n, as they are offered to all the world, and that
it would only be where these are equivocal, that explanations might be
adduced from other circumstances. He considered the naked words of the
article, and delivered to me as his opinion, that, according to these,
the first paragraph, 'The Consuls and Vice-Consuls, &c. as the natives
are,' subjected all their property, in whatever form and under whatever
circumstances it existed, to the same duties and taxes to which the
property of other individuals is liable, and exempts them only from
_taxes on their persons_, as poll-taxes, head-rates for the poor, for
town-charges, &c.; and that the second paragraph, 'Those of the said
Consuls, he or other merchants,' subjected such of them as exercised
commerce, even to the same personal taxes as other merchants are: that
the second paragraph is an abridgment of the first, not an enlargement
of it; and that the exemption of those, not merchants, which seemed
implied in the words of the second paragraph, could not be admitted
against the contrary meaning, directly and unequivocally expressed in
the first.

Such, Sir, was his opinion, and it is exactly conformable to what the
negotiators had in view in forming this article. I have turned to
the papers which passed on that occasion, and I find that the first
paragraph was proposed in the first project given in by myself, by
which the distinction between taxes on their property and taxes on their
persons, is clearly enounced, and was agreed to: but as our merchants
exercising commerce in France, would have enjoyed a much greater
benefit from the personal exemption, than those of France do here, M. de
Reyneval, in his first counter-project, inserted the second paragraph,
to which I agreed. So that the object was, in the first paragraph, to
put Consuls, not being merchants, on the same footing with citizens, not
being merchants; and in the second, to put Consuls, merchants, on the
same footing with citzens, merchants.

This, Sir, we suppose to be the sense of the convention, which has
become a part of the law of the land, and the law, you know, in this
country, is not under the control of the executive, either in its
meaning or course. We must reserve, therefore, for more favorable
occasions, our dispositions to render the situation of the Consuls of
his Majesty as easy as possible, by indulgences, depending more on
us; and of proving the sentiments of esteem and attachment to yourself