force, and sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great stapies of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets; and a destructive blow aimed at our argricultural and maritime interests. In aggravation to these predatory measures, they have been considered as in force from the dates of their notification; a retrospective effect being thus added, as has been done in other important cases, to the unlawfulness of the course pursued and to render the outrage more signal, these mock blockades have been reiterated and enforced in the face of official communications from the British government, declaring, as the true definition of a legal blockade, "that particular ports must be actually invested, and previous warning given to vessels bound to them not to enter " * Not content with these occaasional expedients for laying waste our neutral trade, the cabinet of Great Britain resorted, at length, to the sweeping system of blockades, under the names of orders in council, which has been moulded and managed as might best suit its political views, its commercial jealousies, or the avidity of British cruisers. To our remonstrances against the complicated and transcendant injustice of this innovation, the first reply was, that the orders were reluctantly adopted by Great Britain as a necessary retaliation on decrees of her enemy proclaiming a general blockade of the British isles, at a time when the naval force of the enemy dared not to issue from his own ports. She was reminded without effect, that her own prior blockades, unsupe ported by an adequate naval force actually applied and continued, were a bar to this plea; that executed edicts against millions of our property could not be retaliation on edicts confessedly impossi ble to be executed, that retaliation, to be just, should fall on the party setting the guilty example, not on an innocent party, which was not even chargeable with an acquiescence in it. When deprived of this flimsy veil for a prohibition of our trade with Great Britain, her cabinet, instead of a corresponding repeal, or a practical discontinuance of its orders, formally avowed a determination to persist in them against the United States, until the markets of her enemy should be laid open to British products; thus asserting an obligation on a neutral power to require one belligerent to encourage, by its internal regulations, the trade of another belligerent; contradicting her own practice towards all nations in peace as well as in war; and betraying the insincerity of those professions which inculcated a belief, that, having resorted to her orders with regret, she was anxious to find an occasion for putting an end to them. Abandoning still more all respect for the neutral rights of the United States, and for its own consistency, the British government now demands as pre-requisites to a repeal of its orders, as they relate to the United States, that a formality should be observed in the repeal of the French decrees no wise necessary to their termination, nor exemplified by British usage; and that that the French repeal, besides including that portion of the decrees which operates within a territorial jurisdiction, as well as that which operates on the high seas against the commerce of the United States, should not be a single special repeal in relation to the United States, but should be extended to whatever other neutral nations connected with them may be affected by those decrees. And as an additional insult, they are called on for a formal disavowal of conditions and pretensions advanced by the French government, for which the United States are so far from having been themselves responsible, that, in official explanations which have been published to the world, and in a correspondence of the American minister at London with the British minister for foreign affairs, such a responsibility was explicitly and emphatically disclaimed. It has become, indeed, sufficiently certain that the commerce of the United States is to be sacrificed, not as interfering with the belligerent rights of Great Britain -not as supplying the wants of their enemies, which she herself supplies-but as interfering with the monopoly which she covets for her own commerce and navigation. She carries on a war against the lawful commerce of a friend, that she may the better carry on a commerce with an enemy, a commerce polluted by the forgeries and perjuries which are for the most part the only passports by which it can succeed. Anxious to make every experiment short of the last resort of injured nations, the United States have withheld from Great Britain, under successive modifications, the If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the correspondence of the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at London, and the British secretary for foreign affairs in 1810, on the question whether the blockade of, May, 1806, was considered in force or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French government, which urged this blockade as the ground of its decree, was was willing, in the event of its removal, to repeal that decree; which being followed by alternate repeals of the other offensive edicts, might abolish the whole system on both sides. This inviting opportunity for accomplishing an object so important to the United States, and professed so often to be the desire of both the belligerents, was made known to the British government. As that government admits that an actual application of an adequate force is necessary to the existence of a legal blockade, and it was notorious that if such a force had ever been applied, its long discontinuance had annulled the blockade in question, there could be no sufficient objection on the part of Great Britain to a formal revocation of it; and no imaginable objection to a declaration of the fact that the blockade did not exist. The declaration would have been consistent with her avowed principles of blockade, and would have enabled the United States to demand from France the pledged repeal of her decrees; either with success-in which case the way would have been opened for a general repeal of the belligerent edicts,or without success, in which case the United States would have been justified in turning their measures exclusively against France. The British government would, however, neither rescind the blockade, nor declare its nonexistence, nor permit its non-existence to be inferred and affirmed by the American plenipotentiary. On the contrary, by representing the blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings. There was a period, when a favourable change in the policy of the British cabinet was justly con sidered as established. The minister plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty here, proposed an adjustment of the differences more immediately endangering the barmony of the two countries. The proposition was accepted with promptitude and cordiality, corres. ponding with the invariable professions of this government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole proceeding was disavowed by the British government, without any explana tion which could at that time repress the belief, that the disavowal proceeded from a spirit of hostility to the commercial rights and prosperity of the United States: and it has since come into proof, that, at the very moment when the pub lic minister was holding the language of friendship, and inspired confidence in the sincerity of the negociation with which he was charged, a secret agent of his go vernment was employed in intrigues, having for their object a subversion of our government, and a. dismemberment of our happy union. In reviewing the conduct of. Great Britain towards the United States, our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare just renewed by the savages on one of our extensive frontiers; a warfare which is known to spare neither age nor sex, and to be distinguished by. features particularly shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and combinations which have for some time been developing developing themselves among the tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons, without connecting their hostility with that influence; and without recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that government. Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities which have been heaped on our country; and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert. It might at least have been expected, that an enlightened nation, if less urged by moral obligations, or invited by friendly dispositions on the part of the United States, would have found in its true interests alone a sufficient motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high seas: that an, enlarged policy would have favour. ed the free and general circulation of commerce, in which the British nation is at all times interested, and which in time of war is the best alleviation of its calamities to herself, as well as the other belligerents; and more especially that the British cabinet would not, for the sake of a precarious and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have persevered in a course of measures which necessarily put at hazard the invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed to cultivate the mutual advantages of an active commerce. Other councils have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation have had no other effect than to encourage perseverance, and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of lawless violence committed on the great and common highway of nations, even within the sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold our vessels freighted with the products of our soil and industry, or returning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts, no longer the organs of public law, but the instruments of arbitrary edicts, and their unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British fleets; whilst arguments are employed in support of these aggressions, which have no foundation but in a principle equally supporting a claim to regai late our external commerce in all cases whatsoever. We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States; and, on the side of the United States, a state of peace towards Great Britain. Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations, and these accumulating wrongs, or, oppos ing force to force in defence of their natural rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of events, avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contests or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honourable re-establishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question, which the constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the government. In recommending it to their early deliberations, I am happy in the assurance, that the decision will be be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free and a powerful nation. Having presented this view of the relations of the United States with Great Britain, and of the solemn alternative growing out of them, I proceed to remark, that the communications last made to Congress on the subject of our relations with France, will have shewn, that since the revocation of her decrees, as they, violated the neutral rights of the United States, her government has authorised illegal captures by its privateers and public ships; and that other outrages have been practised on our vessels and our citizens. It will have been seen, also, that no indemnity had been provided, or satisfactorily pledged, for the extensive spoliations committed under the violent and retrospective order of the French government against the property of our citizens seized within the jurisdiction of France. I abstain at this time from recommending to the consideration of Congress definitive measures with respect to that nation, in the expectation, that the result of the enclosed discussions between our minister plenipotentiary at Paris, and the French government, wil speedily enable Congress to decide with greater advantage, on the course due to the rights, the interests, the honour of our country. JAMES MADISON. An Act, declaring War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Dependen cies thereof, and the United States of America, and their Territories. "Be it enacted, by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, that war be, and the same is hereby declared to exist between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the dependencies thereof, and the United States of America and their territories; and that the President of the United States be, and is hereby authorised, to use the whole land and naval forces of the United States, to carry the same into effect; and to issue to private armed vessels of the United States, commissions or letters of marque and general reprisal, in such form as he shall think proper, and ander the seal of the United States, against the vessels, goods, and effects of the government of the said United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the subjects thereof. "JAMES MADISON." "June 18, 1812.-Approved." Treaty of Friendship and Alliance between Spain and Russia. His Catholic Majesty Don Ferdinand VII. King of Spain and the Indies, and his Imperial Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, equally animated with the desire of establishing aud strengthening the ancient relations of friendship which have existed between their Monarchies, have nominated for that purpose, to wit, on the part of his Catholic Majesty, and in his name and authority the Regency of Spain, residing in Cadiz, Don Fran |