The gentleman from Virginia had confined the complaints of the French Government to three articles of the British Treaty; though, if the committee referred to the letter of Mr. Delacroix, it would be found that they did not confine them within so narrow a compass. They complain, first, of the inexecution of treaties; there are several points of complaint relative to that head. 2d. Complaints against the decrees of our Federal Courts. 3d. Against the law of June, 1794; and, 4th. Against the Treaty with Great Britain. Yet the gentleman confines himself altogether to the latter. And really he did not expect at this time of day, after the subject had been fully discussed, and determined, and the objections refuted over and over again, that any gentleman would have endeavored to revive and prove their complaints on this head well founded. The three articles were: 1st, that free ships did not make free goods; 2d, the contraband article; and 3d, the provision article. 1. The stipulation with respect to neutral vessels not making neutral goods in the British Treaty, was not contrary to the law of nations; it only provided that the law of nations was to be carried into effect in the manner most convenient for the United States. But this doctrine, he said, was no new thing. It had been acknowledged most explicitly by Mr. Jefferson, Secretary of State, in July, 1793, and was so declared to the Minister of France; yet no objection was made to it until the British Treaty was ratified, though long previous thereto French property was captured on board our vessels. Mr. Jefferson, writing on this subject to the French Minister, said: "You have no shadow of complaint;" the thing was so perfectly clear and well understood by the law of nations. This happened as long ago as July or August, 1793. But two years afterwards, when the British Treaty was promulgated, the whole country was thrown into a flame by admitting this very same doctrine. France herself had always acted under this law of nations, when not restrained by treaty: in _Valin's_ Ordinances of France this clearly appears. The armed neutrality was confined to the then existing war; Russia herself, the creator of the armed neutrality, entered into a compact with England, in 1793, expressly contravening its principles. The principle was then not established by our Treaty with England; but such being the acknowledged law of nations, it was merely stipulated that it should be exercised in the manner least injurious to us.