By positive description the bill is made to cover claims for illegal captures and condemnations prior to July 31, 1801, the date of the final ratification of the Convention. But, by positive words of exclusion, it is provided that the bill shall not cover claims originally embraced in the Louisiana Convention of 1803, in the treaty with Spain of 22d February, 1819, or in the Convention with France of July 4, 1831; so that, in point of fact, the bill is carefully limited to those original claims which, after postponement by the second article of the Convention of 1800, were, at its final ratification, definitely renounced by the United States, in consideration of equivalent renunciations from France. CONCLUSION. The Committee have now finished the review which, in the discharge of public service, they were called to make. Approaching a much vexed question without prejudice, they have striven to consider it with candor, in the hope of ascertaining and exhibiting the requirements of duty. The conclusion they have adopted, in harmony with so many previous committees of both houses, and also with Congress itself, which has twice enacted a law for the satisfaction of these claims, is now submitted to the judgment of the Senate. How the Committee have reached this conclusion is seen by a final glance at the field that has been traversed. Putting aside the three preliminary objections to these claims,--(1.) that they are ancient and stale, (2.) that they have passed into the hands of speculators, and (3.) that they should be postponed on account of the present condition of public affairs,--the Committee have considered in order four principal topics: _First_, the claims of American citizens on France, as they appear in the history of the times; _secondly_, the counter-claims of France, as they, too, appear in the history of the times; _thirdly_, how the “individual” claims of American citizens were sacrificed to procure release of the “national” claims of France by a proceeding in the nature of set-off and mutual release; and, _fourthly_, how the United States, for a valuable consideration, assumed the obligations of France, so as to become completely responsible therefor. Not content with showing affirmatively the merits of the claimants, the Committee next examined all known objections to the asserted responsibility of the United States, establishing negatively: (1.) that the relations between France and the United States were at no time such as to constitute a state of war, invalidating the claims; (2.) that they were not embraced in the Convention for the purchase of Louisiana; (3.) that they were not embraced in the later Convention of 1831; (4.) that the alleged annulling of the French treaties by Act of Congress did not affect them; (5.) that the early efforts of our Government with France, for their satisfaction, furnish no ground of exemption from present liability; and (6.) that the claims, at the time of their abandonment,