ble are the grounds
upon which this course is attempted to be justified.

On entering upon the duties of my station I found the United States an
unsuccessful applicant to the justice of France for the satisfaction of
claims the validity of which was never questionable, and has now been
most solemnly admitted by France herself. The antiquity of these claims,
their high justice, and the aggravating circumstances out of which they
arose are too familiar to the American people to require description.
It is sufficient to say that for a period of ten years and upward our
commerce was, with but little interruption, the subject of constant
aggressions on the part of France--aggressions the ordinary features of
which were condemnations of vessels and cargoes under arbitrary decrees,
adopted in contravention as well of the laws of nations as of treaty
stipulations, burnings on the high seas, and seizures and confiscations
under special imperial rescripts in the ports of other nations occupied
by the armies or under the control of France. Such it is now conceded
is the character of the wrongs we suffered--wrongs in many cases so
flagrant that even their authors never denied our right to reparation.
Of the extent of these injuries some conception may be formed from the
fact that after the burning of a large amount at sea and the necessary
deterioration in other cases by long detention the American property so
seized and sacrificed at forced sales, excluding what was adjudged to
privateers before or without condemnation, brought into the French
treasury upward of 24,000,000 francs, besides large custom-house duties.

The subject had already been an affair of twenty years' uninterrupted
negotiation, except for a short time when France was overwhelmed by
the military power of united Europe. During this period, whilst other
nations were extorting from her payment of their claims at the point of
the bayonet, the United States intermitted their demand for justice out
of respect to the oppressed condition of a gallant people to whom they
felt under obligations for fraternal assistance in their own days
of suffering and of peril. The bad effects of these protracted and
unavailing discussions, as well upon our relations with France as upon
our national character, were obvious, and the line of duty was to my
mind equally so. This was either to insist upon the adjustment of our
claims within a reasonable period or to abandon them altogether.