uise on our
coasts; a right not derived from our permission, but from the law of
nature. To render this more advantageous, France has secured to herself,
by a treaty with us, (as she has done also by a treaty with Great
Britain, in the event of a war with us or any other nation) two special
rights. 1. Admission for her prizes and privateers into our ports.
This, by the seventeenth and twenty-second articles, is secured to her
exclusively of her enemies, as is done for her in the like case by
Great Britain, were her present war with us instead of Great Britain.
2. Admission for her public vessels of war into our ports, in cases
of stress of weather, pirates, enemies, or other urgent necessity, to
refresh, victual, repair, &c. This is not exclusive. As then we are
bound by treaty to receive the public armed vessels of France, and
are not bound to exclude those of her enemies, the executive has never
denied the same right of asylum in our ports to the public armed vessels
of your nation. They, as well as the French, are free to come into them
in all cases of weather, piracies, enemies, or other urgent necessity,
and to refresh, victual, repair, &c. And so many are these urgent
necessities, to vessels far from their own ports, that we have thought
inquiries into the nature as well as the degree of the necessities,
which drive them hither, as endless as they would be fruitless, and
therefore have not made them. And the rather, because there is a third
right, secured to neither by treaty, but due to both on the principles
of hospitality between friendly nations, that of coming into our ports,
not under the pressure of urgent necessity, but whenever their comfort
or convenience induces them. On this ground, also, the two nations are
on a footing.

As it has never been conceived that either would detain their ships of
war in our ports when they were in a condition for action, we have never
conceived it necessary to prescribe any limits to the time of their
stay. Nor can it be viewed as an injury to either party, to let their
enemies lie still in our ports from year's end to year's end, if they
choose it. Thus, then, the public ships of war of both nations enjoy
a perfect equality in our ports; first, in cases of urgent necessity;
secondly, in cases of comfort or convenience; and thirdly, in the time
they choose to continue; and all a friendly power can ask from another
is, to extend to her the same indulgences which she extends