rance_, and consequently shall be exempted from
the _Droit d'Aubaine_, or other similar duty, under what name soever,'
has been construed so rigorously to the letter, as to consider us
as _Aubaines_ in the colonies of France. Our intercourse with those
colonies is so great, that frequent and important losses will accrue to
individuals, if this construction be continued. The death of the
master or supercargo of a vessel, rendered a more common event by the
unhealthiness of the climate, throws all the property which was either
his, or under his care, into contest. I presume that the enlightened
Assembly now, engaged in reforming the remains of feudal abuse among
them, will not leave so inhospitable an one as the _Droit d'Aubaine_
existing in France, or any of its dominions. If this may be hoped,
it will be better that you should not trouble the minister with any
application for its abolition in the colonies as to us. This would be
erecting into a special favor to us, the extinction of a general abuse,
which will, I presume, extinguish of itself. Only be so good as to
see, that in abolishing this odious law in France, its abolition in
the colonies also be not omitted by mere oversight; but if, contrary to
expectations, this fragment of barbarism be suffered to remain, then
it will become necessary that you bring forward the enclosed case, and
press a liberal and just exposition of our treaty, so as to relieve our
citizens from this species of risk and ruin hereafter. Supposing the
matter to rest on the eleventh article only, it is inconceivable, that
he, who with respect to his personal goods is as a native citizen in
the mother country, should be deemed a foreigner in its colonies.
Accordingly, you will perceive by the opinions of Doctor Franklin and
Doctor Lee, two of our ministers who negotiated and signed the treaty,
that they considered that rights stipulated for us in France, were meant
to exist in all the dominions of France.

Considering this question under the second article of the treaty also,
we are exempted from the _Droit d'Aubaine_ in all the dominions of
France: for by that article, no particular favor is to be granted to
any other nation which shall not immediately become common to the other
party. Now, by the forty-fourth article of the treaty between France and
England, which was subsequent to ours, it is stipulated, '_que dans tout
ce qui concerne--les successions des biens mobiliers--les sujets des
deux