In 1792-93, when war broke out between France and Great Britain, the former claimed privileges in American ports which our Government did not admit as deducible from the treaties of 1778, and which it was held were in conflict with obligations to the other belligerent powers. The liberal principle of one of the treaties referred to--that free ships make free goods, and that subsistence and supplies were not contraband of war unless destined to a blockaded port--was found, in a commercial view, to operate disadvantageously to France as compared with her enemy, Great Britain, the latter asserting, under the law of nations, the right to capture as contraband supplies when bound for an enemy's port. Induced mainly, it is believed, by these considerations, the Government of France decreed on the 9th of May, 1793, the first year of the war, that "the French people are no longer permitted to fulfill toward the neutral powers in general the vows they have so often manifested, and which they constantly make for the full and entire liberty of commerce and navigation," and, as a counter measure to the course of Great Britain, authorized the seizure of neutral vessels bound to an enemy's port in like manner as that was done by her great maritime rival. This decree was made to act retrospectively, and to continue until the enemies of France should desist from depredations on the neutral vessels bound to the ports of France. Then followed the embargo, by which our vessels were detained in Bordeaux; the seizure of British goods on board of our ships, and of the property of American citizens under the pretense that it belonged to English subjects, and the imprisonment of American citizens captured on the high seas.