who professed to represent Talleyrand and the Directory. These persons are known in the correspondence as X, Y, and Z. Their approach was prepared by W, who called on Pinckney and vouched for X as a gentleman of credit and reputation, in whom great reliance might be placed. On the evening of the same day X called, and, professing to speak for Talleyrand, suggested confidentially a plan of conciliation. He represented that certain passages in President Adams's recent speech to Congress, at which two members of the Directory were exceedingly irritated, would need to be softened; that a sum of money, to be at the disposal of Talleyrand, would be required as a douceur for the ministry, except Merlin, the Minister of Justice, who was already making enough from the condemnation of vessels; and that a loan to the government would also be insisted on. X stated, however, that he communicated with Talleyrand not directly, but through another gentleman, in whom Talleyrand had great confidence. This gentleman proved to be Y, who afterwards called with X upon the American plenipotentiaries and presented the propositions in writing. Y also dilated upon the resentment produced by the President's speech, but declared that, after the plenipotentiaries had afforded satisfaction on that point, they must pay money, "a great deal of money." In so saying he referred to the subject of a loan. Concerning the douceur little was said, it

being understood that it was required for the officers of government, and therefore needed no further explanation. An impression perhaps widely prevails that at this point Pinckney exclaimed, “Millions for defence, but not a cent for tribute," and broke off the negotiations. The story is a pretty one, but is inaccurate. The sentiment in question, which resembles a phrase used by Jefferson, when Secretary of State, in his correspondence with the Barbary powers, was pronounced as a toast at a public dinner given to Marshall, at Philadelphia, on his return from France. In reality, the American plenipotentiaries, although they repulsed the solicitations of personal venality with the reply, “No, no, not a sixpence," offered to consult their government with regard to a loan, if the Directory would suspend its measures against American commerce. This the Directory refused to do. Negotiations were ended; the treaties between the two countries were abrogated by the United States; and there succeeded the state of limited war which prevailed from 1798 till 1800.

The respite which commerce enjoyed from belligerent depredations after the Peace of Amiens was of brief duration, and the renewal of war, in 1803, was ere long followed by measures which retain in the history of belligerent pretensions an unhappy pre-eminence. The "rule of the War of 1756," by which Great Britain had assumed to forbid neutrals

to engage during war in a trade from which they were excluded in time of peace, was enforced by the British admiralty courts with new stringency under cover of the doctrine of continuous voyages. Moreover, the British government in 1806, in retaliation for a decree of Prussia, which was issued under Napoleonic compulsion, excluding British trade from that country, declared the mouths of the Ems, the Weser, the Elbe, and the Trave to be in a state of blockade. On November 21, 1806, Napoleon fulminated from the imperial camp at Berlin a decree declaring the British Islands to be in a state of blockade and prohibiting all commerce and correspondence with them. Great Britain replied by an order in council of January 6, 1807, forbidding neutral vessels to trade between ports in the control of France or her allies; and by still another order, November 11, 1807, she forbade such vessels to trade with the ports of France and her allies, or even with any port in Europe from which the British flag was excluded, without a clearance obtained in a British port. Napoleon's answer was the Milan decree of December 17, 1807, by which it was declared that every vessel that had submitted to search by an English ship, or consented to a voyage to England, or paid any tax to the English government, as well as every vessel that should sail to or from a port in Great Britain or her possessions, or in any country occupied by British troops, should be deemed good prize.

These measures, with their bald assertions of paper blockades and sweeping denials of the rights of neutrality, the United States, as practically the only remaining neutral, met with protests, with embargoes, with non-intercourse, and finally, in the case of Great Britain, which was aggravated by the question of impressment, to which President Madison gave so much prominence in his war message, with hostile resistance, while from France a considerable indemnity was afterwards obtained by treaty. The pretensions against which the United States contended are no longer justified on lega! grounds. Since the Declaration of Paris of 1856, it has been universally admitted that a blockade, in order to be valid, must be effective. The right of neutrals to trade with belligerents is acknowledged, subject only to the law of contraband and of blockade.

There is one radical limitation to belligerent activities, which, although often urged, has not yet been adopted. This is the inhibition of the capture of private property at sea. Strongly advocated by Franklin, it was introduced into the first treaty between the United States and Prussia, in the signature of which he was associated with Adams and Jefferson. John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William L. Marcy, and Hamilton Fish are among the great Secretaries of State who have given the principle their support. President McKinley, in his annual mes

sage of December 5, 1898, suggested to Congress that the Executive be authorized to correspond with the governments of the principal maritime powers of the world with a view to incorporate it into the permanent law of civilized nations. This recommendation was cordially renewed by President Roosevelt in his annual message of December 7, 1903, in which the exemption, except as to contraband of war, was advocated not only as a matter of "humanity and morals," but also as a measure altogether compatible with the practical conduct of war at sea.

The American delegates to the first Peace Conference at The Hague, in 1899, although the subject was not on the program, were authorized "to propose to the conference the principle of extending to strictly private property at sea the immunity from destruction or capture by belligerent powers which such property already enjoys on land, as worthy of being incorporated in the permanent law of civilized nations." The delegation accordingly submitted a proposition to "exempt from capture or seizure on the high seas, or elsewhere," by armed vessels or by military forces, all private property except (1) contraband of war and (2) vessels and cargoes attempting to enter a blockaded port. The conference, regarding this as a proposal to declare "the inviolability of private property in naval warfare," took no action beyond the expression of a wish (vœu) hat the subject might be "referred to a subsequent Conference for consideration."