Besides the obligations of “guaranty,” were other engagements with regard to French armed ships in our ports which had proved most onerous. Here, also, was alleged failure on our part; and there was the prospect of infinite embarrassment, if not of open war, unless these obligations were cancelled. To keep them would cause collision with England; not to keep them would cause collision with France. Our plenipotentiaries offered, in the negotiation of 1800, three millions of francs for release from these obligations.[253] This moderate offer was rejected also. France continued stubborn, insisting upon the ancient treaties, with all consequent indemnities. At last, by the propositions of the 4th of September, 1800, already exhibited by your Committee, a measure of value was affixed to our engagements and liabilities. France undertook to release us from all these on condition that we would pay the indemnities due to our citizens, thus treating claims and counter-claims as equivalent in value. It was required positively that “the indemnities which shall be due by France to the citizens of the United States _shall be paid for by the United States_.”[254] In consideration of release from the treaties, the United States were to assume the obligations of France to American claimants. How this proposition, rejected at first, eventually prevailed in the Convention and its successive amendments has been already explained. It is mentioned now only to show the value of these engagements and liabilities. ACTUAL LOSSES TO CLAIMANTS. The practical question remains, as to the actual losses of the claimants. Here the evidence is precise and full. Our own Government, when pressing these claims upon France, gave an official estimate of their value. On one occasion it put them above fifteen million dollars.[255] Afterward it put them at twenty million dollars. The latter estimate is found in a report from the Secretary of State to Congress, under date of January 18, 1799, where it speaks of “unjust and cruel depredations on American commerce, which have brought distress on multitudes and ruin on many of our citizens, and occasioned _a total loss of property to the United States of probably more than twenty millions of dollars_.”[256] Inquiry into the losses confirms this statement. From evidence presented to committees in former years, and now belonging to history, it has been estimated that there were _eight hundred and ninety-eight vessels_ included in the claims released to France.[257] The American vessels despoiled by France between 1792, the outbreak of the European war, and July 31, 1801, when the Convention of 1800, with its proviso, was ratified by Napoleon Bonaparte, have been reckoned at two thousand two hundred and ninety, embracing as follows: first, vessels captured by the French; secondly, vessels captured by the French and Spaniards conjointly; thirdly, vessels detained by embargo at Bordeaux. The following list shows how the account stands.