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been their relation toward other powers. On the announcement of this declaration Mr. Sitgreaves withdrew from the board. Mr. Fitzsimous continued his attendance during the day, but on the following day, did not return. On the 19th of July the two American commissioners addressed to Messrs. Macdonald, Rich, and Guillemard a brief communication, stating that on a review of what had occurred at the meetings and in the proceedings of the board, partly on a recent occasion, it was improper for them, under the existing circumstances, to give their further attendance. They promised in a future communication more fully to explain the motives upon which this determination had been taken.

On the 20th of July the three commissioners Final Meeting and to whom the above communication was adRupture. 1 dressed made a reply, deprecating the withdrawal of the American commissioners, and adverting to the fact that Mr. Macdonald had lately given notice in the board of an intended motion in relation to an alleged improper publication of certain papers touching the case of Bishop Inglis. The American commissioners answered on the 22d of July, saying that the publication referred to was made in the first instance by the general agent for the claimant, and stated that they were willing to meet the board for the discussion of that subject, as well as for the additional purpose of concluding an award in another case, that of Hanbury. On the 23d of July Messrs. Macdonald, Rich, and Guillemard answered the American commissioners, charging the American agent with the publication in the Inglis case, and concluding as follows: "And now, gentlemen, we have only to say that, after what has passed on this and other occasions, you can not but perceive from the amicable tone and object of our correspondence and the suggestion which we have now in particular submitted to you, how little we suffer ourselves to be actuated by personal or national feelings against the straightforward course of our duty. We have but one object, and with that object we suffer no inferior considerations to interfere." An arrangement was made for the meeting of the commissioners on the 31st of July to consider the controversy respecting the publication in the case of Bishop Inglis, but, as might have been

1 Messrs. Fitzsimons and Sitgreaves to Messrs. Macdonald, Rich, and Guillemard, September 2, 1799. (MSS. Dept. of State.)

anticipated from the character of the subject which they met to discuss, the bitterness of feeling was only intensified, and the sessions of the board were not resumed. On the 2d of September 1799 the American commissioners transmitted to Messrs. Macdonald, Rich, and Guillemard the promised explanation of the causes of their abstaining from attendance. This explanation was acknowledged by the three commissioners to whom it was addressed in a letter bearing date the 4th of September 1799, beginning as follows: "We had yesterday the honor of receiving your letter of 55 pages, dated the 2d instant," etc. On the 30th of the same month they addressed to the American commissioners a still further reply, beginning as follows: "Gentlemen, your suspension of our official business, having left us at leisure for inferior occupations, we have again perused your long letter of the 2d instant." These letters were both undoubtedly drawn by Mr. Macdonald, and were largely devoted to the vindication of his personal conduct at the board. In a similar vein Mr. Rich, in announcing his intention to return to England, in consequence of the conduct of the American commissioners, in a letter to his colleagues, said: "From the unceasing labor of Mr. Macdonald and the energetic exercise of his superior talents, the steady and warm support of the fifth commissioner, and the aid which my feeble talents allowed me to give, from the perfect harmony that subsisted between us resulting from habits of daily communication and mutual confidence, the great business we were charged with might have advanced near to its conclusion had the other gentlemen been actuated to an equal degree by motives of honour, candour, and impartiality."

On the 4th of September 1799 Mr. PickerPickering's Expla- ing announced to Mr. King the dissolution of nations. the board, and, observing that there was no probability that the business could ever be accomplished by the present members, said: "Independently of the opinions strongly expressed, which it would not be easy to retract, there appears to be an incompatibility of temper; if I am rightly informed, it would be difficult for any set of American commissioners to act harmoniously with Mr. Macdonald unless they possessed such meek and yielding dispositions as to submit implicity to his dogmas. Such meekness is in his colleagues, Mr. Rich and Mr. Guillemard; who though they

appear, and I verily believe them to be, worthy men, have not in a single instance dissented from Mr. Macdonald or started an objection to anything he has advanced; so that it would be perfectly equal, as to the final issue of their proceedings, whether they continued members of the board, or that Mr. Macdonald were authorized on every question to give three votes. It has even appeared, as I have been informed, that Mr. Guillemard, who, as an umpire should have kept himself aloof, and formed his opinions upon discussions before the board, has been so little aware of what propriety and dignity imposed on him as a duty, that he has entered into the private deliberations of the two British commissioners, and come to the board with all the decisive prepossessions which such private, partial consultations were calculated to produce. If I am rightly informed, Mr. Macdonald is not only thus predominant, but that, towards the American commissioners he has been in the highest degree overbearing and arrogant, and not very delicate towards our country."

Action of Lord
Grenville.

Lord Grenville readily admitted that in his opinion the British commissioners had pushed their construction of the treaty too far in the case of Bishop Inglis. There was not, he thought, sufficient evidence that the claimant could not have recovered his debts in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. On the other hand, he declared that the action of the American commissioners would in great measure, if not wholly, defeat the ends of the treaty. Early in the proceedings of the commission at London, under Article VII. of the treaty, the British commissioners had asserted the right to withdraw to prevent the decision of cases which they did not consider to be within the jurisdiction of the board; but Lord Chancellor Loughborough, to whom the question was referred, overruled them, and they continued to give their attendance. Lord Grenville therefore protested against the course of the American commissioners at Philadelphia, and directed the British commissioners in London to suspend proceedings under Article VII. until the difficulty under Article VI. should be settled; and he directed the British minister at Philadelphia to endeavor to conclude an agreement on the subject.2

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 383. See, also, Mr. Pickering to Mr. King, October 4, 1799, Id. 384.

Am. State Papers, For. Rel. I. 51; II. 390, 391.

New Convention
Proposed.

On the 31st of December 1799 Mr. Pickering sent full instructions to Mr. King for the purpose of proposing a new convention in explanation and execution of Article VI.; and, among the principles on which such a convention should be framed, he specified the rule that it must appear that by the operation of lawful impediments the claimant had sustained a loss which he could not "at the time of the exhibition of his claim" recover in the ordinary course of judicial proceedings. He also informed Mr. King that it had been deemed expedient to send Mr. Sitgreaves to London to facilitate the conclusion of the negotiations.1

Early in April 1800 Mr. King presented to Lord Grenville a draft of a convention drawn in conformity with his instructions.2

Protest of Lord
Grenville.

Lord Grenville had little hope of the two governments ever agreeing on a construction of the article, and continued to protest against the secession of the American commissioners. Referring to the suspension of the board at Philadelphia, he said it happened that, in choosing a commissioner by lot, the lot under Article VI. fell on a British subject, while that under Article VII. fell on a citizen of the United States. In the course of their proceedings the majorities of both commissions formed. their decisions on principles adverse to the opinions of the government against which the claims were preferred. "The awards of the commission under the seventh article have,

1 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 384-485. Mr. Sitgreaves was promised, when he went to London, the continuance of his salary as a commissioner at the rate of £1,000 a year and the expenses of his residence in Europe and his journey to and fro. He returned to the United States on June 10, 1801, and his agent drew for his quarter's salary to June 30. Mr. Madison, who was then Secretary of State, conceiving that, as the commission under Article VI. had been suspended, Mr. Sitgreaves had no claim for salary after his return, declined to allow anything thereafter, but told Mr. Sitgreaves that, if he would state his account, deducting salary from June 10 to June 30, and including his expenses, it should be paid. Mr. Sitgreaves refused to do so, considering that he was entitled to the continuance of his salary under Article VI. till that article was finally superseded by the convention of January 8, 1802. In 1830 Mr. Sitgreaves's heirs, who had put in a claim, were allowed his salary from April 1 to June 10, 1801, and his expenses, Congress appropriating therefor $10,445.56. (House Report 54, 20 Cong. 2 sess.; 6 Stats. at L. 446.)

2 Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 394-398.

nevertheless," said Lord Grenville, "been faithfully executed by the British Government. The temporary difficulties which arose in the execution of that commission led immediately to amicable explanation between His Majesty's Government and the minister of the United States ; and considera

ble sums have actually been paid to American claimants in cases where the award of the commissioners has rested on doctrines which are decidedly held to be erroneous, and which would not, therefore, have been recognized in any transaction with a foreign state. In America, a contrary course has been pursued. The two commissioners nominated on the part of the United States to the commission under the sixth article have finally claimed the right to invalidate, by their dissent, both the principles and the effect of the decisions of the majority, and have at length, by completely withdrawing from the board, endeavored as far as in them lay, to arrest all its proceedings. It was

neither required nor even imagined that the opinions of either commission could be unanimous on points on which the two Governments had found it impossible to agree. In both of them possible differences of opinion were foreseen, and they were provided for in both by the stipulation which gave full force and validity to the acts of the majority." The secession of the American commissioners made it the duty, he said, of the Government of the United States to appoint new ones.1

To the note of Lord Grenville, John MarMarshall's Reply. shall, who had succeeded Mr. Pinkering as Secretary of State, replied that the Government of the United States understood the treaty differently. The provision declaring the decision of the board to be in all cases final and conclusive was not understood to authorize "the arbiters to go out of the special cases described in the instrument creating and limiting their powers. The words 'all cases' only mean those cases which the two nations have submitted to reference. These are described in the preceding part of the article, and this description is relied on, by the United States, as constituting a boundary, within which alone the powers of the commissioners can be exercised. This boundary has, in our judgment, been so totally prostrated, that scarcely a trace of it remains." While admitting that the decision of a majority was binding by the very terms of the treaty, Marshall Lord Grenville to Mr. King, April 19, 1800, Am. State Papers, For. Rel. II. 398.

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