ssels in the ports of
the United States, has had the same under his consideration, and
thereupon makes the following report to the President of the United
States:

The charge d'affaires of France, by a note of the 13th of December,
represents, by order of his Court, that they consider so much of the
acts of Congress of July 20, 1789 and 1790, as imposes an extraordinary
tonnage on foreign vessels without excepting those of France, to be in
contravention of the fifth article of the treaty of amity and commerce
between the two nations; that this would have authorized on their
part a proportional modification in the favors granted to the American
navigation, but that his Sovereign had thought it more conformable to
his principles of friendship and attachment to the United States to
order him to make representations thereon, and to ask in favor of French
vessels a modification of the acts which impose an extraordinary tonnage
on foreign vessels.

The Secretary of State, in giving in this paper to the President of the
United States, thinks it his duty to accompany it with the following
observations:

The third and fourth articles of the treaty of amity and commerce
between France and the United States subject the vessels of each nation
to pay in the ports of the other only such duties as are paid by the
most favored nation, and give them reciprocally all the privileges and
exemptions in navigation and commerce which are given by either to the
most favored nations. Had the contracting parties stopped here, they
would have been free to raise or lower their tonnage as they should find
it expedient, only taking care to keep the other on the footing of the
most favored nation. The question, then, is whether the fifth article
cited in the note is anything more than an application of the principle
comprised in the third and fourth to a particular object, or whether it
is an additional stipulation of something not so comprised.

I. That it is merely an application of a principle comprised in the
preceding articles is declared by the express words of the article, to
wit: "_Dans l'exemption ci-dessus est nommement compris_," etc., "_in
the above exemption is particularly comprised_, the imposition of 100
sols per ton established in France on foreign vessels." Here, then, is
at once an express declaration that the exemption from the duty of 100
sols is _comprised_ in the third and fourth articles; that is to say,
it was one of the