commerce into certain ports and countries in defiance of the laws of
those countries. That individuals should undertake to wage private war,
independently of the authority of their country, can not be permitted in
a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce aggression on the laws
and rights of other nations and to endanger the peace of our own is so
obvious that I doubt not you will adopt measures for restraining it
effectually in future.

Soon after the passage of the act of the last session authorizing the
establishment of a district and port of entry on the waters of the
Mobile we learnt that its object was misunderstood on the part of
Spain. Candid explanations were immediately given and assurances
that, reserving our claims in that quarter as a subject of discussion
and arrangement with Spain, no act was meditated in the meantime
inconsistent with the peace and friendship existing between the two
nations, and that conformably to these intentions would be the execution
of the law. That Government had, however, thought proper to suspend the
ratification of the convention of 1802; but the explanations which would
reach them soon after, and still more the confirmation of them by
the tenor of the instrument establishing the port and district, may
reasonably be expected to replace them in the dispositions and views
of the whole subject which originally dictated the convention.

I have the satisfaction to inform you that the objections which had
been urged by that Government against the validity of our title to the
country of Louisiana have been withdrawn, its exact limits, however,
remaining still to be settled between us; and to this is to be added
that, having prepared and delivered the stock created in execution of
the convention of Paris of April 30, 1803, in consideration of the
cession of that country, we have received from the Government of France