e claims for indemnity of
our citizens might have been a just cause of war, it is most certain,
that those claims were not the cause of that in which we are now
involved.

It may be proper, in the first place, to observe, that the refusal of
doing justice, in cases of this kind, or the long delays in providing
for them, have not generally produced actual war. Almost always long
protracted negotiations have been alone resorted to. This has been
strikingly the case with the United States. The claims of Great Britain
for British debts, secured by the treaty of 1783, were not settled and
paid till the year 1803; and it was only subsequent to that year, that
the claims of the United States, for depredations committed in 1793,
were satisfied. The very plain question of slaves, carried away by the
British forces in 1815, in open violation of the treaty of 1814, was not
settled and the indemnity paid till the year 1826. The claims against
France for depredations, committed in the years 1806 to 1813, were not
settled and paid for till the year 1834. In all those cases, peace was
preserved by patience and forbearance.

With respect to the Mexican indemnities, the subject had been laid more
than once before Congress, not without suggestions that strong measures
should be resorted to. But Congress, in whom alone is vested the power
of declaring war, uniformly declined doing it.

A convention was entered into on the 11th of April, 1839, between the
United States and Mexico, by virtue of which a joint commission was
appointed for the examination and settlement of those claims. The powers
of the Commissioners terminated, according to the convention, in
February, 1842. The total amount of the American claims, presented to
the commission, amounted to 6,291,605 dollars. Of these, 2,026,140
dollars were allowed by the commission; a further sum of 928,628 dollars
was allowed by the commissioners of the United States, rejected by the
Mexican commissioners, and left undecided by the umpire, and claims
amounting to 3,336,837 dollars had not been examined.

A new convention, dated January 30, 1843, granted to the Mexicans a
further delay for the payment of the claims which had been admitted, by
virtue of which the interest due to the claimants was made payable on
the 30th April, 1843, and the principal of the awards, and the interest
accruing thereon, was stipulated to be paid in five years, in twenty
equal instalments every three months.