the most favored nation.

The question then is, whether the fifth article, cited in the note, is
any thing more than an application of the principle comprised in the
third and fourth, to a particular object: or whether it is an additional
stipulation of something not so comprised.

I. That it is merely an application of a principle comprised in the
preceding articles, is declared by the express words of the article,
to wit, _dans l'exemption ci-dessus est nommément compris_, &c: 'In the
above exemption is particularly comprised the imposition of one hundred
sols per ton, established in France on foreign vessels.' Here then is
at once an express declaration, that the exemption from the duty of one
hundred sols is comprised in the third and fourth articles; that is to
say, it was one of the exemptions enjoyed by the most favored nations,
and, as such, extended to us by those articles. If the exemption spoken
of in this first member of the fifth article was comprised in the third
and fourth articles, as is expressly declared, then the reservation by
France out of that exemption, (which makes the second member of the same
article) was also comprised: that is to say, if the whole was comprised,
the part was comprised. And if this reservation of France in the second
member, was comprised in the third and fourth articles, then the counter
reservation by the United States (which constitutes the third and the
last member of the same article) was also comprised. Because it is but
a corresponding portion of a similar whole, on our part, which had been
comprised by the same terms with theirs.

In short, the whole article relates to a particular duty of one hundred
sols, laid by some antecedent law of France on the vessels of foreign
nations, relinquished as to the most favored, and consequently as to