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themselves reciprocally with thefe materials, fuch as ftones, fafcines, wooden piles, &c. at a reasonable price. The principle of the two nations enjoying equally the right of navigation upon the Rhine, accords entirely with the 1ft and 16th articles of the note of the deputation of the 3d of March; but no explanation is given refpecting the with there manifested, that by a common arrangement with the Batavian republic, the free navigation of the Rhine be enfured to the mouth of the river, and that on the other hand the reservation fhould be propofed, that no other nations fhould participate in it but with the confent of the two parties, and on conditions conjointly agreed upon. There were only, as is known, the Swifs on the Upper Rhine, and the inhabitants of the Low Countries on the Lower Rhine, who were accustomed to navigate the Rhine with their boats. The ulterior propofition to abolish the right of toll appears in truth to lead to the advantage of trade: but it is alfo to be feared, that by this fuppreffion the keeping up of the courfe of the river for navigation, which is an expenfive article, might no longer take place as formerly. On the other hand, there exift many debts mortgaged upon the produce of thofe duties; yet if this abolition fhould be effected, it would be proper that it fhould extend alfo to the Batavian republic, and that, to favour the freedom of commerce, the staple rights and the watermen's duty fhould alfo be fuppreffed.

With respect to the fubfequent propofition in the French note, that merchandise only fhould be fubject to the custom duties establithed in the countries and receivable at the moment of landing, without the duties established on one bank being greater than thofe which fhall be established on the other; it would be evidently advantageous that the two nations fhould agree upon certain princi ples refpecting the duties to be received upon merchandife: but, according to the propofition of the French minifters, thefe duties could not abfolutely be the fame upon the two banks. In fact, in order that this equality may operate, it would be neceffary to eftablish a common and uniform tarif for all the states, large and fmall, which are fituated upon the Rhine. Befides, the principal object of this fpecies of import is not to produce a revenue to the fovereign, and confequently to return money to the treasury, but to defray, in the first inftance, the expenfe to which the ftates muft be put, under the commercial relation, for roads, towing-ways, bridges, and the pay of the perfons employed, and afterwards to procure the means of directing the trade for the advantage of the inhabitants, the profperity of their manufactures, and the encouragement of industry. A ftate attains this object by cuftoms, by diminishing the duties of importation upon certain merchandise, and by augmenting them upon others, from the neceffity there may be for them according as they are abundant or scarce, raw or manufactured, &c. But if thefe cuftom duties are all at once to

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be fo exactly the fame upon both banks, that they cannot be changed without the confent of the two parties, fuch an arrangement could not so easily be effected without the most minute examination of the details, confidering the difference of the great and small flates which are fituated upon the right bank of the Rhine, and whose interests, wants, and views are fo various. Nothing is more evident than that it is the intereft of each state to make alterations in this particular, according as its individual pofition and wants require; to prohibit frequently the importation of articles upon which bounties are allowed in a neighbouring state. The establishment upon the right bank of the Rhine of an uniform tarif, which fhould be the fame as that upon the left bank, would then experience, in all refpects, well-founded difficulties. From all thefe obfervations, as well as from thofe upon the navigation of the Rhine, the towing-roads, the keeping up of the river, and the tolls, which are all founded in the different relations of Germany, one may fee how much thofe objects would require important confiderations connected with locality, and having a marked connexion with the progrefs of commercehow difficult it would be to change thofe eftablishments which have existed for ages, and which had the greatest influence upon the trade and profperity of the two banks of the Rhine in a very great extent; finally, how little poffible it would be, without a previous and deep examination of all thefe confiderations, to make an arrangement equally advantageous for the two nations upon objects fo complicated. But as this fcrupulous examination ought not to check the principal work of pacification, the deputation of the Empire think they ought to propose, that all the points which concern the navigation of the Rhine, the towing-ways, the keeping up of the river, the tolls and cuftoms, and the trade in general, fhould be deferred till the conclufion of a treaty of commerce and navigation, and that until then every thing thould remain in ftatu quo. With refpect to the defire manifefted by the French minifters, that the navigation fhould be free upon all the rivers which flow into the Rhine, as well as upon the great rivers of Germany, that object is not within the competence of the deputation.

The minifters of the French republic next make an abfolutely new demand, that is, that amongst the poffeffions of the states on the left bank, which ought to be replaced on the right bank, fhould be comprifed thofe which belong to the immediate equef trian order. One does not fee by what reafons the property and appurtenances of the equeftrian order fhould be confidered otherwife than as private property, whofe inviolability has been affured in the note of the 19th Germinal (8th April). This overture relative to the equeftrian order can only be founded upon an error in the manner of judging of the relations of that order with the VOL. VII. Empire.

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Empire. The opinion formed in it of the poffibility of a fimilar arrangement, is an object fo much the more important, as its admiffion would involve in it the greateft difficulties, and as any indemnification whatever upon the right bank of the Rhine would exhaust the mafs of indemnities, and confequently in a great meafure produce a failure in the object of the indemnities.

Thefe immediate nobles are not ftates of the Empire; they enjoy no right of fuffrage in the general diets or the diets of the circle; they have confequently no more share in war and peace than the other fubjects of the Empire. They differ from the mediate nobility and the other fubjects of the Empire, inasmuch as they are (without intermediate perfons) under the Emperor and Empire, and are not fubjected to the fovereignty of any state of the Empire. Their rights of property accord entirely with the French laws. The immediate nobility form two cantons-that of the Upper Rhine and that of the Lower: they have all their poffeffions upon the left bank. The canton of the Upper Rhine is bounded by the Rhein, the Queich, and the Nahe; that of the Lower Rhine extends from the Nahe to the Lower Rhine.

The poffeffions of the equeftrian order of those two cantons are isolated and scattered over the territories of the states of the Empire; they confift wholly, either of one houfe in a town, or in a village, and frequently of fields only, difperfed amidst other land; of tithes and other dues of that kind: very few places are wholly the property of that order. Several families of counts who pay dues to the Empire and to the Circle for fome poffeffions, and who have thereby a right to fit in the affembly of counts of the Empire, belong alfo, with their effects, to thofe cantons of the equeftrian order: they are generally the families which poffefs the greatest number of places depending upon that order. With the exception of thofe places, the canton of the Upper Rhine fcarcely reckons twenty villages which belong wholly to the nobles: fome belong in common to feveral nobles. There are also ftates of the Empire, chapters, convents, &c. which possess these dependencies upon the equeftrian order; the latter, as well as all the poffeffors of the property of the equeftrian order, pay their imposts to the canton. The immediate quality of a great number of thefe poffeffions is difputed by the ftates of the Empire in the countries in which they are fituated-that quality then cannot be confidered as important. But there, even where the equeftrian order poffefs whole places, and where their quality of immediate is recognifed, the noble levies no tax upon his fubjects, and the ftates of the Empire commonly exercise there the fuperior rights. The principal revenue of the members of the equeftrian order confifts for this reafon in their private property, tithes, and other rents-the produce of the feignorial and feudal rights is in general very inconfiderable. Thefe immediate

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nobles cannot therefore of confequence be confidered but as fimple proprietors of private property; and as by the 12th title, article 335 of the French conftitution, foreigners, even without being citizens, or established in the French republic, may poffefs property, and buy and difpofe of their property, of courfe there ought to be applied to thefe immediate nobles respecting their property fituated upon the left bank of the Rhine, that which the French note of the 19th Germinal (April 8) enfures to them in thefe terms, that the prefervation of the property of private perfons could never have been the abject of a ferious doubt.

The French government will fo much the less wish to wrest thefe private effects and appurtenances from their legitimate poffeffors, because by the public right of the Empire, fuch poffeffions can never be united to the domains of the nation to which the ceffion is made; and as by the French note of the 22d Pluviofe (10th February) no pretenfion is advanced but to the domains of princes exerciting the fovereignty.

Refpecting the debts which in the laft French note are proposed to be transferred wholly from the countries on the left bank to those of the right, it has been generally recognised, in all times, that the debts with which countries are burdened, which by a treaty of peace pafs under another domination, ought to be tranfferred to the power acquiring thofe countries. This principle has in a late inftance been followed in the treaty of Campo Formio. This propofition then does not accord with the rules of the right of nations and of juftice, and in the known ftate of things is abfolutely inadmiffible. The deputation are confequently induced to expect that, after a fufficient examination of the principles of right, and the infurmountable difficulties that would oppofe the execution of fuch a condition, the French minifters plenipotentiary will not infift upon this point.

There can be no question certainly of the debts which particular communes, bailiwicks, grand bailiwicks, and commonalties have contracted on their own account: those who have contracted thofe debts ought alone to pay them. The French government has it furely not in view to impofe upon the inhabitants of other provinces the debts of a country which have been contracted folely for urgent wants, according to the forms, ufages, and conftitution of the country. It can only be understood here to relate to the cameral and domanial debts mortgaged; but the ftrongest reasons may alfo be urged against the transfer of thefe debts to any objects of indemnity upon the right bank of the Rhine.

ift. Thofe debts, with refpect to their origin and use, are so different in their nature, that it would be contrary to all justice to throw them indiftin&tly and without exception upon the debtors, or even to burden the countries on the right bank with

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them, who are such strangers to them. We will cite for example the cameral debts, which the fovereign has contracted for the good of the country, and which confequently are real national debts, with which the new fovereigns ought to be charged.

2d. Should even the states of the Empire which have experienced loffes, and which have debts, be indemnified by the domains of other countries, the latter are without doubt already burdened with debts, and have other expenfes and charges to fupport.

3d. The creditors, who have the best-founded pretenfions to the pledges mortgaged, would thereby lose a great part of their fecurity.

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4th. The fubjects of the countries on the right bank would be molefted by the creation, already not very eafy, of hew impofitions deftined to extinguifh foreign debts from which they would have deduced no advantage.

5th. By the transfer of the cameral debts to the domains upon the right bank, the objects of indemnity would be depreciated, which would confequently render their augmentation neceflary. The refult would also be, that he who should be the most loaded with debts upon the left bank, would have a right to pretend to a proportional and greater mafs of indemnities in territory and inhabitants.

6th. It is known that fome German countries on the left bank of the Rhine, and precifely the most confiderable, are not loaded with any paffive debt: that the debts of fome others are of fmall importance; fo that the debts of the rest of these countries, though large enough, do not deferve in their total to be confidered as an object of great importance by the French republic. On the other hand, the countries fituated on the right bank, which the republic reftores to Germany, are fo ruined, that a century will scarcely fuffice to free them from their debts. Thofe countries are therefore fo much the lefs able to fupport foreign debts.

Finally, the French minifters, in their last note, make mention of the renunciations which they defire to be made respecting that which thall be ceded by the Empire to France. As this object is liable to no difficulty, and as the deputation has already in part accéded to it in their note of the 3d of March, they think they have fo much the lefs reafon to doubt that a fimilar renunciation will take place on the part of the French republic in favour of the Empire; it is on this account they expect a formal adherence to the propofition contained in the third of the articles annexed to the note of the 3d of March. They muft alfo renew the demand expreffed in the article 15th, on the fubject of the pretenfions formed by the French republic, during the war, at the charge of everal particular ftates of the Empire; fo much the more, becaufe fimilar renunciations are ufual at the conclufion of treaties of peace, and because it would befide be very afflicting, after fuch

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