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Subject Area: Political Theory

GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 2 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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GALLATIN TO J. Q. ADAMS.

No. 207.

Paris, 2d February, 1822.

Sir,—

Viscount Montmorency, in the conference I had with him on the 27th ult., alluded, but in a very mild manner, to the capture by the Alligator of the French vessels on the presumption that they were engaged in the slave-trade. He appeared satisfied with the explanation I gave as to the course pursued in the affair, that of bringing it before courts of justice, but expressed his regret that the captain had again sailed on a cruise.

I did not think proper to allude to a fact which had come to my knowledge, that the British ambassador had made a few days ago a remonstrance to this government with respect to one of the prizes of the Alligator, retaken by the crew and carried to Guadeloupe, whence she is said to have sailed again for Africa with the American crew on board, and to have brought back a cargo of slaves to Guadeloupe. The information indeed is said to have been obtained from yourself, and having nothing from you on the subject was a sufficient reason for not mentioning it. But I found that Viscount Montmorency felt some uneasiness on account of the charges brought generally by England against France for conniving at the slave-trade contrary to the obligations of their treaty. He asked me, and he said he did not put the question to me as to a minister, whether I thought that the trade was carried on to the extent stated in Great Britain, and whether, in my opinion, it was necessary, in order effectually to prevent that evil, to assent to the measure proposed by Great Britain, to allow the cruisers of either nation to capture vessels of the other engaged in that trade.

I answered to his first question that I believed the accounts to be exaggerated, that I could not think that sixty thousand Africans were still carried annually to America; but that I had no doubt that the trade was still carried on to a very great extent; that American vessels and capital were probably employed in it (which had been the true cause of the captures made by the Alligator), but in a much less degree than either the Spanish, Portuguese, or French, and that the sales were undoubtedly connived at in the colonies of France.

With respect to the second inquiry, I observed that no nation was more jealous than the United States were of the pretensions of Great Britain on the subject of maritime rights; and I took the opportunity of stating the nature and magnitude of the injuries we had sustained by the unwarranted seizure of our seamen on the high seas under the pretence of their being British subjects. The government of the United States had heretofore refused to accede to the proposal of Great Britain. Yet such was the anxious wish that that trade might be effectually stopped, that a committee of Congress had proposed that some measure similar to that proposed by England might be adopted. How far this might be the expression of a general feeling, or whether a practicable plan could be devised that should be consistent with national rights, it was not in my power to say. But I would acknowledge that unless something of that kind was done, and unless all the European governments united in forbidding and by every means in their power preventing the trade, it appeared impossible completely to suppress it.

If France felt disposed to make an arrangement with Great Britain on that subject, there was a point on which, since he had asked my opinion, I would beg leave to call his attention. The government of the United States had principally objected to the new principle that such cases, supposing the capture to be permitted, should be tried before a mixed tribunal. I believe that we never would agree that the property and, above all, the persons of our citizens should, for any presumed violation of our own laws, be tried by a foreign or mixed tribunal. This was repugnant to our Constitution, but not less so to the rights of every independent nation, inconsistent with the protection that every government owed to its citizens or subjects, and liable to numberless abuses. If any agreement, therefore, was made, it appeared to me indispensable that, exclusive of every other restriction, it should be made an express and absolute condition that the vessel and crew that might be captured should in every instance be sent to the country under whose flag they sailed or to which they belonged, and be exclusively tried by the tribunals of their own country. Viscount Montmorency appeared struck with those observations.

Although I have thought it my duty to communicate what passed on that occasion, I do not believe that there is at this time any disposition on the part of France to make an arrangement with Great Britain on that subject. I much doubt their being in earnest in suppressing the trade; and I am certain that the attempt to do it through the means of a convention with that country would be generally unpopular. For the treaty by which France has agreed to forbid that traffic has already the appearance of having been compulsory, and they are already sufficiently mortified by that circumstance, and by the repeated remonstrances which that treaty gave a right to the British government to make against the infractions of the law.

I have the honor, &c.