the blockade of May, 1806, the whole ground taken by his majesty's government was at once abandoned. When I had the honor to exhibit to you my instructions, and to draw up as I conceived, according to your wishes and those of the President, a statement of the mode in which that blockade would probably disappear, I never meant to authorise such a conclusion, and I now beg most unequivocally to disclaim it. The blockade of May, 1806, will not continue after the repeal of the Orders in Council, unless his majesty's government shall think fit to sustain it by the special application of a sufficient naval force, and the fact of its being so continued or not, will be notified at the time. If, in this view of the matter, which is certainly presented in a conciliatory spirit, one of the obstacles to a complete understanding between our countries can be removed by the United States government waving all further reference to that blockade when they can be justified in asking a repeal of the Orders, and if I may communicate this to my government, it will undoubtedly be very satisfactory; but I beg distinctly to disavow having made any acknowledgment that the blockade would cease merely in consequence of a revocation of the Orders in Council; whenever it does cease, it will cease because there will be no adequate force to maintain it.

On another very material point, sir, you appear to have misconstrued my words; for in no one passage of my letter can I discover any mention of innovations on the part of Great-Britain, such as you say excited a painful surprise in your government. There is no new pretension set up by his majesty's government. In answer to questions of yours, as to what were the Decrees or regulations of France which Great-Britain complained of, and against which she directs her retaliatory measures, I brought distinctly into. your view the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and you have not denied, because, indeed, you could not, that the provisions of those Decrees were new measures of war on the part of France, acknowledged as such by her ruler, and contrary to the principles and usages of civilized nations. That the present war has been oppressive beyond example by its duration, and the desolation it spreads through Europe, I willingly agree with you, but the United States cannot surely mean to attribute the cause to Great-Britain. The question

between Great-Britain and France is that of an honorable struggle against the lawless efforts of an ambitious tyrant, and America can but have the wish of every independent nation as to its result.

. On a third point, sir, I have also to regret that my meaning should have been mistaken. Great-Britain never contended that British merchant vessels should be allowed to trade with her enemies, or that British property should be allowed entry into their ports, as you would infer; such a pretension would indeed be preposterous; but Great-Britain does contend against the system of terror put in practice by France, by which usurping authority wherever her arms or the timidity of nations will enable her to extend her influence, she makes it a crime to neutral countries as well as individuals that they should possess articles, however acquired, which may have been once the produce of English industry or of the British soil. Against such an abominable and extravagant pretension every feeling must revolt, and the honor no less than the interest of Great-Britain engages her to oppose it.

Turning to the course of argument contained in your letter, allow me to express my surprise at the conclusion you draw in considering the question of priority relative to the French Decrees or British Orders in Council. It was clearly proved that the blockade of May, 1806, was maintained by an adequate naval force, and therefore was.a blockade founded on just and legitimate principles, and I have not heard that it was considered in a contrary light when notified as such to you by Mr. Secretary Fox, nor until it suited the views of France to endeavor to have it considered otherwise. Why America took up the view the French government chose to give of it, and could see in it grounds for the French Decrees, was always matter of astonishment in England.

Your remarks on modifications at various times of our system of retaliation will require the less reply from the circumstance of the Orders in Council of April, 1809, having superceded them all. They were calculated for the avowed purpose of softening the effect of the original Orders on neutral commerce, the incidental effect of those Orders on neutrals having been always sincerely regretted by his majesty's government; but when it was found that neutrals objected to them they were removed.

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As to the principle of retaliation, it is founded on the just and natural right of self defence against our enemy; if France is unable to enforce her Decrees on the ocean, it is not from the want of will, for she enforces them wherever she can do it; her threats are only empty where her power is of no avail.

In the view you have taken of the conduct of America, in her relations with the two belligerents, and in the conclusion you draw with respect to the impartiality of your country, as exemplified in the non-importation law, I lament to say I cannot agree with you. That act is a direct measure against the British trade, enacted at a time when all the legal authorities in the United States appeared ready to contest the statement of a repeal of the French Decrees, on which was founded the President's proclamation of November 2d, and consequently to dispute the justice of the proclamation itself.

You urge, sir, that the British government promised to proceed pari passu with France in the repeal of her Edicts. It is to be wished you could point out to us any step France has taken in repeal of hers. Great-Britain has repeatedly declared that she would repeal when the French did so, and she means to keep to that declaration.

I have stated to you that we could not consider the letter of August 5, declaring the repeal of the French Edicts, providing we revoked our Orders in Council, or America resented our not doing so, as a step of that nature; and the French government knew that we could not; their object was evidently while their system was adhered to, in all its rigor, to endeavor to persuade the American government that they had relaxed from it, and to induce her to proceed in enforcing the submission of Great-Britain to the inordinate demands of France. It is to be lamented that they have but too well succeeded; for the United States government appear to have considered the French Declaration in the sense in which France wished it to be taken, as an absolute repeal of her Decrees, without adverting to the conditional terms which accompanied it.

But you assert that no violations of your neutral rights by France occur on the high seas, and that these were all the violations alluded to in the act of Congress of May, 1810. I readily believe, indeed, that such cases are rare, but

it is owing to the preponderance of the British navy that they are so, when scarce a ship under the French flag can venture to sea without being taken, it is not extraordinary that they make no captures. If such violations alone were within the purview of your law, there would seem to have been no necessity for its enactment. The British navy might have been safely trusted for the prevention of this occurrence. But I have always believed and my government has believed, that the American legislators had in view in the provision of their law as it respects France, not only her deeds of violence on the seas, but all the novel and extraordinary pretensions and practices of her government which infringed their neutral rights.

We have had no evidence as yet of any of those pretensions being abandoned. To the ambiguous declaration in Mr. Champagny's note is opposed the unambiguous and personal declaration of Bonaparte himself. You urge that there is nothing incompatible with the revocation of the Deerees in respect to the United States, in his expressions to the deputies from the free cities of Hamburgh, Bremen, and Lubeck, that it is distinctly stated in that speech, that the blockade of the British Islands shall cease when the British blockade shall cease, and that the French blockade shall cease in favor of those nations in whose favor GreatBritain revokes hers or who support their rights against her pretensions.

It is to be inferred from this and the corresponding parts of the declaration alluded to, that unless Great-Britain sacrifices her principles of blockade, which are those authorized by the established laws of nations, France will still maintain her Decrees of Berlin and Milan, which indeed, the speech in question declares to be the fundamental laws of the French empire.

I do not, I confess, conceive how these avowals of the ruler of France, can be said to be compatible with the repeal of his Decrees in respect to the United States. If the United States are prepared to insist on the sacrifices by Great-Britain of the ancient and established rules of maritime war practised by her, then indeed they may avoid the operation of the French Decrees, but otherwise, according to this document, it is very clear that they are still subjected

to them.

The Decree of Fountainbleau is confessedly founded on the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, dated the 19th October, 1810, and proves their continued existence. The report of the French minister of December 8, announcing the perseverance of France in her Decrees is still further in confirmation of them, and a re-perusal of the letter of the minister of justice, of the 25th last December, confirms me in the inference I drew from it, for otherwise why should that minister make the prospective restoration of American vessels, taken after the 1st of November, to be a consequence of the non-importation, and not of the French revocation. If the French government had been sincere, they would have ceased infringing on the neutral rights of America, after the 1st November. That they violated them, however, after that period, is notorious.

Your government seem to let it be understood that an ambiguous declaration from Great-Britain, similar to that of the French minister, would have been acceptable to them. But, sir, is it consistent with the dignity of a nation that respects itself, to speak in ambiguous language? The subjects and citizens of either country would in the end be the victims, as many are already, in all probability, who from a misconstruction of the meaning of the French government, have been led into the most imprudent speculations. Such conduct would not be to proceed pari passu with France in revoking our Edicts, but to descend to the use of the perfidious and juggling contrivances of her cabinet, by which she fills her coffers at the expense of independent nations. A similar construction of proceeding pari passu might lead to such Decrees as those of Rambouillet, or of Bayonne, to the system of exclusion or of licences, all measures of France against the American commerce, is nothing short of absolute hostility.

It is urged that no vessel has been condemned by the tribunals of France, on the principles of her Decrees since the the 1st of November. You allow, however, that there have been some detained since that period, and that such part of the cargoes as consisted of goods not the produce of America, was seized, and the other part, together with the vessel itself, only released after the President's proclamation became known in France. These circumstances, surely, only prove the difficulty that France is under in reconciling her