ions of the Supreme Court
delivered soon after that time.

We had certainly abrogated treaties with France, and our cruisers and
armed ships were roaming the seas capturing her vessels and property.

So, also, when it is asserted that the validity of these claims was
acknowledged in the treaty negotiations by the representatives of
France, their declarations to a contrary purport are exhibited.

And when it is alleged that the abandonment of these claims against
France was in consideration of great benefits to the Government, it is
as confidently alleged that they were in point of fact abandoned because
their enforcement was hopeless and that even if any benefit really
accrued to us by insistence upon their settlement in the course of
diplomatic negotiation such result gave no pretext for taxing the
Government with liability to the claimants.

Without noticing other considerations and contentions arising from the
alleged origin of these claims, a brief reference to their treatment in
the past and the development of their presentation may be useful and
pertinent.

It is, I believe, somewhat the fashion in interested quarters to speak
of the failure by the Government to pay these claims as such neglect
as amounts to repudiation and a denial of justice to citizens who have
suffered. Of course the original claimants have for years been beyond
the reach of relief; but as their descendants in each generation become
more numerous the volume of advocacy, importunity, and accusation
correspondingly increases. If injustice has been done in the refusal of
these claims, it began early in the present century and may be charged
against men then in public life more conversant than we can be with the
facts involved and whose honesty and sense of right ought to be secure
from suspicion.

As early as 1802 a committee of the House of Representatives reported
the facts connected with these claims, but apparently without
recommendation. No action was taken on the report. In 1803 a resolution
declaring that indemnity ought to be paid was negatived by a vote of the
same body. A favorable committee report was made in 1807, but it seems
that no legislative action resulted. In 1818 an adverse report was made
to the Senate, followed by the passage of a resolution declaring "that
the relief asked by the memorialists and petitioners ought not to be
granted." In 1822 and again in 1824 adverse committee reports on the
subject were made to the