That the fact had been committed before the government could provide
against it might be an excuse, but not a justification. Every
government is responsible for the conduct of all parts of the
community over which it presides, and is supposed to possess, at all
times, the means of preventing infractions of its duty to foreign
nations. In the present instance, the magistracy of the place ought to
have prevented them. However valid this excuse might have been, had
the privateers expedited from Charleston been sent to the French
dominions, there to operate out of the reach of the United States, it
could be of no avail when their prizes were brought into the American
ports, and the government, thereby, completely enabled to administer a
specific remedy for the injury.

Although the commissions, and the captures made under them, were valid
as between the parties at war, they were not so as to the United
States. For the violation of their rights, they had a claim to
reparation, and might reasonably demand, as the reparation to which
they were entitled, restitution of the property taken, with or without
an apology for the infringement of their sovereignty. This they had a
right to demand as a species of reparation consonant with the nature
of the injury, and enabling them to do justice to the party in
injuring whom they had been made instrumental. It could be no just
cause of complaint on the part of the captors that they were required
to surrender a property, the means of acquiring which took their
origin in a violation of the rights of the United States.

On the other hand, there was a claim on the American government to
arrest the effects of the injury or annoyance to which it had been
made accessory. To insist therefore on the restitution of the property