This, by the seventeenth and twenty-second articles, is secured to her
exclusively of her enemies, as is done for her in the like case by
Great Britain, were her present war with us instead of Great Britain.
2. Admission for her public vessels of war into our ports, in cases
of stress of weather, pirates, enemies, or other urgent necessity, to
refresh, victual, repair, &c. This is not exclusive. As then we are
bound by treaty to receive the public armed vessels of France, and
are not bound to exclude those of her enemies, the executive has never
denied the same right of asylum in our ports to the public armed vessels
of your nation. They, as well as the French, are free to come into them
in all cases of weather, piracies, enemies, or other urgent necessity,
and to refresh, victual, repair, &c. And so many are these urgent
necessities, to vessels far from their own ports, that we have thought
inquiries into the nature as well as the degree of the necessities,
which drive them hither, as endless as they would be fruitless, and
therefore have not made them. And the rather, because there is a third
right, secured to neither by treaty, but due to both on the principles
of hospitality between friendly nations, that of coming into our ports,
not under the pressure of urgent necessity, but whenever their comfort
or convenience induces them.
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