The History of the French Spoliation Claims Papers

Gondos Memorial Award A Nineteenth-Century Archival Search: The History of the French Spoliation Claims Papers Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/33/4/389/2746444/aarc_33_4_j1p8086n15k65716.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 By HENRY BARTHOLOMEW COX National Historical Publications Commission HE DOCUMENTATION that explains the story of the longest continuing claim entertained by the Congress of the United States T has had a fascinating history as it passed through the hands of public officials, claims agents, descendants of agents and claimants, and autograph dealers, finally, being substantially returned to public reposi- tories. Although the circumstances that gave rise to the political and diplomatic history of the French spoliation claims are treated elsewhere,1 the peregrinations of the documents themselves may be of some interest to archivists and historians of the period. Some background is surely in order. The French spoliation claims arose against France as a result of attacks and captures of American vessels and cargoes by French privateers and other ships of war after 1793. A general accord was reached at Mortefontaine between France and the United States in 1800, but the spoliation claims were not settled at the time the agreement to cease warlike activities was made. Three American commissioners sent to negotiate the accord intended to include some kind of settlement for the shipping outrages, and the second article in the convention was drafted to recognize the French spoliations as a valid setoff for French grievances against the United States. The U.S. Senate, however, expunged the article when it ratified the convention in 1801, and in so doing, stood in the place of France as the guarantor of the claims to its own citizens. United States citizens also had other claims against France known as debt claims, which were for detention of vessels, supplies, and for unfulfilled contracts. Although the Convention of 1800 specified that the debt claims should be paid, the majority of them had not been settled by 1803 when Louisiana became an issue. Instead of paying $15 million in cash for the Louisiana territory, the United States agreed in 1803 to pay the French debt claims up to the limit of $3.75 million, and The author received for this paper the 1969 Gondos Memorial Award for the best unpub- lished essay submitted on "any aspect of the history or administration of archives." Dr. Cox is an assistant to the Executive Director of the National Historical Publications Com- mission and a director of the Manuscript Society. i G. A. King, "The French Spoliation Claims," reprinted from the American Journal of International Law, 1912 (62d Cong., 3d sess., S. Doc. 964) is a good summary of the legis- lative handling of the claims through the Court of Claims Act of 1885. VOLUME 33, NUMBER 4, OCTOBER 1970 389 390 HENRY BARTHOLOMEW COX the balance in cash or other securities. American and French Boards of Liquidation were established to administer payment of the debt claims, and operated for 10 months from 1803 to 1804. Owing to severe disagreements between the American Commissioners and Robert R. Livingston, the U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary, the full allowance was never made, and payments were suspended. Thus it was that debt claims (part of the purchase price for Louisiana) and spoliation claims Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/33/4/389/2746444/aarc_33_4_j1p8086n15k65716.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 (the captures and conversions that Congress expunged in the interest of commercial harmony) both became obligations of the United States Government. Recordmaking began almost as soon as the captures took place. Ful- war Skipwith, the amanuensis of James Monroe, accompanied Monroe to Paris in 17942 and became consul general of the United States at Paris in 1795. Skipwith's report of claims settled under his jurisdiction as claims agent in 1795, and his letters and account books (1795-1799 and 1801-1808) form the backbone of the extensive documentation at the Library of Congress on this subject.3 Skipwith was also one of the American Commissioners appointed to settle debt claims under Article III of the Convention of 1803; and the journal book of the Commission- ers, although not required to be kept under the terms of the convention, gives insight into the problems of judgment and payment that faced those in authority. The journal book of the Commissioners4 was a public record and went into the files of the Department of State until it was needed as evidence when French spoliation cases were brought before the Court of Claims in 1885. Skipwith, however, retained his correspondence and record books as consul general and commercial agent until they passed into the hands of the leading French spoliation claims agent, James H. Causten. After 1823, most of the individual claimants also turned their business over to Causten. James H. Causten was born in Baltimore in 1787.5 He was the son of Isaac Causten, a leading Baltimore merchant, who instructed him in the mercantile arts. By 1812, Causten was a shipping merchant in his own right. During the War of 1812 one of his ships along with 23 others was seized and sunk in the defense of Baltimore. Causten received an 2 In 1794, Skipwith, who was Monroe's aide as well as Secretary of the American Legation, prepared a list of outrages and claims for indemnity that Monroe presented to the French Committee of Public Safety. American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1:749-750. 3 Skipwith's papers are boxes 5-14 of the Causten-Pickett collection, Library of Congress. Hereafter materials in the Library of Congress are indicated by the symbol LC. 4 American Commissioners' Journal Book, Record Group 205, Records of the Court of Claims Section (Justice) , National Archives Building. Hereafter records in the National Archives Building are indicated by the symbol NAB. 5 Manuscript account, box 4, Causten-Pickett papers, LC; hereafter cited as the Causten Journal. Little biographical material is available on Causten, and the only full treatment known at this writing is this 151-page manuscript account in Causten's hand. The contents of this document are only sparsely autobiographical. THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST HISTORY OF FRENCH SPOLIATION CLAIMS PAPERS 391 indemnity, however, only after a hundred personal visits to Washington and the passage of 30 years.6 In 1821, James discovered that Isaac Causten as a private underwriter had claims on account of French spoliations in the amount of $30,- 000. What were these claims? The younger Causten had never heard of them, and took a stagecoach to Washington in order to inquire about Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/33/4/389/2746444/aarc_33_4_j1p8086n15k65716.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 them. Once in the capital, he found the first published report on the claims (1802) as well as several later ones. After studying the printed documents, Causten became convinced of the essential validity of the claims. It was Causten's feeling that if the claims were presented piecemeal to Congress, they would not have the same forcefulness as if they were massed together in a group. As Congress did not seem willing to meet the demands of individual claimants, rejection appeared inevi- table. To furnish himself with an important array of sentiments from those still living who knew at first hand of the claims, he wrote to John Adams, Timothy Pickering, James Monroe, and James Madison. Spe- cifically, he hoped to find out their legal views of the Senate's expunging Article II of the 1800 convention. Did this act place fundamental liability against the United States Government to pay the French spoliation claims? The replies were guarded and rather unsatisfactory, since almost all of Causten's impressive list of correspondents asked to be relieved of the onerous task of replying in full, owing to advancing age and failing memory.7 On another hunch that perhaps the full account- ing was in the archives of the Department of State, he approached Daniel Brent, Chief Clerk of the Department, to see if it might be possible for him to use the secret files. Causten held in his hand as a kind of passport the elder Adams' reply to his letter of inquiry about the claims. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams read his father's letter and questioned Causten intensively on several points in connection with his need of the records.8 Satisfied with the answers he received, he permitted Causten to use a room in which the desired manuscripts were placed. The papers themselves were in a wholly disarranged mass and covered with dust. There had been no attempt made to preserve them even though their contents were regarded as secret. Causten discovered the restricted nature of the documents when, after he made notes furious- ly for a week, Adams refused to allow him to carry the copies out with him. All was not lost, however, for Causten went to his hotel room and p. 8. 7 Ibid. Full texts of these letters are available in the Causten Journal. Madison forwarded documents Causten had sent him to Monroe who was in London, and declined to comment on the status of the claims in his polite reply of January 9, 1827, vol. 77, p. 12, Madison papers, LC. 8 John Quincy Adams had long been interested in organizing and copying the early records of the Department of State. In 1818 he hired Thomas B. Wait of Boston to publish the Journals of the Constitutional Convention, the Secret Journals of Congress, and correspondence relating to U.S. foreign relations before 1783.

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