behalf, now that, by the action of their own Government, they must look to their country. It is sometimes said in sarcasm that it is easy to be generous at the expense of another; but in this case, now that the responsibility has been transferred to our own country, it is not a question of generosity, but of debt. The property of these claimants is actually in the hands of our Government, like assets paid over and deposited “for whomsoever it may concern,”--or, to use a more pungent illustration, like certain property to which there can be no valid title against the original owner. Stolen goods may be followed wherever found. But the vessels of these claimants were stolen by France, and at last are found in the hands of our own Government. Will the Government hold them against the real owners? For nearly ten years it denounced the conduct of France. How, then, can it profit by this conduct at the expense of its own citizens? If the receiver is as bad as the original offender, how can the Government expect to escape the indignant condemnation it fastened upon France? Least of all, how can any early persistency to recover this property excuse its detention now? VI.--THESE CLAIMS NEVER DESPERATE, SO AS TO BE OF NO VALUE. Kindred to the last objection is the assertion that the claims were intrinsically desperate, so as to be of no value,--an objection as humiliating as false. It is humiliating, because it assumes that claims solemnly declared just, both by the executive and legislative branches,--the former by successive acts of diplomacy, and the latter by successive Acts of Congress,--were of “no value.” If this were true, then was our Government, when it sued these claims, guilty of national _barratry_, for which it would deserve to be thrown over the bar of nations. It was a stirrer of false suits. Such an imputation is an impeachment of the national character. But it is false. The claims were never “desperate,” except so far as they were doomed to meet the counter-claims of France. On the contrary, they were intrinsically just, and their justice was often admitted even by France, who advanced against them her own pretensions under the treaties. And when the set-off and mutual release occurred, their validity was solemnly recognized; nay, more, they were paid to the United States. Such is the inconsistency of objectors, insisting that claims thus recognized and paid were so far “desperate” as to be of “no value,” when they were of sufficient value to form the sole consideration of release from immeasurable national obligations. If you would find a measure of value for the American claims, you must look to the counter-claims of France, not forgetting that all the vehemence with which these were sustained testifies unmistakably to our claims.