I have had the honor to state to you the light in which his royal highness, the prince regent viewed the Proclamation of the President of last November, and the surprise with which he learnt the subsequent measures of Congress against the British trade.

American ships siezed under his majesty's Orders in Council even after that Proclamation appeared, were not immediately condemned, because it was believed that the insidious professions of France might have led the American government, and the merchants of America into an eroneeus construction of the intentions of France.

But when the veil was thrown aside, and the French ruler himself avowed the continued existence of his invariable system, it was not expected by his royal highness that America would have refused to retrace the steps she had taken.

Fresh proofs have since occurred of the resolution of the French government to cast away all consideration of the rights of nations in the unprecedented warfare they have adopted.

America however still persists in her injurious measures against the commerce of Great-Britain, and his royal highness has in consequence been obliged to look to means of retaliation against those measures which his royal highness cannot but consider as most unjustifiable.

How desirable would it not be, sir, if a stop could be put to any material progress in such a system of retaliation, which, from step to step may lead to the most unfriendly situation between the two countries ?

His majesty's government will necessarily be guided in a great degree by the contents of my first despatches as to the conduct they must adopt towards America.

Allow me then, sir, to repeat my_request to learn from you whether I may not convey what I know would be most grateful to his royal highness' feelings, namely, the hope that he may be enabled, by the speedy return of America from her unfriendly attitude towards Great-Britain, to forget altogether that he ever was obliged to have any other object in view besides that of endeavoring to promote the best understanding possible between the two countries.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

AUGUSTUS J. FOSTER.

"Mr. Foster to Mr. Monroe.

WASHINGTON, July 16, 1811. SIR-I had the honor to receive the letter which youaddressed to me under yesterday's date, requesting an explanation from me, in consequence of my letters of the 3d and 14th inst. of the precise extent in which a repeal of the French Decrees is by his majesty's government, made a condition of, the repeal of the British Orders, and particularly whether the condition embraces the seizure of vessels and merchandize entering French ports in contravention of French regulations, as well as the capture on the high seas, of neutral vessels and their cargoes, on the mere allegation that they are bound to or from British ports, or that they have on board. British productions or manufactures; as also, stating that in your view of the French Decrees, they comprise regulations essentially different in their principles, some of them violating the neutral rights of the United States, others operating against Great-Britain without any such violation.

You will permit me, sir, for the purpose of answering your questions as clearly and concisely as possible, to bring. into view the French Decrees themselves, together with the official declarations of the French minister which accompa nied them.

In the body of those Decrees, and in the declarations alluded to, you will find, sir, express avowals that the princi ples on which they were founded, and provisions contained in them, are wholly new, unprecedented, and in direct contradiction to all ideas of justice and the principles and usages of all civilized nations. The French government did not pretend to say that any one of the regulations contained in those Decrees was a regulation which France had ever been in the previous practice of.

They were consequently to be considered, and were indeed allowed by France herself to be, all of them, parts of a new system of warfare, unauthorised by the established laws of nations.

It is in this light in which France herself has placed her Decrees, that Great-Britain is obliged to consider them.

2

The submission of neutrals to any regulations made by France, authorised by the laws of nations, and practised in former wars, will never be complained of by Great-Britain;

but the regulations of the Berlin and Milan Decrees do, and are declared to violate the laws of nations, and the rights of neutrals, for the purpose of attacking through them the resources of Great-Britain. The ruler of France has drawn no distinction between any of them, nor has he declared the cessation of any one of them in the speech which he so lately addressed to the deputation from the free Imperial Hanse Towns, which was on the contrary a confirmation of them all.

Not until the French Decrees therefore shall be effectually repealed, and thereby neutral commerce be restored to the situation in which it stood previously to their promulgation, can his royal highness conceive himself justified, consistently with what he owes to the safety and honor of GreatBritain, in foregoing the just measures of retaliation which his majesty in his defence was necessitated to adopt against them.

I trust, sir, that this explanation in answer to your enquiries will be considered by you sufficiently satisfactory, should you require any further, and which it may be in my power to give, I shall with the greatest cheerfulness afford it.

I sincerely hope, however, that no further delay will be thought necessary by the President in restoring the relations of amity which should ever subsist between America and Great-Britain, as the delusions attempted by the government of France have now been made manifest, and the perfidious plans of its ruler exposed; by which, while he adds to, and agravates his system of violence against neutral trade, he endeavors to throw all the odium of his acts upon Great-Britain with a view to engender discord between the neutral countries, and the only power which stands up as a bulwark against his efforts at universal tyranny and oppression.

Excuse me, sir, if I express my wish as early as possible to dispatch his majesty's packet boat with the result of our communications, as his majesty's government will necessarily be most anxious to hear from me. Any short period of time, however, which may appear to you to be reasonable, L will not hesitate to detain her.

I have the honor to be, &c.

AUGUSTUS J. FOSTER.
STU

Mr. Monroe to Mr. Foster.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, July 23d, 1811.

SIR-I have submitted to the President your several letters of the 3d and 16th of this mouth relative to the British Orders in Council and the blockade of May, 1806, and I have now the honor to communicate to you his sentiments on the view which you have presented of those measures of your government.

*

It was hoped that your communication would have led to an immediate accommodation of the differences subsisting between our countries, on the ground on which alone it is possible to meet you. It is regretted that you have confined yourself to a vindication of the measures which produced some of them.

The United States are as little disposed now, as heretofore, to enter into the question concerning the priority of aggression by the two belligerents, which could not be justified by either, by the priority of those of the other. But as you bring forward that plea in support of the Orders in Council, I must be permitted to remark that you have yourself furnished a conclusive answer to it, by admitting that the blockade of May 1806, which was prior to the first of the French Decrees, would not be legal, unless supported through the whole extent of the coast, from the Elbe to Brest, by an adequate naval force. That such a naval force was actually applyed and continued in the requisite strictness until that blockade was comprised in and superceded by the Orders of November of the following year, or even until the French Decree of the same year, will not, I presume, be alleged.

But waving this question of priority, can it be seen without both surprise and regret, that it is still contended, that the Orders in Council are justified by the principle of retaliation, and that this principle is strengthened by the inability of France to enforce her Decrees. A retaliation is, in its name, and its essential character, a returning like for like. Is the deadly blow of the Orders in Council against one half of our commerce, a return of like for like to an empty threat in the French Decrees, against the other half? It may be a vindicative hostility, as far as its effects fall on the enemy. But when falling on a neutral, who on no pretext can be liable for more than the measure of inju

ry received through such neutral, it would not be a retaliation, but a positive wrong, by the plea on which it is founded,

It is to be further remarked that the Orders m Council went even beyond the plea, such as this has appeared to be, in extending its operation against the trade of the United States, with nations which, like Russia, had not adopted the French Decrees, and with all nations which had merely excluded the British flag; an exclusion resulting as a matter of course with respect to whatever nation Great-Britain might happen to be at war.

I am far from viewing the modification originally contained in these Orders, which permits neutrals to prosecute their trade with the continent, through Great-Britain, in the favorable light in which you represent it. It is impossible to proceed to notice the effect of this modification without expressing our astonishment at the extravagance of the political pretension set up by it: a pretension which is utterly incompatible with the sovreignty and independence of other states. In a commercial view, it is not less objectionable, a it cannot fail to prove destructive to neutral commerce.

As an enemy, Great-Britain cannot trade with France. Nor does France permit a neutral to come into her ports from Great-Britain. The attempt of Great-Britain to force our trade through her ports, would have therefore the commercial effect of depriving the United States altogether of the market of her enemy for their productions, and of.destroying their value in her market by a surcharge of it. Heretofore it has been the usage of belligerent nations to carry on their trade through the intervention of neutrals; and this had the beneficial effect of extending to the former the advantages of peace, while suffering under the calamities of war. To reverse the rule, and to extend to nations at peace, the calamities of war, is a change as novel and extraordinary as it is at variance with justice and public law.

Against this unjust system, the United States entered, at an early period, their solemn protest. They considered it their duty to evince to the world their high disapprobation of it, and they have done so by such acts as were deemed most consistent with the rights and policy of the nation. Remote from the contentious scene which desolates Europe, it has been their uniform object to avoid becoming a party to the war.—With this view they have endeavored to culti