To
avail ourselves of our good native citizens, when we have one in a
port, and when there are none, to have yet some person to attend to our
affairs, it appears to me advisable to declare, by a standing law, that
no person but a native citizen shall be capable of the office of consul,
and that the consul's presence in his port should suspend, for the time,
the functions of the vice-consul. This is the rule of 1784, restrained
to the office of consul, and to native citizens. The establishing
this, by a standing law, will guard against the effect of particular
applications, and will shut the door against such applications, which
will otherwise be numerous. This done, the office of vice-consul may
be given to the best subject in the port, whether citizen or alien,
and that of consul, be kept open for any native citizen of superior
qualifications, who might come afterwards to establish himself in the
port. The functions of the vice-consul would become dormant during the
presence of his principal, come into activity again on his departure,
and thus spare us and them the painful operation of revoking and
reviving their commissions perpetually.
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