empire, under the false and extravagant pretext that the mon strous principles therein contained were to be found in the treaty of Utrecht, and were therefore binding upon all states. From the penalties of this code no nation was to be exempt, which did not accept it, not only as the rule of its own conduct, but as a law, the observance of which it was also required to enforce upon Great Britain.

In a manifesto accompanying their declaration of hostilities, in addition to the former complaints against the orders in council, a long list of grievances was brought forward; some trivial in themselves, others which had been mutually adjusted, but none of them such as were ever before alleged by the American government to be grounds for war. As if to throw additional obstacles in the way of peace, the American congress at the same time passed a law, prohibiting all intercourse with Great Britain, of such a tenor, as deprived the executive government, according to the president's own construction of that act, of all power of restoring the relations of friendship and intercourse between the two states, so far at least as concerned their commercial intercourse, until congress should re-assemble.

The president of the United States has, it is true, since proposed to Great Britain an armistice; not however, on the admission that the cause of war hitherto relied on was removed; but on condition that Great Britain, as a preliminary step should do away a cause of war, now brought forward as such for the first time; namely, that he should abandon the exercise of the undoubted right of search, to take from American merchant vessels British seamen, the natural born subjects of his majesty; and this concession was required upon the mere assurance that laws would be enacted by the legislature of the United States, to prevent such seamen from entering into their service; but, independent of the objection to an exclusive reliance on a foreign state for the conservation of so vital an interest, no explanation was or could be afforded by the agent who was charged with this overture, either as to the main principles upon which such laws were to be founded, or as to the provisions which they should contain. This proposition having been objected to, a second proposal was made, again offering an armistice, provided the British government would secretly stipulate to renounce the exercise of this right in a treaty of peace. An immediate and formal abandonment of its exercise as preliminary to a cessation of hostilities, was not demanded; but his royal highness the prince regent was required, in the name and on the

behalf of his majesty, secretly to abandon what the former overture had proposed to him publicly to concede.

This most offensive proposition was also rejected, being accompanied, as the former had been, by other demands of the most exceptionable nature, and especially of indemnity for all American vessels detained and condemned under the orders in council, or under what were termed illegal blockades a compliance with which demands, exclusive of all other objections, would have amounted to an absolute surrender of the rights on which those orders and blockades were founded. Had the American government been sincere in representing the orders in council as the only subject of difference between Great Britain and the United States calculated to lead to hostilities, it might have been expected, so soon as the revocation of those orders had been officially made known to them, that they would have spontaneously recalled their "letters of marque," and manifested a disposition immediately to restore the relations of peace and amity between the two powers. But the conduct of the government of the United States by no means corresponded with such reasonable expectations. The order in council of 23d June being officially communicated to America, the government of the United States saw nothing in the repeal of the orders in council, which should of itself restore peace, unless Great Britain were prepared in the first instance substantially to relinquish the right of impressing her own seamen, when found on board American merchant ships. The proposal of an armistice, and of a simultaneous repeal of the restrictive measures on both sides, subsequently made by the commanding officer of his majesty's naval forces on the American coast, were received in the same hostile spirit by the government of the United States. The suspension of the practice of impressment was insisted upon in the correspondence which passed on that occasion, as a necessary preliminary to a cessation of hostilities. Negociation, it was stated, might take place without any suspension of the exercise of this right; and also without any armistice being concluded; but Great Britain was required previously to agree, without any knowledge of the adequacy of the system which could be substituted, to negotiate upon the basis of accepting the legislative regulations of a foreign state, as the sole equivalent for the exercise of a right, which she has felt to be essential to the support of her maritime power.

If America, by demanding the preliminary concession, intends to deny the validity of that right, in that denial Great

Britain cannot acquiesce; nor will she give countenance to such a pretension, by acceding to its suspension, much less to its abandonment, as a basis on which to treat. If the American government has devised, or conceives it can devise, regulations which may safely be accepted by Great Britain, as a substitute for the exercise of the right in question, it is for them to bring forward such a plan for consideration. The British government has never attempted to exclude this question from amongst those on which the two states might have to negotiate: it has, on the contrary, uniformly professed its readiness to receive and discuss any proposition on this subject, coming from the American government: it has never asserted any exclusive right, as to the impressment of British seamen from American vessels, which it was not prepared to acknowledge as appertaining equally to the government of the United States, with respect to American seamen when found on board British merchant ships: but it cannot, by acceding to such a basis in the first instance, either assume or admit that to be practicable, which, when attempted on former occasions, has always been found to be attended with great difficulties; such difficulties as the British commissioners in 1806 expressly declared, after an attentive consideration of the suggestions brought forward by the commissioners on the part of America, they were unable

to surmount.

Whilst the proposition transmitted through the British admiral was pending in America, another communication on the subject of an armistice was unofficially made to the British government in this country. The agent, from whom this proposition was received, acknowledged that he did not consider that he had any authority himself to sign an agreement on the part of the government. It was obvious that any stipulations entered into, in consequence of this overture, would have been binding on the British government, whilst the government of the United States would have been free to refuse or accept them, according to the circumstances of the moment. This proposition was therefore necessarily declined.

After this exposition of the circumstances which preceded and which have followed the declaration of war by the United States, his royal highness the prince regent, acting in the name and on the behalf of his majesty, feels himself called upon to declare the leading principles by which the conduct of Great Britain has been regulated in the transactions connected with these discussions.

[29

His royal highness can never acknowledge any blockade whatsoever to be illegal which has been duly notified, and is supported by an adequate force, merely upon the ground of its extent, or because the ports or coasts blockaded are not at the same time invested by land. His royal highness can never admit that neutral trade with Great Britain can be constituted a public crime, the commission of which can expose the ships of any power whatever to be denationalized. His royal highness can never admit that Great Britain can be debarred of its rights of just and necessary retaliation, through the fear of eventually affecting the interest of a neutral. His royal highness can never admit that the exercise of the undoubted and hitherto undisputed right of searching neutral merchant vessels in time of war, for the impressment of British seamen, when found therein, can be deemed any violation of a neutral flag. Neither can he admit that the taking such seamen from on board such vessels can be considered by any neutral state as a hostile measure, or a justifiable cause of war.

There is no right more clearly established than the right which a sovereign has to the allegiance of his subjects, more especially in time of war. Their allegiance is no optional duty, which they can decline and resume at pleasure. It is a call which they are bound to obey; it began with their birth, and can only terminate with their existence. If similarity of language and manners may make the exercise of this right more liable to partial mistakes and occasional abuse, when practised towards vessels of the United States, the same circumstances make it also a right, with the exercise of which in regard to such vessels it is more difficult to dispense. But if to this practice of the United States, to harbour British seamen, be added their assumed right to transfer the allegiance of British subjects, and thus to cancel" the jurisdiction of their legitimate sovereign, by acts of naturalization and certificates of citizenship, which they pretend to be as valid out of their own territory as within it, is obvious that to abandon this ancient right of Great Britain, and to admit these several pretensions of the United States, would be to expose to danger the very foundation of our maritime strength.

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Without entering minutely into the other topics, which have been brought forward by the government of the United States, it may be proper to remark, that whatever the declaration of the United States may have asserted, Great Britain never did demand, that they should force British manufac

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hardships, and barbarities, and he mer

+ The 11. S by undulating to introduce a new national Law, in apposition to the well known maratime Law

tures into France; and she formally declared her willingness entirely to forego, or modify, in concert with the United States, the system by which a commercial intercourse with the enemy had been allowed under the protection of licenses; provided the United States would act towards her, and towards France, with real impartiality. The government of America, if the differences between states are not interminable, has as little right to notice the affair of the Chesapeake. The aggression, in this instance, on the part of a British officer, was acknowledged, his conduct was disapproved, and a reparation was regularly tendered by Mr. Foster on the part of his majesty, and accepted by the government of the United States. It is not less unwarranted in its allusion to the mission of Mr. Henry; a mission undertaken without the authority, or even knowledge of his majesty's government, and which Mr. Foster was authorized formally and officially to disavow. The charge of exciting the Indians to offensive measures against the United States is equally void of foundation. Before the war began, a policy the most opposite had been uniformly pursued, and proof of this was tendered by Mr. Foster to the American government. Such are the causes of war which have been put forward by the government of the United States. But the real origin of the present contest will be found in that spirit which has long unhappily actuated the councils of the United States; their marked partiality in palliating and assisting the aggressive tyranny of France; their systematic endeavours to inflame their people against the defensive means of Great Britain; their ungenerous conduct towards Spain, the intimate ally of Great Britain; and their unworthy desertion of the cause of other neutral nations. It is through the prevalence of such councils that America has been associated in policy with France, and committed in war against Great Britain.

And under what conduct on the part of France has the government of the United States thus lent itself to the enemy? The contemptuous violation of the commercial treaty of the year 1800 between France and the United States; the treacherous seizure of all American vessels and cargoes in all harbours subject to the controul of the French arms; the tyrannical principles of the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the confiscations under them; the subsequent condemnation under the Rambouillet decree, antedated or concealed to render it the more effectual; the French commercial regulations which render the traffic of the United States with France almost illusory; the burning of their merchant ships at sea,