TREATY OF AMITY AND C OMMERCE Between the United States ty" America and fhs Most Ghnstzan Majesty. Feb. 6, 1778. TREATY OF AMITY AND COMMERCE. Q“';“g°d W Tm: Most Christian King, and the thirteen United States of North aggzyy America, to wit: New Hampshire, Massachusetts_Bay, Rhode Island, eh. 67. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary- land, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgta, willing to Hx in an equitable and permanent manner, the rules whtclrottght to be followed relative to the correspondence and commerce which the two parties desire to establish, between their respective countries, states and subjects, his Most Christian Majesty and the said United States, hcve judged that the said end could not be better obtaincdthan by talamg for the basis of their agreement, the most perfect equality and reoiprocity, and by carefully avoiding all those burthensome preferences which are usually sources of debate, embarrassment and discontent; by leaving also each party at liberty to make, respecting commerce and navigation, those interior regulations which it shall find most convenient to itself; and by founding the advantage of commerce solely upon reciprocal utility, and the gust rules of free intercourse; reserving withal to each party the liberty of admitting at its pleasure, other nations to a participotion of the same advantages. It is in the spirit of this intention, and to fulfil these views, that his said Majesty having named and appointed for his plenipotentiary, Conrad Alexander Gerard, Royal Syndic of the city of Stras ourg, Secretary of his M t1jesty’s Council of State; and the United States on their part, having fully impowered Benjamin Franklin,
Cues decided in the courts of the United States on the provisions of the treaty of txmity and commerce with France. of 1778; and the consular convention with 1- rance, of November I4, 1783: The treaty of umity and commerce of 1178 with France, article 11, enabling French subjects to purchase und hold lands in the United States, being abrogated in 1798; the act of Maryland of 1780, permitting the ltmds_of a French subject who had become u citizen of that state, dying intestate, to descend on the next ot: km, being a non-naturalized Frenchman, with s proviso vesting the lands in the state, if the French heirs should not within tertyenrs become resident citizens of the state, or convey the lands to a cttizen; and the convention of 1800, between France and the United States, enabling the people of one country, holding lands in the other, to dispose of the same by testament, and to inherit lands in the other, yvtthout bam}; naturalized: Held, that the letter treaty dispensed with the performance of the com dihon in the oct 0 Maryland, und that the constitutional rule applied equally to the case of those who gomsy dzsegmkutéderdthlt; ueta es to those who acquired by purchase without its uid. Chirac v. Chirac, eat. ; on . ep. . The further stipulation in the treaty, " that in case the laws of either of the two states should restrain strangers from the exercise of the rights of property with respecl to real estate, such reel estate may be aold,_or otherwise disposed ot", to citizens or inhabitants of the country where it may bc," docs not nffect the rtehts of ¤_l]`rcnch subject who takes or holds by the convention, so as to deprive him of the power of sel ing to citizens of the country; und gives to u French subject who has acquired lands by descent or devtsc, {und, perhaps, in any other manner,) the rtght during life to sell or otherwise dispose of the sane, ifblytng in c state where lunds purchased by un alien, generally, would be immediately escheatn e. i . Although the convention of 1800 has expired, immediately on o descent being cast on a French subject during_12s continuance, his rights become complete under it, and cannot be ullcctcd by its subsequent oxptmtton. Ibid. ` (I?)
