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Rh American President however, refused to recognize either the claim or the ground on which it was urged, stating distinctly that the English right was founded not on England's treaty with the United States but on the general law of nations, and was therefore prior to and independent of the provisions of the French treaty with the United States. These are the words of Jefferson—no partisan of this country "Before the treaty with Great Britain the treaty with France existed. It follows then that the rights of England being neither diminished nor increased by compact, remained precisely in their natural state, which is to seize enemies' goods whenever found. And this is the received and allowed practice of all nations where no treaty has intervened." Thus has the quarrel with the United States in 1812 (relative to a matter of municipal jurisdiction, the right of impressment, and not of international law at all), been, by an