the products of those prizes.”[128] So extensively did this brutality prevail, that it was announced that American vessels “no longer entered the French ports, _unless carried in by force_.”[129] This spirit of hostility broke forth in another edict of the Directory, which became at once a universal scourge to American commerce. This fulmination, bearing date March 2, 1797, after enlarging the list of contraband, and ordaining other measures of rigor, proceeds to declare all American vessels lawful prize, if found without a _rôle d’équipage_, or _circumstantial list_ of the crew:[130] all of which was in violation of existing treaties, and also of American usage, which notoriously did not require, among a ship’s papers, any such list. No edict was so comprehensive in its sweep; for, as all our vessels were without this safeguard, they were all defenceless. Numberless spoliations ensued, so absolutely lawless and unjust that John Marshall did not hesitate to record of them in his journal, under date of December 17, 1797, “The claims of the American citizens for property captured and condemned for want of a _rôle d’équipage_” constituted “_as complete a right as any individuals ever possessed_.”[131] This right, thus complete, according to the judgment of our great authority, enters into a large part of the claims still pending before Congress. As if to perfect this strange, eventful history, a third edict, at once inhospitable and unjust, was launched by the Directory, January 18, 1798, prohibiting “every foreign vessel which in the course of her voyage shall have entered into an English port from being admitted into a port of the French Republic, except in case of necessity,” and, still further, handing over to condemnation “every vessel found at sea loaded in whole or in part with merchandise the production of England or of her possessions.”[132] This edict was promptly denounced by the American plenipotentiaries newly arrived at Paris. In earnest, vigorous tones, they said that it invaded at the same time the interests and the independence of neutral powers,--_that it took from them the profits of an honest and lawful industry_, as well as the inestimable privilege of conducting their own affairs as their own judgment might direct,--and that acquiescence in it would establish a precedent for national degradation, authorizing any measures power might be disposed to practise.[133] Our plenipotentiaries depicted the spirit in which French spoliations had their origin, and the humiliating consequences of submission to the outrage; but the personal sufferers are, down to this day, without redress.