ignature of the convention of 1800, and the further
consideration of which was reserved for a more convenient time by the
second article of that convention, for these claims, and these only,
provision was made in the treaties of 1803, all other claims being
expressly excluded by them from their scope and purview.

It is not to be overlooked, though not necessary to the conclusion,
that by the convention between France and the United States of the
4th of July, 1831, complete provision was made for the liquidation,
discharge, and payment on both sides of all claims of citizens of either
against the other for unlawful seizures, captures, sequestrations, or
destructions of the vessels, cargoes, or other property, without any
limitation of time, so as in terms to run back to the date of the
last preceding settlement, at least to that of 1803, if not to the
commencement of our national relations with France.

This review of the successive treaties between France and the United
States has brought my mind to the undoubting conviction that while
the United States have in the most ample and the completest manner
discharged their duty toward such of their citizens as may have been at
any time aggrieved by acts of the French Government, so also France has
honorably discharged herself of all obligations in the premises toward
the United States. To concede what this bill assumes would be to impute
undeserved reproach both to France and to the United States.

I am, of course, aware that the bill proposes only to provide
indemnification for such valid claims of citizens of the United States
against France as shall not have been stipulated for and embraced in
any of the treaties enumerated. But in excluding all such claims it
excludes all, in fact, for which, during the negotiations, France could
be persuaded to agree that she was in any wise liable to the United
States or our citizens. What remains? And for what is five millions
appropriated? In view of what has been said there would seem to be no
ground on which to raise a liability of the United States, unless it be
the assumption that the United States are to be considered the insurer
and the guarantor of all claims, of whatever nature, which any
individual citizen may have against a foreign nation.

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

WASHINGTON, _March 3_, [_1855_.]

_To the House of Representatives_:

I return herewith to the House of Representatives, in which it
originated, the bill e