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WASHINGTON, February 24, 1845. To the Senate of the United States: I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its consideration, a convention concluded by the minister of the United States at Berlin with the Kingdom of Bavaria, dated on the 21st day of January, 1845, for the mutual abolition of the droit d'aubaine and taxes on emigration between that Government and the United States, and also a copy of a dispatch from the minister explanatory of the sixth article of the same.
A foreigner coming to England to recover a debt may also recover the expenses of his trip; and the statute is further liberal in that it does away with the Droit d'Aubaine, that narrow-minded custom by which the goods or personal property of any person who died passing through the kingdom were seized by the authorities and could not be recovered by his heirs.
The Swiss, by capitulation, are exempted from this despotism, and so are the Scots, in consequence of an ancient alliance between the two nations. The same droit d'aubaine is exacted by some of the princes in Germany: but it is a great discouragement to commerce, and prejudices every country where it is exercised, to ten times the value of what it brings into the coffers of the sovereign.
A certain German missionary, well known in this part of the world, exasperated by the seizure of a few dollars and a claim to the droit d'aubaine, advised the authorities of Aden to threaten the "combustion" of Tajurrah. The measure would have been equally unjust and unwise.
To the Senate of the United States: I herewith communicate to the Senate, for its consideration, two conventions concluded by the minister of the United States at Berlin the one with the Kingdom of Wurtemberg, dated on the 10th day of April, and the other with the Grand Duchy of Hesse, dated on the 26th day of March, 1844 for the mutual abolition of the droit d'aubaine and the droit de detraction between those Governments and the United States, and I communicate with the conventions copies of the correspondence necessary to explain the reasons for concluding them.
If a foreigner dies in France, the king seizes all his effects, even though his heir should be upon the spot; and this tyranny is called the droit d'aubaine founded at first upon the supposition, that all the estate of foreigners residing in France was acquired in that kingdom, and that, therefore, it would be unjust to convey it to another country.
Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, That one and twenty miles sailing, for 'tis absolutely no further from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights: I'll look into them: so, giving up the argument, I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches, "the coat I have on," said I, looking at the sleeve, "will do;" took a place in the Dover stage; and the packet sailing at nine the next morning, by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the droits d'aubaine; my shirts, and black pair of silk breeches, portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of France; even the little picture which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck!
Thus Smollett's representation of the droit d'aubaine as a monstrous and intolerable grievance is of course an exaggeration. The right order is Chalons, Beaune, Dijon, Auxerre. Most of these from the Latin are examples of Smollett's own skill in English verse making. After Smollett's death his books were for the most part sold for the benefit of his widow. No use was made of his corrigenda.
To the Senate of the United States: The messenger who lately bore to Berlin the ratified copy of the convention for the mutual abolition of the droit d'aubaine and taxes on emigration between the United States of America and the Grand Duchy of Hesse, has just returned to Washington, bearing with him the exchange copy of said convention.
The enemy had the advantage of arms, position, and numbers; and there was nothing for him to do but to disgorge his hoarded gains at once, or to have his breath stripped first and his estate summarily administered upon afterwards by these his casual heirs, as the King of France, by virtue of his Droit d'Aubaine, would have confiscated Yorick's six shirts and pair of black silk breeches, in spite of his eloquent protest against such injustice, had he chanced to die in his Most Christian Majesty's dominions.
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