tions, ever adopted the practice of inquiring into the previous history of public ships of war, which labored under the suspicion or allegation of having been fitted out in their ports in violation of their neutrality. In the cases of the Santissima Trinidad and the Cassius, the particulars of which were similar to those of the Georgia, Mr. Justice Story said," &c.

It is in that word "public," which we italicize (not Sir Roundell Palmer, nor the Times), that the disingenuousness and plea in avoidance, which we have referred to, consist. The Sans Culottes, &c., were privateers? So Sir Roundell Palmer intends to dispose of them by inquiring after "public ships of war." As if public ships of war of France or England would have been likely to be built in the United States, in 1793, when the Government was but four years old, and did not own a single ship of war, itself!

But is the Georgia, herself, a public ship of war, or only a privateer? Mr. Cobden put some searching suggestions on this point to the Attorney-General, when he quoted, in reply to him, that the Moniteur had made an official slip-down in calling the Florida "a privateer," and that Mr. Dayton and Mr. Seward had very justly argued thereon, that the declaration of the European Congress of 1856, in regard to abolishing privateering, became mere moonshine in view of the action of the Federal Government.

We will concede, however, for argument's sake, that the Georgia is a public ship. [A queer public Confederate ship, however, while sailing for the first two months of her piratical career under a British register!] But is the Attorney-General ignorant, that the American authorities, which he relies on, have expressly held that a privateer stands on the same footing as a regular ship of war, in the particular of being exempted from neutral interference and jurisdiction while in a neutral port? Has he forgotten, that the L'Invincible (1 Wheat. 238), a French privateer, brought into an American port, and libelled for a maritime tort, was expressly exempted from judicial procedure, on the score of being a national armed vessel? If he has happened to overlook this important landmark in American international jurisprudence, in the press of

call it to his notice.

his numerous and burdensome official engagements, we beg to Here is Mr. Justice Curtis's marginal abstract of the case: "The exclusive cognizance of prize questions belongs in general to the capturing power, and the courts of other countries will not undertake to redress alleged maritime torts committed by public-armed vessels in assertion of belligerent rights. This applies to privateers duly commissioned. But our courts of admiralty will take jurisdiction to inquire if the alleged wrongdoer is duly commissioned, or has, by the use of our territory to increase his force, trespassed on our neutral rights." We commend this last ruling to Sir Roundell's attention, in connection with another statement of his which we shall hereafter examine.

Our readers will excuse our quoting a few lines from the opinion of the court, delivered by Mr. Justice Johnson, with a view of clearing up this distinction between a privateer and a public ship: "It would be difficult to distinguish this case in principle from those of The Cassius (3 Dall. Rep. p. 121), and The Exchange (7 Cranch, p. 116), decided in this court. The only circumstance in which they differ, is, that in those cases the vessels were the property of the nation; in this, that it belongs to private adventurers. But the commission under which they acted was the same; the same sovereign power which could claim immunities in those cases, equally demands them in this; and although the privateer may be considered a volunteer in the war, it is not less a part of the efficient national force, set in action for the purpose of subduing an enemy."

This decision, we beg it to be noted, was an affirmance of the ruling of Mr. Justice Story in the Circuit Court below, and expresses, therefore, with repeated emphasis, his opinion, that a privateer enjoys the same degree of exemption from local jurisdiction, as a full commissioned ship of war; an opinion which the same eminent judge a third time reiterated, with the sanction of the whole court, in the case of The Santissima Trinidad, and with which it ought to be presumed, therefore, that Sir Roundell Palmer is by this time familiar.

But it so happens in regard to the '93 precedent, unfortu

nately for the Attorney-General's proposition, that one vessel at least of the proscribed French cruisers - the Little Democrat of historic fame, the same which Hamilton and Knox proposed to blow out of water with a land battery, if she undertook to leave the Delaware, in further prosecution of her attempted violation of American neutrality was in all senses a public ship of war. Here is the impudent note of the French minister of that day, Genet, to the American Government, fully proving it :

"The citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Republic, to Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State (1 Am. State Pap. 163).

"PHILADELPHIA, July 9, 1793.

"SIR,You required of me details relative to the brigantine La Petite Democrate, heretofore La Petite Sarah, at present armed and ready to go out of the Delaware. They are as follows: This vessel, Sir, of English property, armed by our enemies with four cannons and other arms, was taken by the Embuscade frigate, belonging to the Republic of France, and sent into Philadelphia. Her construction being elegant and solid, her bottom coppered, and a swift sailer, her masts and rigging being in a good condition, I have thought—on the report of the captain of the Embuscade and other enlightened marithat the acquisition of this vessel would be advantageous to the marine of the Republic; and this consideration, joined to the desire I had of finding employment for a great number of French marines, who were here, exposed to the dangers which often attend idleness, and to misery, determined me to take her on account of the State.

ners

"I have had her repaired. I have completed her armament with cannon which I found on board of four French vessels, and given the command of her to citizen Amiot, ensign of the Republic; and when ready, I shall despatch her with a commission of the Executive Council, and with my particular instructions. I shall confine myself, Sir, to represent to you these facts, which require no discussion on my part, and which cannot create any difficulty on that of your GovernWhen treaties speak, the agents of nations have but to obey. Accept, Sir, my esteem and respect,

ment.

"GENET."

We commend this precedent to the Attorney-General's no

tice on another point, where he says, "I can find no instance of any prohibition or exclusion from any port [of the United States] of any prize, after her conversion into a ship of war." Was not this Little Democrat a prize? Was she not converted into a ship of war? and was she not prohibited from the ports of the United States? As to her absolute exclusion from those ports, of course we need not explain to the Attorney-General, that it was physically impossible for the United States to keep her and her associate cruisers away from the bays and harbors of the Union, if they persisted in coming in at the risk of an infraction of the national peace. He knows, as well as we do, that the new formed Government had to rely on its State militia for the enforcement of any of its orders; and that, at that early day of its existence, it had not a soldier, nor a sailor,- much less, a ship of war, of its own, at command.

But we suspect that the Little Democrat was not the only one among the fleet of French cruisers which infested our waters in 1793-4, and which were repeatedly ordered off, that might in strictness rank under the head of public ships of war. Here is another note of Genet's, in which he expresses his disgust at American interference with what he calls a French "advice" (or mail) "boat," the Carmagnole or Columbia, which Gov. Clinton, of New York, had required him to dismantle. The reader will have remembered her name among the proscribed French cruisers of Secretary Knox's list. We give Gov. Clinton's letter, as prefatory (1 Am. State Pap. p. 186):

"Mr. Clinton, Governor of New York, to Mr. Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of France. "NEW YORK, Nov. 21, 1793.

"SIR, As by your letter of the 11th instant, I am informed that the vessel therein mentioned, now repairing at the wharf in the East River, is called the Carmagnole, and that she was fitted out as a privateer in the Delaware, I conceive it proper to transmit to you a copy of a letter, which I have since received from the Secretary of War, dated the 15th instant, in answer to one from me to the President of the United States, informing him of your having withdrawn the com

missions granted to certain privateers, fitted out in the ports of the United States, by which you will perceive it to be the sense of the President, that this vessel should be entirely divested of her warlike equipments, and which, from the readiness you are pleased to express to conform to the views of the Federal Government, I cannot doubt, will, on the receipt hereof, be complied with; and that, until this is effected, you will not permit her to leave the harbor.

"Citizen Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary from the French Republic, to General Clinton,

Governor of the State of New York.

"NEW YORK, Nov. 23, 1793,

2d Year of the French Republic.

“SIR, -I have received the letter which you did me the honor to write me, the 21st instant, as also the copy annexed to it of a letter from the Secretary of War.

"The fresh requisitions which have lately been transmitted to you, respecting the schooner Columbia, formerly called the Carmagnole, are only a continuation of the system which has been observed toward me, from the very commencement of my mission, and which evidently appears to be calculated to baffle my zeal, to fill me with disgust, and to provoke my country to measures dictated by a just resentment, which would accomplish the wishes of those whose politics tend only to disunite America from France, the more easily to deliver the former into the power of the English.

"Warned by this conjecture, which is unfortunately but too well founded, instead of proving to you as I could easily do, that the orders which have been given to you are contrary to our treaties, to the conduct of the Federal Government even toward the British nation (whose packets, and a great number of merchant vessels, I am well informed, have been permitted to arm for their defence in their ports), to the bonds of friendship which unite the people of both republics, and to their mutual interests, since the vessel in question is intended to serve as an advice boat in our correspondence with the French islands, which by our treaties you are bound to guaranty, and in whose fate your property is no less interested than ours, I will give orders to the consul and the French commodore of the road [harbor], to con