7873. SHIPS, Passports.—[further continued] .
As our citizens are free
to purchase and use foreign-built vessels, and
these, like all their other lawful property, are
entitled to the protection of their government,
passports will be issued to them as freely as
to home-built vessels. This is strictly within
our treaties, the letter of which, as well as
their spirit, authorizes passports to all vessels
belonging to citizens of the United States.—
To Thomas Pinckney. Washington ed. iii, 550.
Ford ed., vi, 242.
(Pa.,
1793)
