The Longchamps Affair: Editorial Note
The Longchamps Affair
Soon after Jay took up his duties as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, he met with French Consul General and Chargé d’Affaires Barbé-Marbois to address a range of matters pending between France and the United States. One of the most troublesome was the Longchamps affair, which involved Barbé-Marbois’s person and office and highlighted a stumbling block in the prolonged negotiations for a consular convention: American reluctance to allow France to exercise jurisdiction over French-born persons, naturalized or not, in the United States.1 It also raised constitutional and legal questions about the role and jurisdiction of Congress and of the states in protecting foreign diplomats and in prosecuting perpetrators of attacks on them, and about the applicability of the law of nations in the absence of a consular convention between the two nations.2
Charles Julian de Longchamps, who falsely claimed the title of chevalier, was a troublesome Frenchman who arrived in Philadelphia in September 1783. He very soon married Miss Kidd, a young Quaker orphan, raising the suspicions of her guardians, who published warnings to young ladies about shifty foreigner suitors that seemed pointed at him. Angered by La Luzerne’s and Barbé-Marbois’s refusal to verify the rank and status he claimed, Longchamps first threatened Barbé-Marbois in La Luzerne’s residence on 17 May and, after he took an oath of allegiance as a citizen of Pennsylvania, attacked him on a public street on 19 May.3
La Luzerne regarded Longchamps’s assaults as a violation of the privileges of his house and of the law of nations, and called on John Dickinson, president of Pennsylvania, to address the situation.4
Dickinson first suggested requiring Longchamps to post a peace bond. Barbé-Marbois rejected this because it implied that he himself was “subject to Trial by American courts in the same way as Longchamps.” Dickinson then ordered Longchamps’s arrest. He was apprehended on 22 May, but was released after posting a substantial bail. Pressed by the French, the bond was revoked but Longchamps refused to surrender and evaded attempts to apprehend him.
La Luzerne was well aware of Congress’s reluctance to concede extraterritorial privileges. Nevertheless, he reminded it that diplomatic personnel were entitled to its support and asked it to urge Pennsylvania to take effectual measures “conformable to the laws of Nations” for “solemn reparation” of the attack on Barbé-Marbois and the violation of the privileges of the minister’s house. Thinking Longchamps might have fled the state, he asked Congress to request all the states to cooperate in finding the culprit.5
On 28 May, Dickinson asked Congress for its opinion on the matter. He pledged his resolve to maintain the dignity of the United States, and to “assert” the Law of Nations. That same day La Luzerne indicated to Congress that he was satisfied with Pennsylvania’s actions to date, but said he hoped that the Supreme Executive Council would remand the culprit to him since he was a French subject. He appealed to Congress not to delay “reparation,” and asked it to inform the other states that Pennsylvania had acknowledged by its present conduct that the law of nations was part of the common law of Pennsylvania.6 The Dutch minister, the Swedish minister-designate, and Francisco Rendón supported his request and threatened to leave Philadelphia if the offense was not properly dealt with.7
On 3 June, Longchamps escaped from custody and remained at large until he was recaptured on 8 June. On advice from Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court, Dickinson refused to remand him to the French and instead had him tried in state court, which convicted him on charges of menacing Barbé-Marbois with bodily harm in the house of the French minister and assault and battery against him on a Philadelphia street.8 On 7 October, shortly after Franklin and Vergennes signed a consular convention (29 July) but well before it reached the United States for ratification, Longchamps was sentenced to twenty-one months at hard labor, a fine of 100 crowns, and bonds totaling £2000 to insure his good behavior for seven years after his release.9
The court’s decision affirmed that the person of a public minister was sacred and inviolable and that Longchamps’s actions were a crime under the law of nations, which, it said, Pennsylvania law recognized. It also denied Longchamps’s claim to citizenship.10 His conviction and sentence, however, did not satisfy the French, who wanted to have him either tried in France or held in prison until the King was satisfied that he had been adequately punished.11 The court had also ruled that Longchamps should not be given up, that punishment must be meted out where the crime had been committed and that imprisonment could last no longer than Pennsylvania law prescribed.12
American newspapers regularly reported on the trial, verdict, and sentence. Their editorials discussed whether the law of nations was appropriate for republics, the dangers of submitting to the inappropriate demands of a foreign monarch, and the validity of Longchamps’s claim to citizenship. Barbé-Marbois fared badly, while Longchamps figured as a victim of monarchical tyranny. The breadth of coverage demonstrated the national as well as human interest in the case. Articles critical of the French appeared in the Courier de l’Amerique13 and were reprinted in translation in the Freeman’s Journal beginning on 21 July 1784. Some were also picked up by the Newport Mercury and South Carolina Gazette and General Advertiser. Pennsylvania papers kept the story before the public eye from the time of Longchamps’s arrest until his sentencing.14
Dickinson reported Longchamps’s sentence to Congress on 22 November and forwarded to it all the papers related to the case. On 17 January, Congress referred the matter to a committee. Jay had hardly begun to function as Secretary for Foreign Affairs when, in a meeting on 27 January and in a letter the following day, Barbé-Marbois presented Jay with the original papers relevant to the case, told him that France wanted Longchamps to be sent to France for trial, and hinted that Franco-American relations would suffer if he were not.15
Following instructions, Barbé-Marbois formally requested Longchamps’s extradition in letters of 10 February. He complained that the press was inflaming Americans against him, and provided Jay with a copy of an anonymous letter warning that Longchamps intended violence against him as soon as he was released from confinement.16 He also mentioned that he would petition the king to grant clemency for Longchamps, as his wife, Elizabeth Moore, had already done, insofar as clemency could be reconciled with an attack on the inviolability of public ministers.17
Jay told Barbé-Marbois that it would be very difficult to procure Longchamps’s extradition, since the Pennsylvania court had already rejected La Luzerne’s request for it and because Longchamps was already serving his sentence. He promised to forward Barbé-Marbois’s note to Congress, but said he hoped that the king would recognize how difficult it was to give complete satisfaction in a land where the people were the legislators. Barbé-Marbois replied that, if Congress did not enforce the law of nations, American ministers abroad might not enjoy customary protections, and, if Longchamps was not extradited, his punishment would have to be sufficient to satisfy the king.18
Jay forwarded Barbé-Marbois’s communications to Congress on 11 February. Congress referred the matter back to him. In his report of 16 February, Jay upheld Pennsylvania’s right to try, convict, and imprison Longchamps for a crime committed in the state, and asserted that it was impossible to comply with the King’s request “at present.” The decision was reported with approval in the press.19
After a number of postponements, on 29 March, Congress assigned Jay’s report to a committee chaired by Robert R. Livingston.20 An undated set of resolutions in his hand was printed in the journals on 27 April. Far more deferential than Jay, Livingston recommended that Congress express “extreme regret” that one of the king’s servants had been insulted, show gratitude for his friendship, be as “tender” of the king’s honor as of its own, and take measures to secure the king’s ministers from insult. It should also, he stated “strongly recommend” that the state legislatures should pass laws for the “exemplary punishment” of persons who insulted or attacked foreign diplomats, and should require Jay to draft a model law to be sent to the states with Congress’s recommendation. Finally, Livingston recommended that Congress have a copy of its resolutions presented to the French court as proof of its “ardent desire” to afford satisfaction to the king.21
While the matter was still pending, Jay received a letter of 8 February in which Lafayette reported that, while the French court had expected Longchamps would be extradited, it had taken into account “the injustice of Retroactive Law.” If Congress’s recommendations and the laws of the states were properly worded, he believed, the whole affair might be settled in a satisfactory manner. Jay then suggested sending his report of 16 February to Lafayette to diffuse ideas that might promote “our views” without making Congress responsible for them, and to “check any Desire they may have to press us further.” He recommended against Congress passing any formal resolution or allowing anything to appear on its journals.22 Lafayette later informed Jay that France decided to drop the affair. “Dropped” however, does not seem to have meant “ended,” but rather a decision to respond to the affair in a different way. jay received this news in mid-July. It was especially welcome, since it arrived a month after the consular convention Franklin had signed in July 1784. Had the convention been ratified by Congress, it would have given each party the right to extradite nationals who had committed crimes against other nationals in the partner country.23
It was several weeks before Barbé-Marbois called on Jay to inform him verbally that his court no longer demanded Longchamps’s extradition. Jay notified Congress on 2 August, and, with its agreement, returned the documentation on the case to Barbé-Marbois on 31 August, to which Barbé-Marbois replied on 2 September, when he renewed his appeal for a pardon for Longchamps. Jay responded that he would be pleased to cooperate if public considerations permitted him to indulge his personal feelings, but that appropriate and punctual punishment for crimes had to be maintained if government was to be respected.24 Barbé-Marbois also notified Jay that he had been promoted to the post of Intendant of Santo Domingo and that Louis Guillaume Otto, previously La Luzerne’s private secretary, had been appointed French chargé d’affaires.25
In a letter to John Adams of 3 August, Elbridge Gerry commented that the Court’s withdrawal of its demand for Longchamps’s extradition “puts an End to that very disagreeable Contest.” The matter did not end there for Longchamps, however, nor were the constitutional and jurisdictional issues that the affair raised addressed at this time. Soon after Longchamps was released from jail in the fall of 1787, he visited the Coffee-house, where a Captain Verdier or Verdure of “Polaski’s Legion” was reported to have asked “the Chevalier (as he is called)” how he dared appear in the company of gentlemen. Affronted, Longchamps struck the captain, was kicked out of the house, and challenged Verdier to a duel. Peter Allaire reported to his British handlers that Longchamp, “was Killed Yesterday in a Duel, By a French Officer, who sailed the same day for the French west Indies, it is supposed he came on purpose to take Satisfaction for the insult done that Nation, (Monsr Longchamps having married an American & had been Naturalized).”26
The Longchamps affair was one of the cases that argued for the need to strengthen the powers of the federal government and contributed to Federalist determination that the Constitution be structured to insure national compliance with the law of nations.27 Its resonance can be detected in one of Jay’s contributions to the ratification debate, Federalist No. 3. It figured in the debate about the “Offenses Clause” included in the United States Constitution, a clause designed to “ensure federal control over international relations, and to enable Congress to codify unclear international law,” and, along with Dutch minister Pieter J. van Berckel’s complaints about the arrest of his servant, in the Judiciary Act of 1789.28
1. See Barbé-Marbois to JJ, 27 Jan., above, 28 Jan. LbkC, , 1: 30–31 (EJ: 1569), and 10 Feb. below; and George Fox to William Temple Franklin, 16 June 1784, LS, PPAmP. Consul General Barbé-Marbois served as chargé d’affaires after La Luzerne returned to France on 25 June 1784. On the consular convention, see the editorial note “The Franco-American Consular Convention,” below.
2. Congress had considered crimes against the law of nations and the creation of proper tribunals for punishing them. A committee chaired by Edmund Randolph of Virginia recommended “expeditious, exemplary and adequate punishment” for “infractions of the immunities” of public ministers such as “violence offered to their persons, houses, carriages and property, under the limitations allowed by the usages of nations.” Congress forwarded this report to the states under cover of a letter from the President of Congress of 30 Nov. 1781. Randolph later chaired the committee that reported on La Luzerne’s consular proposal in 1781. See 21: 1136–37; and 18: 220–21. Emer de Vattel’s Law of Nations (1758) was a standard point of reference at the time for courts charged with defining the scope and applicability of the law of nations. See 1305–31.
3. See “Abishag” in the Freeman’s Journal, 24 Mar., and “Leander” in the Independent Gazetteer, 3 Apr. 1784 (both Philadelphia).
4. See 2: 371–72, 393–99.
5. Dickinson had been a member of a congressional committee that considered the initial French proposal (1779) for a consular convention. La Luzerne found him willing to cooperate but unsure about how to proceed and “continually opposing the laws and constitution of Pennsylvania to the law of nations.” See 2: 374–78, 379, 380. In August 1784, the Pennsylvania legislature took up but did not pass a bill for effectively securing the rights and immunities of foreign ministers and punishing those who violated them. See 21: 773, 801.
6. Longchamps was apprehended on 27 May. Unaware of this, on 29 May Congress recommended that each state should offer a $500 reward for Longchamps’s discovery and require local officials and citizens to cooperate in his arrest. It sent La Luzerne a copy of its act and then adjourned. This left matters in the hands of a Committee of the States that, on 4 June, approved Pennsylvania’s efforts to maintain the dignity of the United States, and to assert the law of nations. See 2: 380–82; 27: 478–79, 502–4, 564–65; 21: 656; 7: 305–8; and Alfred Rosenthal, “The Marbois-Longchamps Affair,” 63 (1939): 294–301.
7. The French and Dutch ministers were dissatisfied that Congress had not recommended that the states pass laws like those in Europe for the security of foreign ministers’ persons, houses, and “families.” 21: 699.
8. The court insisted that, in the absence of a consular convention, Longchamps had to be tried by a Pennsylvania court and under American law, since Vattel’s Law of Nations did not provide clear guidance about which laws he should be tried under, who should determine his punishment, and what role a state within a nation, rather than a nation-state, should play in adjudicating the case. See 275–307.
9. See Barbé-Marbois’s detailed report on the trial in 2: 410–14; 207, 209; and 21: 709–10. For the decision, see Madeleine Mercedes Plasencia, Privacy and the Constitution (New York, 1999), 1–8.
10. For reservations about the court’s decision to affirm that the law of nations should be considered the law of the land, and on the rejection of Longchamps’s claim to citizenship, see 21: 701; and 205–6.
11. Lafayette asserted that American good will was not lacking and that La Luzerne and Barbé-Marbois had “no reason to complain … about the dispositions of the president and the Council.” See 5: 243–44.
12. The French claim was based on what present-day scholars describe as the “nationality principle,” a controversial jurisdictional basis that recognizes a nation’s right to punish its own citizens for certain crimes regardless of where they were committed. See 1312.
13. CT thought that Longchamp’s attack on Barbé-Marbois was the product of a premeditated design to complicate Franco-American relations. He noted that the French language newspaper newly established in Philadelphia showed marked “inveteracy” against France and that its editors, Daniel Boinod and Alexandre Gaillard, had arrived in the United States at about the same time as Longchamps. Barbé-Marbois influenced the decision to impose high postal charges on the paper, thereby driving it out of business. See 21: 773; and 297–98, 299.
14. The Pennsylvania Packet began detailed coverage of the trial in its issue of 19 Aug. 1784. The New-York Morning Post on 3 Aug 1784 accepted Longchamps’s claim to American citizenship, dismissed allegations that he was an imposter, and suggested that Barbé-Marbois had inexplicably refused to authenticate documents supporting his claims to rank and status and claimed he had struck the first blow. Press coverage was most intense in Philadelphia newspapers, particularly the Courier de l’Amerique, the Freeman’s Journal, the Independent Gazetteer, and the Pennsylvania Packet and General Advertiser. Materials originally published in those papers, as well as independently generated pieces, appeared in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont and South Carolina newspapers.
15. See , 24 and 28 Jan. (EJ: 3747); Barbé-Marbois to JJ, 28 Jan., , 1: 30–31 (EJ: 1569); and 10 Feb., below; and 28: 5.
16. The demand for Longchamps’s extradition triggered another spurt of articles suggesting that consuls were simply commercial agents without true diplomatic character. See “An Independent Patriot” in the Independent Gazetteer, 29 Jan. and 12 Feb., and the New-York Journal, 24 Mar. “Algernon Sidney” in the New-York Journal, 17 Feb., described the demand for Longchamps’s extradition as “an inroad and invasion of the privileges of every freeman,” a farewell to “all the happiness and safety resulting from our glorious revolution.” Charles Pinckney described the demand as requiring “very cool & delicate discussion on our part … to prevent a Coolness between the two powers.” See 22: 200. Further outrage was generated when the Independent Gazateer, 26 Feb., reported that the king had sent a “sergeant at Arms” to carry Longchamps to France. This report was picked up in the Independent Chronicle (Boston), 17 Mar., and the Plymouth Journal, 19 Mar.
17. See 209–10.
18. See Barbé-Marbois to Rayneval, 16 Feb., FrPMAE: CP-EU, 29: 48r–50v. On 15 Feb., JJ forwarded copies of Barbé-Marbois’s letter of 10 Feb. and the anonymous letter it enclosed to the President of Pennsylvania. See JJ’s letter of 15 Feb., LbkC, . 1: 16 (EJ: 1561). “A Citizen” argued in the Connecticut Journal, 23 Feb., that a state was obliged to punish its citizens according to its own laws and to protect strangers “as his OWN SUBJECTS”.
19. See JJ to the President of Congress of 11 Feb, LS, DNA: PCC, item 80, 1: 61 (EJ: 69) and JJ’s report on Longchamps, 16 Feb., LS, DNA: PCC, item 81, 1: 17–46 (EJ: 3814). Contemporary jurisprudence generally gave a nation jurisdiction over all crimes committed within its borders, regardless of the nationalities of the victim and perpetrator. See 1311, 1317–18. On 8 Feb., Vergennes informed Barbé-Marbois that the king had decided to accept Longchamps’s sentence. See his letter of that date, FrPMAE: CP-EU, 29: 43r–44v. The press reacted favorably to the news and praised JJ’s role. See the Pennsylvania Evening Herald and the American Monitor, 26 Mar., the Independent Journal (New York), 6 Apr., the Connecticut Journal of 13 Apr., the Providence Gazette, 16 Apr., South Carolina’s Columbian Herald, 18 Apr., and the United States Chronicle: Political Commercial and Historical (Providence), 21 Apr.
21. None of the states passed laws affording protection to foreign diplomats. No evidence has been found to indicate when or if Congress considered RRL’s report.
22. See Lafayette to JJ, 8 Feb., ALS, DNA: PCC, item 156, 400–402 (EJ: 10868). C without last paragraph, closing, and signature, and with some changes in wording, MiU-C: Greene (EJ: 4935). JJ sent it to the President of Congress under cover of a letter of 28 Apr. in which he asked that Lafayette’s letter be read to Congress. See JJ to the President of Congress, ALS, DNA: PCC, item 80, 1: 149–51 (EJ: 91), Dft, NNC (EJ: 5725), and C, , 1: 226. See 28: 316, and 5: 323, 343; and PGW: Confederation Series: 2: 550.
23. See Lafayette to JJ, 11 May, below, which JJ transmitted to Congress under cover of a letter of 20 July. LS, DNA: PCC, item 80, 1: 305 (EJ: 1710). It was read in Congress and sent back to JJ to report. See 29: 564; and 22: 535.
24. See JJ to the President of Congress, 2 Aug., below. Congress read the letter that day and referred it back to JJ. See his report of 22 Aug, LS, DNA, PCC: item 81, 1: 361–63 (EJ: 3852), and 29: 599, 651; JJ to Barbé-Marbois, 31 Aug., LbkC, DNA, Domestic Letters, 1: 435 (EJ: 1747); Barbé-Marbois to JJ, 2 Sept., ALS, marked “private,” NNC (EJ: 13100); and JJ to Barbé-Marbois, 5 Sept, AD, NNC (EJ 8552).
On 14 Aug., TJ informed JJ that Vergennes claimed that the orders to make a formal demand for Longchamps had been “immediately countermanded” and that Vergennes neither affirmed nor denied that the judgment against Longchamps was satisfactory. See TJ to JJ, 1 Aug., C, DNA: PCC, item 87, 1: 33; PrC DLC: Jefferson; Tr, DNA: PCC, item 107, 1: 110 (EJ: 10104); and 8: 374. For the suggestion that it was French Marine Minister Castries, not Vergennes, who insisted that Longchamps should be extradited and tried in a French court, see 206.
25. See Barbé-Marbois to Congress, 30 Aug. (2 letters), LbkC, DNA, Domestic Letters, 1: 425–28, 29: 675–76; and for JJ’s undated draft replies, 29: 677–78. In announcing Otto’s appointment, Vergennes specified that it was intended to be temporary. Otto reported that some delegates believed that the king no longer intended to keep a minister in America, and that they intended to use this as a pretext to have TJ recalled and replaced with a chargé d’affaires. It was not, however, until La Luzerne received a new assignment that Eléonore François Elie, marquis de Moustier, was appointed minister plenipotentiary on 10 Oct. 1787, after Vergennes’s death, and shortly before Jefferson signed the consular convention. See 2: 787. For Congress’s expression of satisfaction with his official conduct and acknowledgment of his promotion and of Otto’s appointment, see JJ to Barbé-Marbois, 12 Sept. (2 letters) C, , 1: 446–49 (EJ: 1764, 1765).
26. See 22: 544; 3: 617. The Massachusetts Centinel, 6 Oct.; the New Hampshire Spy, 9 Oct.; and the Newport Herald of 11 Oct., published slightly varying extracts from a letter from New York of 28 Sept. Briefer accounts appeared in the New-York Packet, 28 Sept., and the Independent Journal (New York), 29 Sept. 1787.
27. On the framers’ determination to enable the federal government to uphold the law of nations, and for JJ’s insistence, when Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, that the law of nations was a “very important part of the Laws of our nation,” see 164–67, 170–71, 195–96.
28. See 1316–25; 217–20; Anne-Marie Burley, “The Alien Tort Statute and the Judiciary Act of 1789; A Badge of Honor,” American Journal of International Law 83 (July 1989): 461–93; and 860–61.