The Arkansas advocate., 1834-11-14
From tie Boston Patriot.
THE CLAIM ON FRANCE.

HE CLAIR JUN TRANCE.
 Honesty $ the best policy.-It Is well known, that the claim of our citizens on France for the spoliations of Napoleon on their commerce, has been followed up by every administration since the spoliaions were committed. Mir. Madison, Mir. Mon-
 roe, and MT. Adams, each pursued the subject with earnestness and vigor. Our successive ministers at Paris, MT. Barlow, Mir. Crawford, AIr. Gallatin, and Mr.
 Brown, acting under their instructions, pre- scented the subject on every proper ocea- Esion, and in every possible form, to the mo- tice of the French Government. Never was the subject more forcibly urged than by MT. Gallatn, acting under the direc- tions of Mr. Adams, then Secretary of State. When Mr. Clay came into the de- pertinent of State,. he transmitted Mr. Brown an instruction oa the subject, in which the whole question was discussed with a closeness and force, never exceeded, If ever equalled, in this negotiation. The French ministers repeatedly admitted, as a general principle, the soundness of the claim to indemnity and the sole alleged difficulties either related 10 certain classes of claims, or to the far amount, or to the counter claims, set up by the French Gov efnment, particularly their pretensions 0n- der the eighth article of the Louisiana Con- Yention.
 In this state of things, General Jackson came into office. and Mr. Rives was sent to France. There was tone in the Pres ident's first message, on this subject, in which wheedling and menace, neither Of them in the best taste nor very adroitly, were combined; but which luckily so far neutralized each other, that the state of the question probably remained unprejudieed. Mir. Rives, like his predecessors, pursued the subject with a creditable diligence; al- though, in comparison with them, he labor ed under the disadvantage of an imperfect knowledge of the French language, which Mir. Gallahn spoke as a native. and Mir. Brown, long a resident at New Orleans, with perfect fuency. So long as the old dynasty remained, MT. Rives got precisely what Mir. Brown and Mir. Gallatin had gotten before him, general admissions, vague promises, and fair words; and he got nothing more. The Revolution of July took place; General Lafayette became, for a time, the centre of an unbounded political influence, and under that i,agatence, yMr. Riues acas able to negotiate his coaueitioa. This is it's history in one line. We have no wish to detraet any thing from the praise justly due to Mir. Rives, as an industrious. skiful and jealous minister But 1t was the circumstance mentioned, and not his talents, which gave us the convention.
 No sooner was 1t ratified, than two things were done by the administration press, which have unfortunately, for the present, prevented the Convention from taking eff feet, and have adjourned, possibly to some far distant period, the indemnity so long delayed and SC justly due. For the sake of giving an unjust preference to Mir. Rives over his predecessors, the most unjust and exaggerated compliments were paid to his diplomatic prowess. He had brought the reluctant councils of France to terms he had obtained an amount equal to ssevery cent of just demands, phrase borrowed from one of Mir. Rives's own letters. as ungracious in tone as it IS unfounded in fact. There is not the least reason to sup pose that the five millions of dcllars would pay above fifty per cent, of the principal to say nothing of interest on these long defer- red claims.
 Language of this character went back to France, and produced its natural effect. The Chamber of Deputies and the people of France were disgusted, at the preten- sions of the American Administration press. They took us at cur word, that that their Ministry had been caioled or brow beaten, by Mir. Rives; and they very natur- ally concluded that if Mr. Rives admitted that he had got every cent" that he had probably got good deal more.
 But this was not the worst. The French are liberal people; not niggardly as to money, and too nagnanimous 10 cavil at a little yaporing Tn the newspapers and If