Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1885-01-08


The Senate of the United States a few
days before it's late adjournment fol
the Christmas holidays took up and
AMI passed bill ITO provide for the
ascertainmsnt OF claims Of American
citizens for spoliations committed by
the French prior to the 3lst of July,
1901" The bill authorizes the Court
of Claims to examine these bills and
subjects the decision of that Court to
the subsequent action of Congress.
Thinking a brief synopsis of these
claims, with the Federal legislation
connected with them, it might interest
our people to read, some oil whom, we
have been informed, are pecuniarily
concerned in their settlement, we shall
now proceed with the subject, premis-
ing, that we are indebted to a New
York contemporary for the leading
facts in the case. The claims in ques-
ton have been pending for more than
eighty years and it is three-score years
since all the evidence sustaining them
was laid before Congress. Had not
our Government undertaken to collect
them, they would, doubtless, have
been paid by France more than half
century ago to the fathers and grand
fathers ofthose to whom they have been
bequeathed. Fully forty reports have
been made upon them in Congress
since, the year 1920, and not one was
aovsio9. 1tr~Copgress after Congress,
at one time the Senate and at another
the House, has passed the needed re-
lief bill, but on the only two occasions
when both branches concurred in pass.
ing it, the bill was vetoed. Thus it
turns out that the French spoliation
claims have remained to this day an
example Of the misfortune Of the pri-
vate citizen who has his individual
demands upon foreign country mixed
up with, and sacrificed to, the politi-
cal obligations and demands Of his own
Government. 1t is we'll known that
the claims in question are those Of
American shipowners and merchants,
whose vessels and cargoes were wrong
fully captured, detained, andin many
instances confscated during the clos
ing years of the last century by French
cruisers acting under the Orders of the
Directory, as the government Of France
was then called. Redress was duly
demanded, but the reply of France
came in the shape of counter claims,
arising out of the alleged violation OF
the United States of the treaties made
BY France with her about twenty years
before. In these treaties Of ITS, ne
gotiatedby Franklin, the United States
had agreed to aid French privateer-
ing, to guarantee to France her pos
sessions in America, and to grant GER
tain other privileges, Sin case of
rupture between France and Eng.
land" When this rupture came, the
stipulations were not kept, and, in
deed. were considered, on this eide of
the ocean, net to be binding. Never
tleless, France considered them to be
b nding, not only through the letter of
the compact, batin common gratitude.
In fact, so powerfully did she put the
plea Of treaty honor and international
obligation that in 1901 new conven- |
tion was signed by which each coun- |
try released the other from the obi |
cations asserted. That is, France |
gave the United States release from |
her counter-claim based on the treaties
OF l778, and in consideration thereof
the United States relieved France from
the pecuniary damages due to Aneri-
can citizens. Thus it is clear that our
Government took for public use GER
tain unsettled individual claims which
II had undertaken to collect, and with
them purchased its own release from
an alleged nstional liability. AT all
events. il bought with them an ami
cable settlement with people to whom
i bad been under great obligations
and who had felt aggrieved at what
b ID seemed national inpratitude.
Dur government, in short, being bound
% turn over TO the individual claim
ants the proceeds Of the international
!. t il was conducting. chose instead