I enclose you sundry papers, by which you will perceive, that the expression in the eleventh article of our treaty of amity and commerce with France, viz. ’that the subjects of the United States shall not be reputed Aubaines in France, and consequently shall be exempted from the Droit d’Aubaine, or other similar duty, under what name soever,’ has been construed so rigorously to the letter, as to consider us as Aubaines in the colonies of France.  Our intercourse with those colonies is so great, that frequent and important losses will accrue to individuals, if this construction be continued.  The death of the master or supercargo of a vessel, rendered a more common event by the unhealthiness of the climate, throws all the property which was either his, or under his care, into contest.  I presume that the enlightened Assembly now, engaged in reforming the remains of feudal abuse among them, will not leave so inhospitable an one as the Droit d’Aubaine existing in France, or any of its dominions.  If this may be hoped, it will be better that you should not trouble the minister with any application for its abolition in the colonies as to us.  This would be erecting into a special favor to us, the extinction of a general abuse, which will, I presume, extinguish of itself.  Only be so good as to see, that in abolishing this odious law in France, its abolition in the colonies also be not omitted by mere oversight; but if, contrary to expectations, this fragment of barbarism be suffered to remain, then it will become necessary that you bring forward the enclosed case, and press a liberal and just exposition of our treaty, so as to relieve our citizens from this species of risk and ruin hereafter.  Supposing the matter to rest on the eleventh article only, it is inconceivable, that he, who with respect to his personal goods is as a native citizen in the mother country, should be deemed a foreigner in its colonies.  Accordingly, you will perceive by the opinions of Doctor Franklin and Doctor Lee, two of our ministers who negotiated and signed the treaty, that they considered that rights stipulated for us in France, were meant to exist in all the dominions of France.

Considering this question under the second article of the treaty also, we are exempted from the Droit d’Aubaine in all the dominions of France:  for by that article, no particular favor is to be granted to any other nation which shall not immediately become common to the other party.  Now, by the forty-fourth article of the treaty between France and England, which was subsequent to ours, it is stipulated, ’que dans tout ce qui concerne—­les successions des biens mobiliers—­les sujets des deux hautes parties contractantes auront dans les Etais respectifs les memes privileges, libertes et droits, que la nation la plus favorisee.’  This gave to the English the general abolition of the Droit d’Aubaine, enjoyed by the Hollanders under