the complaints of neutral owners, of the detention of their vessels by French privateers, have been speedily and exemplarily redressed. No privateer can now sail under the French flag, the owners of which are not actually resident in France or her dependencies, and have given sufficient bail to indemnify the damage that may be done to neutral property. It is not now, as was formerly the case, permitted to every insignificant commercial consul of the republic to condemn the vessels which are brought under his jurisdiction; from whence, as these agents were generally venal and rapacious, a thousand abuses originated: but the papers and documents necessary to prove the capture to be a legal prize, must be transmitted to the office of the minister of the marine, from whose decision there is an appeal to a court of admiralty. This last tribunal is in high repute with neutral merchants; and I have heard many invidious comparisons between its decisions and those of Doctors Commons, but with what justice I will not pretend to determine. By wise and salutary measures
