The valuation of the Dolly and her cargo, and of the Telegraph and her cargo, is herewith enclosed: the delay in obtaining these valuations has retarded for some weeks the presentation of this letter; and the undersigned cannot but indulge the hope that his excellency will now give as early attention to the whole of the case, as its importance manifestly demands.

The undersigned begs his excellency, &c.
J. BARLOW.

His Excellency the Duke of Bassano, &c.

[ENCLOSED IN NO. 9, OF MARCH 16.]

Translation of a Letter from the Duke of Bassano to Mr. Barlow. Paris, March 15, 1812.

SIR, I have had the honour of informing you that the case of the ship Belisarius was terminated, and that I had advised the minister of commerce of the intentions of his majesty.

It having been ascertained, on the first examination of this affair, that the ownership (Le Pour Compte) of a great part of the cargo was not proven, and this irregularity, as well as the insufficiency of the papers on board, being a formal contravention of the rules of navigation, generally adopted and established at all times, the decision to which this part of the cargo might be liable, had, at first, extended beyond it. But on a circumstantial report which I had the honour of presenting to the emperor, his majesty, who likes to carry into the examination of all the affairs on which you address me, friendly dispositions, has ordered that the different questions which were submitted to him should be separated, to the end that a decision may be had, in the first place, on those which present themselves under the most favourable aspect.

In consequence, sir, the vessel and the part of the cargo of which the ownership (Le Pour Compte) is proven, will be given up to the proprietors; and as to the other articles of the cargo which are not accompanied with the same kind of proof, the necessary time and facilities will

be given to establish the fact of their being American pro-
perty conformably to the ancient rules.

Accept, sir, the assurance of my high consideration.
THE DUKE OF BASSANO.

No. 10.

Extracts of a Letter from Mr. Barlow to the Secretary of
State. Paris, April 22, 1812.

"I AM obliged at last to dismiss the Hornet without the expected treaty, which I should have regretted more than I do if your despatches which I have had the honour to receive by the Wasp, had not somewhat abated my zeal in that work.

"It really appeared to me that the advantages of such a treaty as I have sketched would be very great, and especially if it could be concluded soon."

"It is true that our claims of indemnity for past spoliations should be heard, examined and satisfied, which operation should precede the new treaty, or go hand in hand with it. This is dull work, hard to begin, and difficult to pursue. I urged it a long time without the effect even of an oral answer. But lately they have consented to give it a discussion, and the minister assures me that something shall be done to silence the complaints, and on principles that, he says, ought to be satisfactory.

"I shall not venture to detain the Wasp more than two or three weeks; and I hope by that time to have something decisive to forward by her.

"From some expressions in your letters I am in hopes of receiving soon some more precise instructions on these subjects.

"My communication with England, by Morlaix, is almost entirely cut off. It is not so easy to send to London, unless by one of our own publick ships, as it is to the United States. I now send your despatches and my own to Mr. Russell, by a messenger in the Hornet, whom I shall desire captain Lawrence to put on shore or into a pilot boat on the coast of England.

"This messenger, with Mr. Biddle, will leave Paris this night for Cherbourg, where the Hornet is ready to receive them."

MESSAGE

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO CONGRESS. JUNE 1, 1812.

I COMMUNICATE to Congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them, on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal, in 1803, of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her government presents a series of acts, hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it; not in the exercise of a belligerent right, founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neutral vessels, in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of nations, and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong; and a self-redress is assumed, which, if British subjects were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force, for a resort to the responsible sovereign, which falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects, in such cases, be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property to be adjudged, without a regular investigation before a competent tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial, where the sacred rights of persons were at issue. In place of such a trial, these rights are subjected to the will of every petty commander.

The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone, that, under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens, under the safeguard of publick law, and of their national flag, have been torn from their country, and from every thing dear to them; have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation, and exposed, under the severities of their discipline, To be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk

their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren.

Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations. And that no proof might be wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for a continuance of the practice, the British government was formally assured of the readiness of the United States, to enter into arrangements, such as could not be rejected, if the recovery of British subjects were the real and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.

British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and the peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions, they have added the most lawless proceedings in our very harbours; and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction. The principles and rules enforced by that nation, when a neutral nation, against armed vessels of belligerents hovering near her coasts, and disturbing her commerce, are well known. When called on, nevertheless, by the United States, to punish the greater offences committed by her own vessels, her government has bestowed on their commanders additional marks of honour and confidence.

Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force, and sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has been plundered in every sea; the great staples of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets; and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime interests. In aggravation of 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 the 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 occasional expedients for laying waste our neutral trade, the cabinet of Great Britain resorted, at length, to the sweeping system of blockades, under the name 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 encmy, proclaiming a general blockade of the British isles, at a time when the naval force of that enemy dared not to issue from his own ports. She was reminded, without effect, that her own prior blockades, unsupported 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 impossible 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 her enemy, by the repeal of his 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