[IN his annual message to congress, in December, 1834, president
Jackson recommended that a law should be passed, authorizing
reprisals upon French property, in case provision should not
be made for the payment of the claims of the United States,
for aggressions upon our commerce, by France, between the years
1800 and 1817. A treaty had been concluded between the two
governments, at Paris, in 1831, by which the French had agreed
to pay the United States twenty-five millions of francs, for
spoliations on the commerce of the latter, but the French
chambers had refused to vote the necessary appropriation to
execute the treaty. The president, therefore, proposed extreme
measures to congress, which, if they had been approved of, by
that body, would, in all human probability, have involved the
two nations in war. Mr. Clay, as chairman of the committee on
foreign relations, it will be seen by the following, disapproved
of such a course. The controversy was finally settled through
the intervention of William the fourth, king of England.
Mr. Clay, from the committee on foreign relations, reported the
following resolution:
_Resolved_, that it is inexpedient, at this time, to pass any
law vesting in the president authority for making reprisals
upon French property, in the contingency of provision not being
made for paying to the United States the indemnity stipulated
by the treaty of 1831, during the present session of the French
chambers.