The third and fourth articles of the treaty of amity and commerce between France and the United States subject the vessels of each nation to pay in the ports of the other only such duties as are paid by the most favored nation, and give them reciprocally all the privileges and exemptions in navigation and commerce which are given by either to the most favored nations. Had the contracting parties stopped here, they would have been free to raise or lower their tonnage as they should find it expedient, only taking care to keep the other on the footing of the most favored nation. The question, then, is whether the fifth article cited in the note is anything more than an application of the principle comprised in the third and fourth to a particular object, or whether it is an additional stipulation of something not so comprised. I. That it is merely an application of a principle comprised in the preceding articles is declared by the express words of the article, to wit: "_Dans l'exemption ci-dessus est nommément compris_," etc., "_in the above exemption is particularly comprised_, the imposition of 100 sols per ton established in France on foreign vessels." Here, then, is at once an express declaration that the exemption from the duty of 100 sols is _comprised_ in the third and fourth articles; that is to say, it was one of the exemptions enjoyed by the most favored nations, and as such extended to us by those articles. If the exemption spoken of in this first member of the fifth article was _comprised_ in the third and fourth articles, as is expressly declared, then the reservation by France out of that exemption (which makes the second member of the same article) _was also comprised_; that is to say, if _the whole_ was comprised, _the part_ was comprised. And if this reservation of France in the second member was comprised in the third and fourth articles, then the counter reservation by the United States (which constitutes the third and last member of the same article) was also comprised, because it is but a corresponding portion of a similar whole on our part, which had been comprised by the same terms with theirs. In short, the whole article relates to a particular duty of 100 sols, laid by some antecedent law of France on the vessels of foreign nations, relinquished as to the most favored, and consequently to us. It is not a new and additional stipulation, then, but a declared application of the stipulations comprised in the preceding articles to a particular case by way of greater caution.