onvenient to the parties, a discussion which had already exhausted
negotiation, involved the two countries in a maritime war, and on which
the parties had approached no nearer to concurrence than they were when
the controversy began.

The obligations of the treaties of 1778 and the convention of 1788 were
mutual, and estimated to be equal. But however onerous they may have
been to the United States, they had been abrogated, and were not revived
by the convention of 1800, but expressly spoken of as suspended until an
event which could only occur by the pleasure of the United States. It
seems clear, then, that the United States were relieved of no obligation
to France by the retrenchment of the second article of the convention,
and if thereby France was relieved of any valid claims against her the
United States received no consideration in return, and that if private
property was taken by the United States from their own citizens it was
not for public use. But it is here proper to inquire whether the United
States did relieve France from valid claims against her on the part of
citizens of the United States, and did thus deprive them of their
property.

The complaints and counter complaints of the two Governments had been
that treaties were violated and that both public and individual rights
and interests had been sacrificed. The correspondence of our ministers
engaged in negotiations, both before and after the convention of 1800,
sufficiently proves how hopeless was the effort to obtain full indemnity
from France for injuries inflicted on our commerce from 1793 to 1800,
unless it should be by an account in which the rival pretensions of the
two Governments should each be acknowledged and the balance struck
between them.

It is supposable, and may be inferred from the contemporaneous history
as probable, that had the United States agreed in 1800 to revive the
treaties of 1778 and 1788 with the construction which France had placed
upon them, that the latter Government would, on the other hand, have
agreed to make indemnity for those spoliations which were committed
under the pretext that the United States were faithless to the
obligations of the alliance between the two countries.

Hence the conclusion that the United States did not sacrifice private
rights or property to get rid of public obligations, but only refused to
reassume public obligations for the purpose of obtaining the recognition
of the claims of American