e claims, proceed to examine somewhat
more closely the only grounds upon which they can by possibility be
maintained.

Before entering on this it may be proper to state distinctly certain
propositions which it is admitted on all hands are essential to prove
the obligations of the Government.

First. That at the date of the treaty of September 30, 1800, these
claims were valid and subsisting as against France.

Second. That they were released or extinguished by the United States in
that treaty and by the manner of its ratification.

Third. That they were so released or extinguished for a consideration
valuable to the Government, but in which the claimants had no more
interest than any other citizens.

The convention between the French Republic and the United States of
America signed at Paris on the 30th day of September, 1800, purports
in the preamble to be founded on the equal desire of the First Consul
(Napoleon Bonaparte) and the President of the United States to terminate
the differences which have arisen between the two States. It declares,
in the first place, that there shall be firm, inviolable, and universal
peace and a true and sincere friendship between the French Republic and
the United States. Next it proceeds, in the second, third, fourth, and
fifth articles, to make provision in sundry respects, having reference
to past differences and the transition from the state of war between the
two countries to that of general and permanent peace. Finally, in the
residue of the twenty-seventh article, it stipulates anew the conditions
of amity and intercourse, commercial and political, thereafter to exist,
and, of course, to be substituted in place of the previous conditions of
the treaties of alliance and of commerce and the consular convention,
which are thus tacitly but unequivocally recognized as no longer in
force, but in effect abrogated, either by the state of war or by the
political action of the two Republics.

Except in so far as the whole convention goes to establish the fact that
the previous treaties were admitted on both sides to be at an end, none
of the articles are directly material to the present question save the
following:

ART. II. The ministers plenipotentiary of the two parties not being able
to agree at present respecting the treaty of alliance of 6th February,
1778, the treaty of amity and commerce of the same date, and the
convention of 14th of November, 1788, nor upon the i