Such was the contemporary conclusion of our minister at Paris, Mr. Livingston, who, in his letter to the French Government of April 17, 1802, said: “The fifth article expressly stipulates that _all debts_ due by either Government to the individuals of the other shall be paid. But as this would also have included _the indemnities for captures and condemnations previously made_, and it was the intention of the contracting parties, by the second article, to preclude this payment, as depending on a future negotiation, _it was necessary to except from this promise of payment all that made the subject of the second article_: … as to the payment of indemnities for embargoes in consequence of the cargoes being put in requisition, or with a view to any other political measure which carried with it nothing hostile to the United States, no controversy ever arose between the plenipotentiaries of the two nations.”[236] Surely this objection may be dismissed. III.--THESE CLAIMS NOT EMBRACED IN THE CONVENTION OF 1831 WITH FRANCE. Another objection has been started, kindred to the last, also in kindred ignorance. It is said that these claims were embraced in the later Convention of 1831 with France, under Louis Philippe. No mistake can be greater. That Convention opens with these words: “The French Government, _in order to liberate itself completely from all the reclamations preferred against it by citizens of the United States_ for unlawful seizures, captures, sequestrations, confiscations, or destructions of their vessels, cargoes, or other property, engages to pay a sum of twenty-five millions of francs to the Government of the United States, who shall distribute it _among those entitled_, in the manner and according to the rules which it shall determine.”[237]