I should not, from the success of this first experiment, be at all surprised to find her law of prize gain ground pari passu with the triumph of constitutional principles on the continent. France and England are arbiters of this part of Europe under existing circumstances. They abandon the North to the three other powers, but every thing on this side the Alps and the Rhine seems, for the present, to be given up to them, and to divide between themselves the land and the sea may be the most efficacious as the most simple means of perpetuating that good understanding by which they rule so absolutely.

To talk of the independence of these minor powers, under existing circumstances, is to be guilty of the grossest abuse of terms. I told M. Nothomb as much, and hinted darkly that the world might begin to ask what was gained for the dignity of human nature by establishing nations that, after all, could never be sui juris. He replied to this that he felt all the force of the remark, and knew what denunciations they must be prepared to meet with for this (as it appears to me) deplorable but inevitable subserviency. He mentioned to me some things which showed how much the subject of discussion, or rather of indignant reprobation, the exercising even of so much free will, as is implied in concluding a treaty so perfectly innocent, had been at London. Some member of the House of Commons, for instance, asked Lord Palmerston whether Holland, meaning Belgium, had not negotiated a treaty with the United States on principles inconsistent with the maritime pretensions of Great Britain. The blunder of this bungling politician enabled the secretary to get out of the difficulty by a simple negative; but, while he congratulated himself and the cause on the lucky escape, he seems to have given that government to understand how much displeased he was at having been exposed to the peril, and how necessary it was that they should save him, forever, from the recurrence of it. I must add, while on this topic, that the information, I mentioned that Sir Robert Adair had received, of what had been done at Washington, long before I had heard any thing about it, came, says M. Nothomb, through Mr. Bankhead, a fact which shews the necessity of greater discretion in our diplomatic affairs. M. Nothomb told me the minister would receive me on Monday, at 12, (I send a copy of the note in which he formally announced it afterwards,) and, in the meantime, begged me to consider how a request to prolong the term allowed for an exchange of ratifications would be received at Washington. replied that, in the very embarrassing situation of this country, if its ministry thought it consistent with what they owed to its rights and its honor to make that request,-especially considering the accidental delay in the transmission of their copy of the treaty,I was disposed to think, though I had no sort of author

I

ity for saying so, that the proposal might possibly be received with indulgence.

On Monday, I called at 12, according to appointment, and was received by General Goblet, who began by telling me, in a very positive manner, that they had determined to apply to you for a prolongation of the term. I replied that, if that were their determination, I had nothing more to say upon the subject,-my instructions being only to urge the immediate ratification; but I would take the liberty of stating, with great frankness, my views, as well as those I believed my government to entertain in relation to the several points in question,-beginning, as I had done with M. Nothomb, by drawing a wide distinction between the declining to negotiate any treaty at all, and the refusing to ratify one already concluded, in compliance with explicit instructions, and at the pressing instance of the very party so refusing, especially if there be ground to suspect that its conduct had been influenced by respect for a third power. Upon this being so broadly intimated, (for both M. Lebeau and M. Nothomb had confessed the fact of such influence having been attempted to be used, with all the naïveté in the world,) he assured me I was quite mistaken, that they had no idea of maintaining the legality of constructive blockades,-that their objections to the treaty were that it was, on the one hand, incomplete in some of its practical provisions, while, on the other, it dealt too profusely in vague generalities, which, being already a part of the common law, it was superfluous and even worse to insert into a convention of the kind, etc., etc. I saw that Gen. G., like a more wary diplomatist, was rather shocked at the unguarded confessions of his colleagues, and would fain remove the impression they might have made upon me. I thought it as well to let him have his way in that respect, while I proceeded to shew that, whatever he or I might think of a declaratory treaty, the matter of fact was that in all those, with hardly an exception, into which the United States have hitherto entered with other nations, precisely such articles as those so much censured in the one in question are to be found. I thereupon handed him a list of references to them as they are published in Elliot's Diplomatic Code, which I had previously sent to his office. To shew him the light in which you regarded, and had good reason to regard, their hesitation to ratify, I sent him a great part of your last letter to me on the subject, and especially the extract from his instructions which Baron Behr was so unguarded as to show to Mr. Livingston. I dwelt very much upon the disinterested conduct of the United States in this whole matter of maritime warfare, in which, although we might promise ourselves as rich a harvest of spoils as any other nation, and more than any but England, it had been our systematic and unceasing effort to abolish those barbarous

practices, which had been long ago exploded on land, and which were a reproach to so civilized an era. He seemed to think we should never succeed in persuading any great maritime power to adopt principles which would deprive it of its chief, if not only reward, the plunder of its adversaries; but promised I should hear from him before Friday, (day after to-morrow,) when I told him I should send off my dispatch, and wished to be able to communicate something precise and definitive to you. In the course of the evening I reflected much upon the whole subject, and, although still continuing to regard it as involving far more the interest and credit of this government than of my own, I came to the conclusion that it was too important an occasion (especially considering the obvious instrumentality of England in preventing the completion of an arrangement between two friendly States, to which not a single reasonable objection can be made) for mere verbal communications such as I had held with the several ministers. I therefore sat down and committed to writing the following remarks, which I transmitted to the department of foreign affairs this morning. (The two first paragraphs relate, as you will perceive, to other matters.)

Mr. Legaré to Gen. Goblet.

Legation of the United States of America,
BRUSSELS, 8TH OCT., 1833.

The undersigned, Chargé d'Affaires of the United States of America, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Gen. Goblet's letter of notification on resuming the duties of the Department of Foreign Affairs, and begs to assure him that the pleasure he has been so kind as to express at the renewal of their official relations is most sincerely reciprocated.

The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity to call the attention of Gen. Goblet to a note-relative to a claim of an American captain, whose ship was stranded in a recent gale on the coast near Ostend, to be exempted from duties for the articles saved from destruction and sold for the benefit of the owners-which was addressed by the undersigned to Count Felix de Mérode the day before Gen. Goblet's return to Brussels was announced in the newspapers. All the information possessed by the undersigned upon the subject having been communicated in that note and the accompanying documents, the undersigned craves leave to refer Gen. Goblet to them, and to request him, as a special favor to himself, to let him know the result of the application as soon as may be consistent with the forms of office and the nature of the case. The unfortunate claimant, who is living, out of employment, upon the little he has saved, does not feel at liberty to return to his country without being able to justify himself, should he, contrary to what he says is the law and the usage of Belgium, be compelled to pay the duties in question, by producing an express decision of the government to that effect.

The undersigned begs leave, also, to be permitted to say a few words on the interesting subject of the conversation he had the honor of holding yesterday with Gen. Goblet. Having since reflected much and seriously upon its importance, he feels it to be his duty, before this government has taken any irrevocable step in the matter, to submit, in writing, a very summary statement of his views in regard to it.

And, in the first place, he would remind Gen. Goblet of the manner in which the negotiation was invited by this government,-of the instructions given to its plenipotentiary,—and of the conduct of that minister in urging the consummation of a work, which it seemed to be the principal object of his mission to accomplish, by at once proposing a projet differing in no essential particular from the treaty finally agreed on, and (that the American government might understand that by rejecting any of its provisions it would be disappointing the expectations of a friendly State) by communicating to the Secretary of State an extract from the instructions of H. M's. then Minister of Foreign Affairs, so explicit as to leave no room for doubt but that the projet so offered was within their spirit and even their very letter. It is true that the right of declining to ratify was, as usual, reserved, but the undersigned trusts he will be excused for justifying, in anticipation, the impression which, he fears, will be made at Washington by the unexpected exercise of that right in the present instance, by citing a venerable authority to shew "that to refuse with honor to ratify what has been concluded on by virtue of a full power it is necessary that the sovereign should have strong and solid reasons, and that he should, especially, be able to prove that his minister has deviated from his instructions." Cases might easily be put in which such a refusal would be accompanied with irreparable harm to the other party, and would, therefore, amount to a flagrant violation of justice. That the case in question is not such a one does not in the least affect the right or the duty of the undersigned to enter a protest against the principles involved in it, and to assure General Goblet that should the proposal (which he yesterday declared his intention to make to the President through Baron Behr) to prolong the term limited for the exchange of ratifications be acceded to by the government of the United States, it will be a most striking proof of its moderation as well as of the lively interest which the American people feel in the welfare of a free State just admitted into the family of nations, and still struggling with the difficulties of a position not definitively ascertained.

The undersigned had the honor, in the conversation alluded to, to state the views of his government as to the two great principles of public law embodied in the treaty, about which alone there seems to be any hesitation on the part of this government. It is, therefore, unnecessary for him to do more, in the present communication, than barely to repeat the observation that, although both of them are equally demanded by the advanced civilization of the times, yet, as mere points of doctrine, they stand upon very different grounds. The principle that "free ships make free goods", may be still subject to controversy, although all the great powers of the European continent, so late as half a century ago, recognized and declared it to be a settled maxim of the law of nations; and the undersigned shewed, in his conversation with Gen. Goblet, by reference to a collection of the treaties heretofore entered into by the United States, that, with a solitary exception or two, this rule has been adopted in all of them. When, therefore, a proposal to the same effect was made by the Belgian envoy, in conformity with express instructions from his government, the President had the greater pleasure in complying, as he thought, with the wishes of the friendly power inviting the negotiation, because, in doing so, he was only conforming to the uniform practice of our country. But, with regard to the definition of blockade, the undersigned emphatically repeats what he had the honor of saying yesterday, that the American government considers the Law of Nations as perfectly clear on that point, and that, having already, in defence of the incontestable rights of neutrality, waged war with the greatest maritime power in the world, the undersigned is fully persuaded that it never will, be the sacrifice what it may, consent to

any arrangement by which its unalterable adherence to those principles may be, either directly or indirectly, drawn into question.

The undersigned felt it incumbent upon him, under the circumstances of a case which he considers as a very grave one, to submit this representation to the Minister, with a view, if not of altering his expressed determination, at least of preparing him for the impression which the announcement of it will probably make at Washington. He does not dissemble, at the same time, that he is sincerely desirous of seeing the matter brought to an amicable settlement, and has no doubt but that his government will do all it can do, without compromising its rights and its dignity, to make that settlement as agreeable as possible to His Majesty's government, convinced that, in doing so, it will be consulting the interests of Belgium at least as much as its own, and strengthening the claims of justice by the generosity of its conduct.

The undersigned begs Gen. Goblet to accept the assurance of his high consideration.

You will have remarked that I speak, in the preceding note, only of two points of public law. My reason for doing so was that no other had been mentioned in our conversations, but I have no doubt their objections go to what is agreed to in relation to contraband and the trade on the coasts or with the colonies of belligerents, as well as to those points, because England is just as jealous about her rule of 56 as about any other of her maritime pretensions, and to know what the Belgian government thinks, it seems, you must ask what Lord Palmerston would have to say in the House of Commons. I ought to add that Gen. Goblet mentioned we had failed in our attempt to insert these same provisions into our recent treaty with Russia. I was obliged to answer that I could not undertake to contradict, however I might doubt the accuracy of what he said, not having seen the treaty,-a notable example, permit me to remark, of a very great and prevailing defect in our diplomatic communications, which I have had more than one occasion to lament in my own experience.

To return to the treaty,-I have to remark, in conclusion, that deeply interested as I am in the success of a revolution which has unquestionably done much to shake the confidence of the autocrats who, trampling into the dust the far greater part of Europe, are still threatening the rest of it, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact, demonstrated by every thing I have seen and heard here in the last twelve-months, but especially by recent events, that it was brought about without the consent, or at least co-operation, of the classes that have the greatest influence in Belgium. The clergy might seem to be an exception, but really are not, for (as one of them, a member of the Chamber of Representatives, on my asking him what their agency in that event had been, remarked to me) they did not make, but having found it made they have hitherto preserved it. I have not time to illus