The plenipotentiaries on each side evinced a disposition to provide for reciprocal claims; but the claims specified by the American plenipotentiaries were those of “_citizens_ of either nation,” while those specified by the French plenipotentiaries were those which “either nation may make for _itself_ or for any of its citizens.”[181] In this difference of specification was the germ of the antagonism soon developed, especially when the American plenipotentiaries proposed to recognize the treaties and Consular Convention as existing only to July 7, 1798,[182] the date of the statute by which Congress undertook to annul them. This distinction seems to have been unnecessary, for the French spoliations were clearly as much in contravention of the Law of Nations as of the treaties. But it furnished the French plenipotentiaries opportunity of declaring, under date of May 6, 1800, that “the mission of the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the French Republic has pointed out to them the Treaties of Alliance, Friendship, and Commerce, and the Consular Convention, _as the only foundations of their negotiations_”; that “upon these acts has arisen the misunderstanding, and it seems proper that upon these acts union and friendship should be established.”[183] Thus were the treaties put forward by France; and our plenipotentiaries, writing to their own Government, May 17, 1800, represent her as persistent: “Our success is yet doubtful. The French think it hard to indemnify for violating engagements, _unless they can thereby be restored to the benefits of them_.”[184] But on this point our Government was inexorable. The return of the First Consul from Italy was signalized by fresh instructions to the French plenipotentiaries, who proceeded to declare, under date of August 11, 1800, that “the treaties which united France and the United States are not broken,” and that their first proposition is “to stipulate a full and entire recognition of the treaties, and the reciprocal engagement of compensation for damages resulting on both sides from their infraction.” Here, again, the “individual” claims of citizens of the United States were doomed to encounter the “national” claims of France. And this communication concluded with a formal proposition in these words: “Either the ancient treaties, with the privileges resulting from priority and the stipulation of reciprocal indemnities, or a new treaty, assuring equality without indemnity.”[185] Thus it stood: Claims and Counter-Claims.