2097. DEBTS DUE BRITISH, Privateering and.—
With respect to the creditors
in Great Britain, they mostly turned their attention
to privateering; and arming the vessels
they had before employed in trading with us,
they captured on the seas, not only the produce
of the farms of their debtors, but of those of the
whole State. They thus paid themselves by
capture more than their annual interest, and we
lost more. Some merchants, indeed, did not
engage in privateering. These lost their interest.
But we did not gain it. It fell into the
hands of their countrvmen. It cannot, therefore,
be demanded of us. As between these
merchants and their debtors, it is the case
where, a loss being incurred, each party May
justifiably endeavor to shift it from himself.
Each has an equal right to avoid it. One party
can never expect the other to yield a thing to
which he has as good a right as the demander;
we even think he has a better right than the
demander in the present instance. This loss
has been occasioned by the fault of the nation
which was creditor. Our right to avoid it, then,
stands on less exceptionable ground than theirs.
But it will be said, that each party thought the
other the aggressor. In these disputes there is
but one umpire, and that has decided the question
where the world in general thought the
right lay.—
To William Jones.
Ford ed., iv, 353.
(1787)
