Wharton, in his International Law Digest, gives the following gloss of (Wharton, The instruction does not relate to the distinctive subject of contract debts. and there is nothing in it referring to a distinction between the method of enforcing the payment of debts founded on contract and those arising from tort. The position of Mr. Frelinghuysen on the subject actually under discussion was the same as that previously taken by Mr. Blaine, as to which see supra, § 967. "Your letters of December 31 and of the 9th instant, in relation to the collection of principal and interest of certain Case of Russian Russian bonds in your possession, have received atten bonds. tion. "The instances to which allusion was made in my letter of the 27th ultimo, where the Department has authorized its representatives abroad to receive payments or accept settlements of the bonds of a foreign government, have been when such government was ready to deal with its creditor, and where the intervention of a consular or diplomatic agent of the creditor's country was a convenience to both. "There are also cases, but not common enough to form a rule of action, where the bonds of one government being wholly or largely held by the citizens of another, upon default thereof, the government of which the creditors are citizens may endeavor, by diplomatic remonstrance or negotiation, to effect an international agreement between the two countries, prescribing time and manner of adjustment. "Your proposition, however, seems to be founded on a wholly different basis from either of these. It is, as I understand it, to invest the Government of the United States with the legal title of certain Russian bonds, on account of which no payments of any character appear to have been made for twenty-five years, in the expectation that this Government would, by such an assignment, act as the party in interest (not as its creditor's advocate or trustee), and so obtain for itself more favorable terms for the liquidation of these securities than those to which other holders thereof are subject. "Your proposition is contrary to international usage, and is, moreover, inexpedient to a degree which bars it from favorable consideration, inasmuch as this Government would not wish to make itself a preferred creditor over other of its own citizens or foreigners who may hold other portions of the same debt.” Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Wright, Jan. 17, 1884, 149 MS. See, to the same effect, Mr. Frelinghuysen, Sec. of State, to Mr. Hunt, Landreau case. May 17, 1874, Mr. Thomas, American minister at Lima, enclosed to the Department of State a report of a commission appointed by the President of Peru to estimate the quantity of guano belonging to that Government in the province of Tarapacá. Some of the deposits marked on the list were said to have been discovered by J. T. Landreau. Mr. Thomas said he was often asked if the United States would urge the claim of J. C. Landreau on account of these discoveries made by his brother, J. T. Landreau, and he asked to be enlightened on this point. Mr. Fish, on the 25th of July, stated that, as the claim of J. C. Landreau grew out of a contract which appeared to have been voluntarily made by his brother with the Feruvian Government, it belonged to a class of claims with which it was the practice of the United States not to interfere beyond the exercise of good offices, but that the Department of State had reached the conclusion that the claim was entitled to "some consideration" on equitable grounds. Mr. Thomas was accordingly authorized to make use of his "good offices, unofficially, with the Peruvian authorities in behalf of J. C. Landreau, with a view of securing for him from that Government a speedy investigation and adjustment of his claim." In a subsequent instruction, May 28, 1875, Mr. Fish adverted to the fact that the alleged discovery of guano was confessedly made by J. T. Landreau, a French citizen, and that J. C. Landreau based his claim on the ground that he had advanced money to his brother towards defraying the expenses attending the discovery, on the condition that he was to share in the profits as a partner; but this fact could not, said Mr. Fish, be allowed to make the question an international one, even if the claim were not based on contract. Mr. Fish added that there was no objection to the legation's employing its personal good offices in cooperation with the French legation at Lima, provided the latter should have been authorized to take that course. By a resolution of February 20, 1880, the House of Representatives, on the strength of a report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, adopted a resolution requesting the President to take such steps as in his opinion might be proper and in accordance with international law to secure to J. C. Landreau a final settlement and adjustment of his claim against Peru, and, if he deemed it proper to do so, to invite France to cooperate to that end. Subsequently the claim became a subject of controversy between the United States and Chile, when it appeared that the latter Government would take the province of Tarapacá; and Mr. Blaine instructed the American ministers at Lima and Santiago to use their good offices in behalf of the claimant, and, in this relation, to say that justice seemed to demand that Landreau should have an opportunity to be heard in support of his claim before a tribunal in Peru competent to decide it, and that no treaty of peace which might cede territory to Chile should be made in dis regard of any rights which Landreau might, after an impartial judicial investigation, be found to possess. Subsequently, the case was brought before Mr. Bayard, as Secretary of State, who, after intimating a doubt as to the American citizenship of J. C. Landreau, said: "Without expressing any opinion as to the existence or effect of the contract so set up [by the claimant], it is enough for me now to say that in respect of alleged contractual debts of foreign governments to citizens of the United States, the rule is that, while this Government may interpose its good offices to invite payment, if these offices be declined and the existence of the debt be denied, its interposition ceases. In the present case, payment of this claim was urged upon Peru by former administrations, and its payment was absolutely refused on the ground that no contract of the character claimed had been made. Under these circumstances, this claim is not regarded as one which this Government should further press directly upon Peru; and consequently it can not now be urged indirectly upon Chile, who, in taking possession of the guano deposits in question under a treaty cession, did so with recognition of the liens thereon admitted by Peru to be valid, and can not be expected to recognize others the validity of which is wholly denied by Peru.” Mr. Thomas, min. to Peru, to Mr. Fish, Sec. of State, No. 106, May 17, See, also, Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Christy, June 16, 1885, 156 MS. On February 17, 1886, Mr. Jarvis, American minister at Rio de Janeiro, With reference to the Perkins claim against Russia, Mr. Bodisco, on ferring to a resolution of Congress, in which it was asserted that the Perkins claim grew out of contracts with the Russian Government, asked for copies of the contracts. (MS. Notes from Russian Leg.) "It is not necessary to remind you that an appeal by one sovereign on behalf of a subject to obtain from another sovereign the payment of a debt alleged to be due such subject is the exercise of a very delicate and peculiar prerogative, which, by principles definitely settled in this Department, is placed under the following limitations: "1. All that our Government undertakes, when the claim is merely contractual, is to interpose its good offices; in other words, to ask the attention of the foreign sovereign to the claim; and this is only done when the claim is one susceptible of strong and clear proof. "2. If the sovereign appealed to denies the validity of the claim or refuses its payment, the matter drops, since it is not consistent with the dignity of the United States to press, after such a refusal or denial, a contractual claim for the repudiation of which, by the law of nations, there is no redress. . "3. When the alleged debtor sovereign declares that his courts are open to the pursuit of the claim, this by itself is a ground for a refusal to interpose. Since the establishment of the Court of Claims, for instance, the Government of the United States remands all claims held abroad, as well as at home, to the action of that court, and declines to accept for its executive department cognizance of matters which by its own system it assigns to the judiciary. "4. When this Department has been appealed to for diplomatic intervention of this class, and this intervention is refused, this refusal is regarded as final unless after-discovered evidence be presented which, under the ordinary rules applied by the courts in motions for a new trial, ought to change the result, or unless fraud be shown in the concoction of the decision." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Bispham, June 24, 1885, 156 MS. Dom. The rule that a government does not intervene officially in cases of contract "has been applied in innumerable cases in this Department, many of great hardship. . . And this rule is applied with strictness to cases where the creditor voluntarily goes to the debtor country to conduct in that country an enterprise which is to be closely bound up with its landed and business interests. This Government would peremptorily repel any claim by a European sovereign to exercise international supervision over such of our railroad or business corporations as may be owned in the United States by such sovereign's subject. The rule which this Government would thus decline to recognize it can not with propriety propose to others. The rule just stated does not, however, preclude our diplo matic representatives abroad from exercising their personal good offices, under the instructions of this Department, in recommending, to the governments to which they are accredited, claimants who are considered by the Department to be just creditors of such governments." Mr. Bayard, Sec. of State, to Mr. Dorsheimer, Jan. 25, 1886, 158 MS. Dom. The interposition of the Department of State having been solicited to obtain from a foreign government a pension to which an American citizen alleged that he had become entitled in such government's service, the Department said: "As a rule the Department refrains from pressing claims growing out of employments voluntarily accepted by American citizens under foreign governments." The Department refused to interfere. Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Moffit, June 20, 1890, 178 MS. Dom. See, to the same effect, Mr. Blaine, Sec. of State, to Mr. Patterson, April In 1896 the United States secured the settlement of the claim of the Hydrographic Commission of the Amazon against Peru for 20,000 silver soles. (For. Rel. 1895, II. 1036; For. Rel. 1896, 492; Mr. Adee, Act. Sec. of State, to Mr. Ellett, Aug. 23, 1895, 204 MS. Dom. Let. 265.) (2) EXCEPTION WHERE DIPLOMACY IS THE ONLY METHOD OF REDRESS. $ 996. By the treaty between the United States and Spain, concluded February 22, 1819, each Government renounced "all claims" of its citizens or subjects against the other, which had been submitted for its interposition since 1802; and by Article XI. the United States, referring to the claims of its citizens against Spain, agreed " to make satisfaction for the same, to an amount not exceeding $5,000,000." A question arose before the commissioners who were appointed to carry this stipulation into effect as to whether claims should be admitted which were founded on breaches of contract to perform unneutral services, and on March 5, 1822, the commissioners addressed an inquiry on the subject to John Quincy Adams, who was then Secretary of State, and who had negotiated the treaty on the part of the United States. Mr. Adams, on March 9, 1822, answered that it was not understood or intended by the United States nor, as he believed, by Spain, that claims arising from contract should be excluded from the benefit of the treaty. Of the absolute obligation of the United States to interpose in behalf of particular claimants no very subtle |