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Passed April 4,
1836.
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Resolution relative to claims of citizens of Maryland, and of other States for spoliations by France, before 30th September, 1800.
WHEREAS, the United States of America, by her convention with France, concluded on the 30th day of September, in the year 1800, pursuing a course of wise and urgent policy, which had the effect of maintaining the peace, and eminently promoting the prosperity of our country, stipulated for a discharge from the onerous article in the treaty with France, of the year seventeen hundred and seventy-eight, by which the United States become bound to guarantee to the crown of France her possessions in America, and also by that convention was released from all claims on the part of France or her subjects against the United States, but whereas the United States accomplished her exoneration from these momentous liabilities by surrendering all pretensions for indemnification claimable for American citizens, on account of illegal captures, seizures, and confiscations by France, before the 30th of September 1860, by which renunciation those sufferers were not only forever debarred the mediation of their own government, but lost all claim in every form against France for the wrongs inflicted upon them by that government; and whereas although it was the privilege of the United States thus to avail herself of the means which the grievances of her citizens afforded, to relieve the Union from a corresponding liability for indemnification, but, above all, from the treaty obligation referred to, which if continued would have entangled this country in all the wars to which France was a party, yet it became the consequent duty of tltc United States to assume the satisfaction of those claims
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