however, to the colonial trade of France during war, a trade from which neutrals are excluded by France herself during peace, the condition of the neutral is manifestly improved; it is improved at the expence of England, who is deprived of the chance of captures and conquests, which her power would otherwise give her; and it is improved to the great gain of France, whom the interference of neutrals protects against the overwhelming power of her enemy. There can be no doubt as to the equity of the rule of the war 1756, that rule of which France and America have so loudly complained. The Orders in Council of January, 1807, which was not issued till after the Berlin Decree had been published by Buonaparte, was also justifiable on the very same principles; it went merely to exclude neutrals during war from a branch of the enemy's trade to which they had no access in time of peace. So far then the measures adopted by the British government rested on the clearest principles of international law.

And what were the measures adopted by France ? had they any foundation in the acknowledged principles and usages of public law? The decree of Berlin prohibited all commerce in British commodities; France indeed had a right to do this, however fatal the measure might be to her own interest, and that of her dependencies; and had the Berlin Decree gone no further, although it might have had the effect of embittering the hostile spirit of the two countries, it neither could have justified, nor would it have been met by any specific act of retaliation on the part of England. But the French ruler, in a moment of despair, ventured to declare the British islands in a state of blockade, and to interdict all neutrals from trading with a British port. This was a violent infringement of the law of nations; a daring insult on neutral rights; an act of mad injustice, which loudly called upon all parties to avenge themselves of its authors. The honour of Great Britain pre-eminently demanded that she should repel this outrage

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with becoming spirit; and although she at first seemed willing to treat so impotent a measure with contempt alone, and to wait its result on the conduct of America, yet it will not be denied that the right still remained to her of exercising retaliation when the proper season should arrive. The date of the publication of the Milan Decree appeared to her to be that season; time enough had been allowed to the different neutral powers to remonstrate against the enemy; they had failed to improve the opportunity afforded them; and England could no longer remain silent when a new decree was issued, more unjust and insulting than its predecessor, more absurd and barbarous than any thing which had ever occurred among civilized nations. She therefore, issued her Orders in Council, which in effect reduced the French empire to a state of blockade, and cut off the whole commerce which neutral nations had hitherto carried on with the enemy. Of these measures France of course had no right to complain, and a very little reflection will suffice to shew that if America had any just grounds of remonstrance, she should have offered them to France alone, and not to England, against whom she was so prompt to bring forward her accusations.

France was the first of the belligerents to violate the law of nations. She issued the Berlin Decree, and followed it up by the other, dated at Milan, by both of which, the Americans and all other neutrals were prevented from maintaining their usual intercourse with England. These measures were in their principle a direct invasion of neutral rights, and it was therefore the duty of neutral powers to have remonstrated against them with firmness. But America did not thus resist; and she in this manner committed herself with the enemy. It was a principle tenaciously maintained by Buonaparte on all occasions, that those who did not resist an injury offered them by either of the belligerents, were no longer to be considered as neutrals; that by their acquiescence, they made themselves parties to the cause of

the enemy, and that of course, they were to be treated in the same way as if they had actually declared war against the nation to whose interests they stood opposed. It was on some principle of this kind, that he declared the ships of all neutrals which submitted to what he called the tyranny of the English, denationalized-an uncouth and barbarous word invented to serve the occasion of these unhappy times, when Europe was no longer under the guidance of wise and sound principles.

To submit to any thing which France pretended to call a departure from the international law of Europe, was therefore held sufficient to denationalize the ships of neutral powers; and although the application of this principle may frequently have been erroneous, there can be no doubt that the principle itself was just. If France violated the law of nations, as she unquestionably did by her Berlin Decree; and if America calmly acquiesced in this insulting invasion of her rights, there can be no sort of doubt that she thus made herself a party in the quarrel which France had with England; that she in effect conspired with the common enemy, and that her ships were, to use the jargon of the French government, dearly "denationalized." Had England therefore meditated hostility towards America; had she been anxious to avail herself of a pretext for a quarrel; had she been desirous of exacting from a secret enemy the full penalties of her accession to the cause of the other belligerent; she might very well have proceeded, on the simple fact of American acquiescence in French violence, at once to have treated the Americans as enemies.

A candid exposition, therefore, of the rights and duties of belligerents and neutrals, must completely exculpate England from all blame in issuing her Orders in Council. It is the doctrine of all jurists, that the rights of neutrals during war are exactly the same as during peace; neutral powers are entitled to demand of either belligerents that in their intercourse with the other, they shall

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not be subjected to greater restraints than they experienced during a season of tranquility; but no neutral is, by any means, entitled to require more than this, or can expect that a belligerent should sacrifice to the convenience of the neutral, any of the just rights she may acquire by a state of war. The principle of this doctrine is obvious; no nation can expect that a foreign power is to sacrifice its own immediate interest to her convenience or advantage. When we come to consider these general principles, with reference to the case of America, their force seems to be irresistable. Suppose that America had been entirely out of the question, that her name were unknown in Europe, and that she had still remained in her ancient state of dependence on the British empire; suppose for a moment, that the question had arisen entirely between Great Britain and France; that France had violated the law of nations, by presuming to declare the British islands in a state of blockade, and then let any impartial person say what is the policy which Great Britain would have been entitled and called upon to pursue? She would clearly and evidently have had a right to do the same thing to France, which France had attempted to do to her, that is, she would have been entitled to declare the French empire in a state of blockade with all possible vigor. Such then was her undoubted right; and will it be pretended that America that a foreign nation was entitled to interfere with her, in the exercise of her rights? It is of no importance to the thing in hand to enquire, whether the blockade of France was, or was not, on the whole beneficial to England; that was a matter for England alone to consider; it was a question with which America had no sort of concern; and it is of the rights of America alone that we now speak. America, then, had no right to complain of the exercise of the powers which England possessed by her superiority, as one of the great European belligerents; which she derived immediately from that state of hostilities, in which she, and not America, was inolved, and

which, of course, she had a right to improve to her own advantage, and the annoyance of her enemies.

There is still another light in which this momentous question may be considered, with reference to the established law of nations. It is in the power of England to exclude America or any other nation from trading with herself, and it is in the power of France to do the same. Suppose, then, that both nations had mutually agreed to treat America in this manner, could she have ventured to complain? But it is the same thing whether these powers do so directly, and in conjunction, or indirectly by means not less efficacious; whether they exclude the Americans by the operation of a peaceful league between themselves, or by a series of measures adopted during war. If France, by attempting to exclude all neutrals from British ports, communicated to her enemies a right to retaliate, can the Americans interfere; or are they in a worse condition than if the belligerents had separately, and in a time of profound peace, determined to renounce all commercial intercourse with them? Surely not; they could not, with the slightest appearance of justice, complain; they could not demand that their condition should be improved by a state of European warfare; they could not claim the forbearance of England towards her enemies, for the sole purpose of conferring a favor upon neutrals; they could not, in short, upon any sound principle, object to the Orders. in Council..

Different opinions were entertained on the question as to their expediency; and although these famous measures are said to have been, in the first instance, strongly pressed upon ministers by the mercantile interest, there can be no doubt that the government was in some measure deserted by this powerful body, before the Orders in Council were finally repealed. The discussions which at intervals ensued on this subject,