instant, however, it appears that no discretion has been left to you, to pledge even his Majesty's promise of ratification, in the event of your being yourself satisfied with the explanations upon all the points desired; that the only promise you can give is conditional, and the condition a point upon which your government, when they prescribed it, could not but know it was impossible that the United States should comply; a condition incompatible with their independence, their neutrality, their justice, and their honour.

It was also a condition which his Catholic Majesty had not the shadow of a right to prescribe. The treaty had been signed by Mr. Onis with a full knowledge that no such engagement as that contemplated by it, would ever be acceded to by the American government, and after long and unwearied efforts to obtain it. The differences between the United States and Spain had no connection with the war between Spain and South America. The object of the treaty was to settle the boundaries, and adjust and provide for the claims between your nation and ours; and Spain at no time could have a right to require that any stipulation concerning the contest between her and her colonies should be connected with it. As his Catholic Majesty could not justly require it, during the negotiation of that treaty, still less could it afford a justification for withholding his promised ratification after it was concluded.

The proposal which, at a prior period, had been made by the government of the United States, to some of the principal powers of Europe, for a recognition, in concert, of the independence of Buenos Ayres, was founded, as I have observed to you, upon an opinion then and still entertained, that this recognition must, and would, at no very remote period, be made by Spain herself; that the joint acknowledgment by several of the principal powers of the world at the same time, might probably induce Spain the sooner to accede to that necessity, in which she must ultimately acquiesce, and would thereby hasten an event propitious to her own interests, by terminating a struggle in which she is wasting her strength and resources, without a possibility of success; an event ardently to be desired by every friend of humanity, afflicted by the continual horrors of a war, cruel and sanguinary almost beyond example; an event not only desirable to the unhappy people who are suffering the complicated distresses and calamities of this war, but to all the nations having relations of amity and commerce with them. This proposal, founded upon such motives, far from giving to Spain the right to claim of the United States an engagement not to recognise the South American governments, ought to have been considered by Spain as a proof at once of the moderation and discretion of the United States; as evidence of their disposition. to discard all selfish or exclusive views in the adoption of a measure which they deemed wise and just in itself, but most likely to prove efficacious, by a common adoption of it, in a spirit entirely pacific, in concert with other nations, rather than by a precipitate resort to it, on the part of the United States alone.

by a regularly cominissioned
captor, he acquires a title to
the captured property, which
can only be devested by recap-
ture, or by the sentence of a
competent tribunal of his own
country; and the property is
subject to forfeiture for a viola-
tion, by the captor, of the reve-
nue or other municipal laws of
the neutral country into which
the prize is carried. Id.

7. Speech of Mr. (now Chief Jus-
tice Marshall,) in Congress, in
the case of Thomas Nash alias
Jonathan Robbins. Appendix,
Note I.

See PIRACY.

PRIZE.

AGENT.

3

1. Where a chose in action is as-

signed by the proprietor, he

Note on the history of the disabili-

ties and rights of illegitimate
children in different ages and
countries. Note a,

262