the French spoliations.' He gave a succinct statement of the leading facts, and the principles of law applicable to them, in so precise and lucid a way, that it seemed to me a termination of the argument by a judicial decision. It was apparent from his manner that he felt an interest in the circulation of his opinion, arising from deep conviction of its truth." Such a decision on the French claims, from such a source, is conclusive as to their validity. What is their amount? The bill now pending appropriates $5,000,000, or one fourth of the amount of the original claims; but they have been gradually reduced from claims for 2,279 vessels to claims for 898, valued at $ 12,676,380, by failures of proof, and awards under our treaties with other nations for French seizures in their ports. At simple interest, the sum $2,600,000, offered to France by our envoys for a relinquishment of her claims under the treaties of the Revolution, would exceed $ 13,500,000. The sum appropriated will probably cover half the face of the remaining claims, without interest. It cannot be urged that the claimants have lost their claims by delay. They began to file their memorials six weeks after the convention was promulgated, and have a venerable advocate at Washington, J. H. Causten, Esq., who has for forty-six years pressed their payment with indomitable courage and perseverance, and still feels confident of success, still predicts their early payment. What are the objections to this? The chief difficulty in the way of the claimants has been the reluctance of the country, often in seasons of difficulty and especially when the claims exceeded our revenue, to part with large sums of money. The objections urged are poor and untenable, and founded on misconception. It has been urged that the United States had terminated the treaties of the Revolution by the act of July 7, 1798, and that France had no claims to cede in September, 1800, as an equivalent for the assumption. But it requires either war or the action of both parties to treaties to end their obligations. The debtor cannot, either by evasion or a resolve not to pay, exonerate himself from his debt, and more especially can he not do it upon the pretence that he has been annoyed by the efforts made to collect it. There has been neither war nor release of the claimants to invalidate their demands,, there has been no omission to assert them, and the statute of limitation does not refer to such claims against the nation. Its Committee on Revolutionary Claims is still in being and regularly appointed. But there have been Presidential vetoes. Yes, and they do no honor to the intelligence of those who thereby delayed the steps of justice. Let us glance at the veto of James K. Polk of August 8, 1846. The reasons he assigns for his veto are in substance these: That the bill passed late in the session; that he has had little time to examine it; that the sum is large and the nation in debt; that the claims have been long before Congress, and if just would have been paid before. (Upon this theory the slave would never have obtained his freedom.) But he adds, that he doubts the justice of the claims. Should not his doubts have yielded to the deliberate action of the House and Senate? His chief objection seems to be that but half of the debt is to be paid, and that in scrip. This he considers injustice to the debtor, and decides to deprive him of the half because he cannot get the whole. Is not half the loaf better than nothing? The citizen of the United States who finds in our history such a protest of the chief magistrate against the payment of just debts, recognized by our first jurists and statesmen and by both branches of Congress, must blush for his President. Then comes the veto of Franklin Pierce, dated February 17, 1855, nine years later. And what says this Northern Democrat? First, he devotes three pages to a lame defence of his right to veto for inexpediency. He then suggests that the passage of the bill 66 common will inculpate those who have failed for fifty years to pass it. He thus backs up his exemplar, Mr. Polk; but did he forget that five times it had passed the Senate? and which are right, five senates and two houses, or Messrs. Polk and Pierce ? Then he urges that France, under the pressure of England, disregarded the rights of neutrals; that we, after making every effort to obtain redress, became involved in the war and extinguished our claims. Had Pierce forgotten or never read the letter of Talleyrand, in which he urges that France was interested to preserve her treaties and the young Republic, "that she never designed war, and the contrary supposition" (the supposition of Pierce) was an insult to sense"? Let us defer to Talleyrand, the great diplomatist. Pierce further urges that, as the treaties were abrogated by one party, neither party had claims to release under them; but were they abrogated by both? and if they were, still our claims did not rest on the treaties only, but were founded on the law of nations, and the claims of both accrued before the abrogation. Then he takes the position that the claims reserved under the convention which were confined to liquidated claims, which excluded captures and confiscations, did include all our claims. This assumption is untenable against the clear terms of the convention. No claims for "torts," which were the claims presented and discussed, were reserved under the convention, and this is clearly shown by acutal adjustments, for all such claims were rejected under the treaty of Louisiana, three years later. But Pierce says that, after the convention, Jefferson still called on . France for payment; and well he might, for she did not pay the liquidated debts she did recognize under the convention, until she realized the amount from the subsequent treaty of Louisiana. The whole protest of Pierce is an illogical argument, founded on a striking misapprehension of the facts of the case. But we have done with these puerile essays, these weak state papers, so much in contrast with the plain common sense which characterizes the messages of our Republican Presidents. It must be obvious to our readers, from this brief review of facts, that the nation has assumed these claims, that they are continuous, and that most of them spring from reprisals made by France or Frenchmen for our delays in fulfilling the stipulations of our treaties. The last of the sufferers by the French spoliations have gone to their narrow homes unrequited. Let us listen to the voice which comes to us from their graves. APPEAL TO THE NATION. Hearken to us, the founders of your navy and of your commerce. In the dark hours of the Revolution, when you had neither ships nor treasure, we launched our barks on the deep, fashioned our cannon from the guns we took at Saratoga,* and assailed the English on every sea. At the close of the war we held the British Channel against the best ships of England, raised the rate of insurance for crossing it to twenty per cent, and contributed largely to your freedom. When the war was over, we converted our letters-of-marque into merchantmen; opened your trade with the Baltic and the Mediterranean, with India and China; and we discovered the Columbia River, which gave you the Pacific. During the war you entered into treaties of alliance and commerce with your generous ally, France. She guaranteed your freedom; you guaranteed her possessions, you promised to give her free access to your ports, and to deny it to her foes. When war came and England seized those possessions and captured your ships, you run up the neutral flag, and to regain your ships gave English prizes free access to your ports, and excluded the French prizes. France, *When the captain of a Salem letter-of-marque taken by the English was asked where he got his cannon, he replied, "We cast them from patterns we found at Saratoga." incensed by these acts, made reprisals on us. You forbid us to arm and take letters-of-marque and defend our rights as we did in the Revolution, and offered to do again; you gave us no convoy and no protection against the ally you had offended. Our ships were swept from the deep; and when we appealed to you for redress, and France called on you to fulfil your treaties, the price of your freedom, instead of launching a fleet and recovering her islands, you "bartered our claims for hers," and thus appropriated our property for the state. For seventy years have we called on you for justice. Five times has your Senate approved our bill, twice has Congress allowed our claim. Twice have the poor steersmen you placed at the helm refused to take us into port, and now that our stormy voyage is over, we call upon you from the ground to do something for the widows and orphans and grandchildren whose heritage you detain. You have clothed them with the rights of your ancient ally; they still hold the bills you have dishonored. If you will grant them neither principal nor interest, grant them at least a moiety of their claims. If you have other debts, this is your oldest, the sacred debt of the Revolution, and should first be paid. E. H. Derby. DOROTHY IN THE GARRET. N the low-raftered garret, stooping IN Carefully over the creaking boards, Among its dusty and cobwebbed hoards: Or satchel hung on its nail, amid There is the ancient family chest, There the ancestral cards and hatchel; Of the chimney, where, with swifts and reel, She sees it back in the clean-swept kitchen, She sits, a child, by the open door, Her sisters are spinning all day long; To her wakening sense, the first sweet warning Of daylight come, is the cheerful song To the hum of the wheel, in the early morning. Benjie, the gentle, red-cheeked boy, On his way to school, peeps in at the gate; In neat, white pinafore, pleased and coy, She reaches a hand to her bashful mate; And under the elms, a prattling pair, Together they go, through glimmer and gloom :It all comes back to her, dreaming there In the low-raftered garret-room; The hum of the wheel, and the summer weather, Are all in her memory linked together; And now it is she herself that is spinning. With the bloom of youth on cheek and lip, Her father sits in his favorite place, Puffing his pipe by the chimney-side ; One by one, to the grave, to the bridal, It all comes back on her heart once more. His chair is placed; the old man tips The pitcher, and brings his choicest fruit; Benjie basks in the blaze, and sips, And tells his story, and joints his flute : But once with angry words they part: Ever with restless, wretched heart, She harks for a footstep at the door, Her fault? O Benjie! and could you steel In duty and love that lighten woe; To drive away the dull day's dreariness, Blessing the toil that blunts the pain Of a deeper grief in the body's weariness. Proud, and petted, and spoiled was she: In the great, gay city grows estranged: Now father and mother have long been dead, Walks up the long dim aisle alone. Years blur to a mist; and Dorothy Sits doubting betwixt the ghost she seems Bright young Dorothy, idolized daughter, That sets on a world of withered leaves ! Yet faithfulness in the humblest part And lifelong sorrow a breath on the pane. J. T. Trowbridge. |