France, Holland,
and Prussia; and French goods found by the two latter nations in
American bottoms are not made prize of. It is our wish to establish it
with other nations. But this requires their consent also, is a work of
time, and in the mean while, they have a right to act on the general
principle, without giving to us or to France cause of complaint. Nor do
I see that France can lose by if on the whole. For though she loses
her goods when found in our vessels by the nations with whom we have no
treaties, yet she gains our goods, when found in the vessels of the same
and all other nations: and we believe the latter mass to be greater than
the former. It is to be lamented, indeed, that the general principle has
operated so cruelly in the dreadful calamity which has lately happened
in St. Domingo. The miserable fugitives, who, to save their lives, had
taken asylum in our vessels, with such valuable and portable things as
could be gathered in the moment out of the ashes of their houses and
wrecks of their fortunes, have been plundered of these remains by
the licensed sea-rovers of their enemies. This has swelled, on this
occasion, the disadvantages of the general principle, that 'an enemy's
goods are free prize in the vessels of a friend.' But it is one of those
deplorable and unforeseen calamities to which they expose themselves who
enter into a state of war, furnishing to us an awful lesson to avoid it
by justice and moderation, and not a cause or encouragement to expose
our own towns to the same burnings and butcheries, nor of complaint
because we do not.

6. In a case like the present, where the missionary of one government
construes differently from that to which he is sent, the treaties and
laws which are to form a common rule of action for both, it would be
unjust in either to claim an exclusive right of construction. Each
nation has an equal right to expound the meaning of their common rules;
and reason and usage have established, in such cases, a convenient and
well understood train of proceeding. It is the right and duty of the
foreign missionary to urge his own constructions, to support them with
reasons which may convince, and in terms of decency and respect which
may reconcile the government of the country to a concurrence. It is the
duty of that government to listen to his reasonings with attention and
candor, and to yield to them when just. But if it shall still appear to
them that reason and right are o