one it; first, in
a conversation at Fontainebleau, when he first complained to me of the
navigation acts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire; secondly, in his
letter of October the 30th, 1785, on the same subject; and now, in the
present conversation, wherein he added, as another instance, the case
of the Chevalier de Mezieres, heir of General Oglethorpe, who,
notwithstanding that the 11th article of the treaty provides, that the
subjects or citizens of either party shall succeed, _ab intestato_, to
the lands of their ancestors, within the dominions of the other,
had been informed from Mr. Adams, and by me also, that his right of
succession to the General's estate in Georgia was doubtful. He observed
too, that the administration of justice with us was tardy, insomuch,
that their merchants, when they had money due to them within our States,
considered it as desperate; and, that our commercial regulations, in
general, were disgusting to them. These ideas were new, serious, and
delicate. I decided, therefore, not to enter into them at that moment,
and the rather, as we were speaking in French, in which language I
did not choose to hazard myself. I withdrew from the objections of the
tardiness of justice with us, and the disagreeableness of our commercial
regulations, by a general observation, that I was not sensible they were
well founded. With respect to the case of the Chevalier de Mezieres, I
was obliged to enter into some explanations. They related chiefly to
the legal operation of our Declaration of Independence, to the undecided
question whether our citizens and British subjects were thereby made
aliens to one another, to the general laws as to conveyances of land to
aliens, and the doubt, whether an act of the Assembly of Georgia might
not have been passed, to confiscate General Oglethorpe's property,
which would of course prevent its devolution on any heir. M. Reyneval
observed, that in this case, it became a mere question of fact, whether
a confiscation of these lands had taken place before the death of
General Oglethorpe, which fact might be easily known by, inquiries in
Georgia, where the possessions lay. I thought it very material, that
the opinion of this court should be set to rights on these points. On
my return, therefore, I wrote the following observations on them,
which, the next time I went to Versailles (not having an opportunity
of speaking to the Count de Vergennes), I put into the hands of M.
Reyneval,