In the long period during which continual and
earnest appeals have been made to the equity and magnanimity of France
in behalf of these claims their justice has not been, as it could not
be, denied. It was hoped that the accession of a new Sovereign to the
throne would have afforded a favorable opportunity for presenting them
to the consideration of his Government. They have been presented and
urged hitherto without effect. The repeated and earnest representations
of our minister at the Court of France remain as yet even without an
answer. Were the demands of nations upon the justice of each other
susceptible of adjudication by the sentence of an impartial tribunal,
those to which I now refer would long since have been settled and
adequate indemnity would have been obtained. There are large amounts of
similar claims upon the Netherlands, Naples and Denmark. For those upon
Spain prior to 1819 indemnity was, after many years of patient
forbearance, obtained; and those upon Sweden have been lately
compromised by a private settlement, in which the claimants themselves
have acquiesced.
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