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Although other subjects will press more immediately on you deliberations, a portion of them cannot but be well bestowed on the just and sound policy of securing to our manufactures the success they have attained, and are still attaining, in some degree, under the impulse of causes not permanent; and to our navigation, the fair extent of which it is at present abridged by the unequal regulations of foreign governments.

Besides the reasonableness of saving our manufacturers from sacrifices which a change of circumstances might bring on them, the national interest requires, that, with respect to such articles at least as belong to our defence, and our primary wants, we should not be left in unnecessary dependance on external supplies. And whilst foreign governments adhere to the existing discriminations in their ports against our navigation, and an equality or lesser discrimination is enjoyed by their navigation in our ports, the effect cannot be mistaken, because it has been seriously felt by our shipping interests; and in proportion as this takes place, the advantages of an independent conveyance of our products to foreign markets, and of a growing body of marines, trained by their occupations for the service of their country in times of danger, must be diminished.

The receipts into the treasury, during the year ending on the 30th of September last, have exceeded thirteen millions and a half of dollars, and have enabled us to defray the current expenses, including the interest on the public debt, and to reimburse more than five millions of dollars of the principal, without recurring to the loan authorized by the act of the last session. The temporary loan obtained in the latter end of the year 1810, has also been reimbursed, and is not included in that amount.

The decrease of revenue arising from the situation of our commerce, and the extraordinary expenses which have and may become necessary, must be taken into view, in making commensurate provisions for the ensuing year. And I recommend to your consideration, the propriety of ensuring a sufficiency of annual revenue, at least, to defray the ordinary expenses of government, and to pay the interest on the public debt, including that on new loans which may be authorized.

I cannot close this communication without expressing my deep sense of the crisis in which you are assembled, my confidence in a wise and honorable result to your deliberations, and assurances of the faithful zeal with which my co-operating duties will be discharged; invoking at the same time the blessing of Heaven on our beloved country, and on all the means that may be employed, in vindicating its rights, and advancing its welfare.

Washington, November 5th, 1811.

JAMES MADISON.

DOCUMENTS.

Correspondence between Mr. Monroe and Mr. Foster, in relation to the Orders in Council.

SIR,

Mr. Foster to Mr. Monroe.

Washington, July 2, 1811 I have the honor to inform you that I have received the fpecial commands of his royal highnefs, the prince regent, acting in the name and on the behalf of his majefty, to make an early communication to you of the fentiments which his royal highness was pleased, on the part of his majefly, to exprefs to Mr. Pinkney, upon the occafion of his audience of leave.

His royal highnefs fignified to Mr. Pinkney, the deep regret with which he learnt that Mr. Pinkney conceived himself to be bound by the inftructions of his government to take his departure from England. His royal highne fs informed Mr. Pinkney that one of the earliest acts of his government, in the name and on the behalf of his majefty, was to appoint an envoy extraordinary and minifter plenipotentiary to the government of the United States; and added, that this appointment had been made in the fpirit of amity, and with a view of maintaining the subsisting relations of friendship between the two countries.

His royal highnefs further declared to Mr. Pinkney that he was moft fincerely and anxionfly defirous, on the part of his majefty, to cultivate a good understanding with the United States by every means confiftent with the prefervation of the maritime rights and interefts of the British empire.

His royal highness particularly defired that Mr. Pinkney would communicate these declarations to the United States in the manner which might appear beft calculated to fatisfy the prefident of his royal highness'folicitude to facilitate an amicable difcuffion with the government of the United States upon every point of difference which had arisen between the two governments,

I have the honor to be, &c. &c. &c.

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SIR,

AUG. J. FOSTER.

Mr. Foster to Mr. Monroe.

Washington, July 3, 1811. I have had the honor of ftating to you verbally the fyftem of defence to which his majefty has been compelled to resort for the purpose of protecting the maritime rights and intereffs of his dominions, againft the new defcription of warfare that has been

adopted by his enemies. I have presented to you the grounds upon which his majefty finds himself ftill obliged to continue that fyftem, and I conceive that I fhall beft meet your wifhes as expreffed to me this morning, if, in a more formal fhape, I fhould lay before you the whole extent of the queftion as it appears to his majefty's government to exift between Great-Britain and America.

I beg leave to call your attention, fir, to the principles on which his majefty's orders in council were originally founded. The decree of Berlin was directly and exprefsly an act of war, by which France prohibited all nations from trade or intercourse with Great-Britain, under peril of confifcation of their fhips and merchandize; although France had not the means of impofing an actual blockade in any degree adequate to fuch a purpose. The immediate and profeffed object of this hoftile decree was the deftruction of all British commerce, through means entirely unfanctioned by the law of nations, and unauthorized by any re ceived doctrine of legitimate blockade.

This violation of the eftablifhed law of civilized nations in war would have juftified Great Britain in retaliating upon the enemy, by a fimilar interdiction of all commerce with France, and with fuch other countries as might co-operate with France in her fyftem of commercial hoftility against Great Britain.

The object of Great Britain was not, however, the deftruction of trade, but its prefervation under fuch regulations as might be compatible with her own fecurity, at the fame time that the extended an indulgence to foreign commerce, which strict principles would have entitled her to withhold. The retaliation of Great Britain was not.therefore, urged to the full extent of her right; our prohibition of French trade was not abfolute, but modified, and in return for the abfolute prohibition of all trade with Great Britain, we prohibited not all commerce with France, but all fuch commerce with France as fhould not be carried on through Great Britain.

It was evident, that this fyftem muft prove prejudicial to neutral nations: this calamity was forefeen, and deeply regretted.But the injury to the neutral nation arofe from the aggreffion of France, which had compelled Great Britain in her own defence to refort to adequate retaliatory measures of war. The operation on the American commerce of thofe precautions which the conduct of France had rendered indifpenfable to our fecurity, is therefore to be afcribed to the unwarrantable aggreffion of France, and not to those proceedings on the part of Great Britain which that aggreffion had rendered neceffary and juft.

The object of our fyftem was merely to counteract an attempt to crufh the British trade. Great Britain endeavored to permit the continent to receive as large a portion of commerce as might be practicable through Great Britain; and all her fubfequent regulations, and every modification of her system by new orders

or modes of granting or withholding licences, have been calculated for the purpofe of encouraging the trade of neutrals thro' Great Britain, whenever fuch encouragement might appear advantageous to the general interefts of commerce, and confiftent with the public fafety of the nation.

The juftification of his majefty's orders in council, and the continuance of that defence, have always been refted upon the exiftence of the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and on the perfeverance of the enemy in the fyftem of hoftility which has fubverted the rights of neutral commerce on the continent; and it has always been declared on the part of his majesty's government, that whenever France fhould have effectually repealed the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and fhould have reftored neutral commerce to the condition in which it flood previoufly to the promulgation of those decrees, we should immediately repeal our orders in council.

France has afferted that the decree of Berlin was a measure of juft retaliation on her part, occafioned by our previous aggreffion; and the French government has infifted that our fyftem of blockade, as it exifted previoufly to the decree of Berlin, was a manifeft violation of the received law of nations: we muft, therefore, fir, refer to the articles of the Berlin decree to find the principles of our fyftem of blockade which France confiders to be new, and contrary to the law of nations.

By the 4th and 8th articles it is ftated as a juftification of the French decree, that Great Britain "extends to unfortified towns and commercial ports, to harbors, and to the mouths of rivers, thofe rights of blockade which, by reafon and the ufage of nations, are applicable only to fortified places'; and that the rights of blockade ought to be limited to fortreffes really invested by a fufficient force."

It is added in the fame articles, that Great Britain "has declared places to be in a state of blockade before which fhe has not a fingle fhip of war, and even places which the whole British force would be infufficient to blockade, entire coafts and a whole empire."

Neither the practice of Great Britain nor the law of nations has ever fanctioned the rule now laid down by France, that no places, excepting fortreffes in a complete ftate of inveftiture, can be deemed lawfully blockaded by fea.

If fuch a rule were to be admitted, it would become nearly impracticable for Great Britain to attempt the blockade of any port of the continent; and our fubmiffion to this perverfion of the law of nations, while it would deftroy one of the principal advantages of our naval fuperiority, would facrifice the common rights and interefts of all maritime ftates.

It was evident that the blockade of May, 1806, was the prin cipal pretended juftification of the decree of Berlin, though neither the principles on which that blockade was founded, nor its práctical operation, afforded any color for the proceedings of France.

In point of date the blockade of May, 1806, preceded the Berlin decree; but it was a juft and legal blockade according to the eftablished law of nations, because it was intended to be maintained, and was actually maintained, in an adequate force appointed to guard the whole coaft described in the notification, and confequently to enforce the blockade.

Great Britain has never attempted to dispute that, in the ordinary course of the law of nations, no blockade can be juftifiable or valid unless it be fupported by an adequate force deftined to maintain it, and to expofe to hazard all veffels attempting to evade its operation. The blockade of May, 1806, was notified by Mr. Secretary Fox, on this clear principle; nor was that blockade announced until he had fatisfied himself, by a communication with his majesty's board of admiralty, that the admiralty poffeffed the means and would employ them, of watching the whole coaft from Breft to the Elbe, and of effectually enforcing the blockade.

The blockade of May, 1806, was therefore (according to the doctrine of Grat-Britain,) just and lawful in its origin, because it was fupported both in intention and fact by an adequate nayal force. This was the juftification of that blockade, until the period of time when the orders in council were iffued.

The orders in council were founded on a diftinct principle; that of defenfive retaliation. France had declared a blockade of all the ports and coafts of Great Britain and her dependencies, without affigning, or being able to affign, any force to fupport that blockade. Such act of the enemy would have juftified a declaration of the blockade of the whole coaft of France, even without the application of any particular force to that fervice. Since the promulgation of the orders in council, the blockade of May, 1806, has been fuftained and extended, by the more comprehenfive fyftem of defenfive retaliation, on which those regulations are founded. But if the orders in council fhould be abrogated, the blockade of May, 1806, could not continue under our conftruction of the law of nations, unlefs that blockade fhould be maintained by a due application of an adequate naval force.

America appears to concur with France, in afferting that GreatBritain was the original aggreffor in the attack on neutral rights, and has particularly objected to the blockade of May, 1806, as an obvious inftance of that aggreffion on the part of GreatBritain.

Although the doctrines of the Berlin decree, respecting the rights of blockade, are not directly afferted by the American gov ernment, Mr. Pinkney's corespondence would appear to countenance the principles on which those doctrines are founded. The objection directly ftated by America against the blockade of May, 1806, refts on a fuppofition that no naval force which Great-Britain poffeffed, or could have employed for fuch a purpose, could have rendered that blockade effectual, and that therefore it was neceffarily irregular, and could not poffibly be maintained in con

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