire to throw difficulties in the way of promised and pending negotiations. They are desirous that a fair experiment be made to adjust our differences with the two belligerent nations, and that no provisions be interwoven in our laws which shall furnish a pretext for delay or a refusal to yield to our just and honorable demands.

Calculating that the overtures which have been made by Great Britain will be executed in good faith, the committee are willing to believe that the stipulated arrangements will be of such a character as to guard our flag from insult, our jurisdiction from aggression, our citizens from violation, and our mercantile property from spoliation. Under these impressions, which the committee have stated as briefly as possible, they beg leave to submit to the consideration of the Senate the following resolution, viz:

Resolved, That the further consideration of the subject be postponed until the next session of Congress.

(Annals, 11th Cong., 1st sess., 42-44; Am. St. Pap., vol. 3, p. 297.)

[See pp. 8, 10.]

ELEVENTH CONGRESS, SECOND SESSION.

December 5, 1809.

On the message of the President respecting the relations existing between the United States and Great Britain and France, Mr. Giles reported as follows:

Resolved, That the expressions contained in the official letter of Francis J. Jackson, minister plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty near the United States, dated the 23d day of October, 1809, and addressed to Mr. Smith, Secretary of State, conveying the idea that the Executive Government of the United States had a knowledge that the arrangement lately made by Mr. Erskine, his predecessor, in behalf of his Government, with the Government of the United States, was entered into without competent powers on the part of Mr. Erskine for that purpose, were highly indecorous and insolent; that the repetition of the same intimation in his official letter dated the 4th of November, 1809, after he was apprised by the asseveration of the Secretary of State that the Executive Government had no such knowledge, and that if it had possessed such knowledge, such arrangement would not have been entered into on the part of the United States; and after also being officially apprised that such intimation was inadmissible, was still more insolent and affronting; and that in refusing to receive any further communications from him in consequence of these outrageous and premeditated insults, the Executive Government has manifested a just regard to its own dignity and honour, as well as to the character and interest of the American people; that the letter signed Francis J. Jackson, headed “Circular,' dated 13th November, 1809, and published and circulated through the

country, is a still more direct and aggravated insult and affront to the American people and their Government, as it is evidently an insidious attempt to excite their resentments and distrusts against their own Government, by appealing to them, through false or fallacious disguises, against some of its acts, and to excite resentments and divisions amongst the people themselves, which can only be dishonourable to their own characters and ruinous to their own interests. And the Congress of the United States do hereby solemnly pledge themselves to the American people, and to the world, to stand by and support the Executive Government in its refusal to receive any further communications from the said Francis J. Jackson, and to call · into action the whole force of the nation, if it should become necessary, in consequence of the conduct of the Executive Government in this respect, to repel such insults, and to assert and maintain the rights, the honour, and the interests of the United States.

(Leg. Jour., pp. 409, 410; Stat. L., vol. 2, p. 612; Annals, 11th Cong., 2d sess., 482.)

[See pp. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 15, 17, 18, 19, 31, 47, 69, 77, 196.]

December 5, 1809.

On the message of the President as respects the relations existing between the United States and Great Britain and France, Mr. Giles reported as follows:

That if any foreign ambassador, minister, or other person entitled to enjoy within the United States the privileges and immunities of a foreign minister shall have committed, or may hereafter commit, any such act as by the laws of nations would justify the President of the United States in ordering such offending ambassador, minister, or other person as aforesaid out of the District of Columbia, or out of the territories of the United States, or in sending him home to his sovereign, or to some place or territory within his sovereign's jurisdiction; in every such place where the President of the United States shall deem it proper and expedient to exercise his constitutional authority in either of these respects, he shall be, and is hereby, authorized and empowered to cause a warrant to be issued and signed by the Secretary of State, directed to any civil officer of the United States authorized to serve process, or any military officer under the authority of the United States, commanding him to provide for and enforce the departure of such ambassador, minister, or other person offending as aforesaid, taking due precautions to avoid improper or unnecessary violence in executing such warrant. And all officers, civil and military, under the authority of the United States, are hereby required and enjoined to be obedient to such warrant. And in case any officer, civil or military, to whom such warrant shall be directed shall fail or unreasonably delay to execute the same, every officer so offending shall be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor, and shall be punished by fine and imprisonment before any court of the United States having cognizance of the offence: Provided, That the fine shall not exceed dollars, nor the imprisonment be longer than

years.

(Annals, 11th Cong., 2d sess., 482.)