How it can be said, that these passports contravene the resolutions of Congress for confiscating British manufactures within the United States, I am at a loss to conceive, and shall be, unless it can be proved, that tobacco is a British manufacture. For I cannot suppose, that it is intended to confiscate that property, which, having been secured by the capitulation, is under the protection of the law of nations, which law must always be taken notice of and respected by the municipal law of every civilized country. As to the laws of Virginia, which may be contravened by it, I cannot speak decidedly, but I have a pretty strong reason to doubt the truth of this assertion, and it will presently be assigned. But of all things in the world the most ridiculous is the assertion, that this would give cause of complaint to the King of France. There is something of the same kind in the resolutions of the Delegates, which I will now consider; observing beforehand, that the objection would come rather unfortunately, should it be made by men, whose zeal for the honor and interest of his Most Christian Majesty has never shown itself, except in the present moment, and then by exciting discord among his allies. The resolutions, being the act of a respectable body, are deserving of respect, and shall meet with it from me. But I must take the liberty to differ from them in some of their positions. It is resolved first, that allowing the capitulants to export tobacco is not _warranted_ by the capitulation. Much of what follows depends on the equivocal sense of the word _warranted_. If by that word is meant enjoined, or directed, the position is just, but if the idea to be conveyed is, that such exportation is not _permitted_, then the position is untrue. The exportation is very clearly permitted by the capitulation, because the capitulation does not prohibit it, nor indeed say anything about it. But in a day or two after the capitulation an agreement was made for the purchase of goods payable in tobacco, which is now sanctioned by the Delegates in the last of their resolutions. Clearly, therefore, the exportation of tobacco in payment for British goods, is (in the judgment of the Delegates) _permitted_ by the capitulation. The second resolution seems to go upon a mistake. The Acts of Congress for confiscating British manufactures, as I have already observed in another place, cannot, I should imagine, be contrary to the laws of the Commonwealth, or else it would not have been permitted in another instance, for the Delegates cannot be supposed to intend a breach of the law, and still less can they be supposed to mean, that it was lawful for the general and the State Agent to do what it is not lawful for the United States in Congress to do.