necessity for giving notice that it would be continued, as by the further consideration, that according to the decision of your court of admiralty, a blockade instituted by proclamation does not cease by the removal of the force applied to it, nor without a formal notice by the government to that effect.

It is not, however, wished to discuss any question relative to the mode by which that blockade may be terminated. Its actual termination is the material object for consideration.

It is easy to shew, and it has already been abundantly shewn, that the blockade of May 1806, is inconsistent in any view that may be taken of it, with the law of nations. It is also easy to shew that, as now expounded, it is equally inconsistent with the sense of your government when the order was issued, and this change is a sufficient reply to the remarks which you have applied to me personally.

If you will examine the order, you will find that it is strictly little more than a blockade of the coaft from the Seime to Oftend. There is an exprefs refervation in it, in favor of neutrals to any part of the coaft between Breft and the Seine, and between Of. tend and the Elbe. Neutral powers are permitted by it to take from their own ports every kind of produce without distinction as to its origin, and to carry it to the continent, under that limitation, and with the exception only of contraband of war and enemy's property, and to bring thence to their own ports in return whatever articles they think fit. Why were contraband of war and enemy's property excepted, if a commerce even in thofe articles would not otherwife have been permitted under the refervation? No order was neceflary to fubject them to seizure; they were liable to it by the law of nations, as afferted by Great Britain.

Why then did the British government inftitute a blockade which, with refpect to neutrals, was not vigorous as to the greater part of the coaft comprised in it? If you will look to the state of things which then exifted between the United States and Great Britain, you will find the anfwer: a controverfy had taken place between our governments on a different topic, which was ftill depending. The British government had interfered with the trade between France and her allies, in the produce of their colonies. The juft claim of the United States was then a fubject of negociation; and your government, profeffing its willingness to make a fatisfactory arrangement of it, iffued the order which allowed the trade, without making any conceffion as to the principle, referving that for adjuftment by treaty. It was in this light that I viewed, and in this fenfe that I reprefented that order to my government, and in no other did I make any comment on it.

When you reflect that this order, by allowing the trade of neutrals in colonial productions to all that portion of the coaft which was not rigorously blockaded, afforded to the United States an accommodation in a principal point then at iffue between our go

vernments, and of which their citizens extensively availed themfelves; that that trade, and the queftion of blockade, and every other question in which the United States and Great Britain were interefted, were then in a train of amicable negociation; you will, I think, fee the cause why the minifter, who then reprefented the United States with the British government, did not make a formal complaint againft it. You have appealed to me, who happened to be that minifter, and urged my filence as an evidence of my approbation of, or at least acquiefcence in, the blockade. An explanation of the cause of that fuppofed filence, is not lefs due to myfelf than to the true character of the tranfaction. With the minifter with whom I had the honor to treat, I may add, that an official formal complaint was not likely to be reforted to, becaufe friendly communications were invited and preferred. The want of fuch' a document is no proof that the measure was approved by me, or that no complaint was made.

In recalling to my mind, as this incident naturally does, the manly character of that diftinguifhed and illuftrious ftatefman, and the confidence with which he infpired all thofe with whom he had to treat, I fhall be permitted to exprefs, as a flight tribute of refpect to his memory, the very high confideration in which I have always held his great talents and virtues.

The United States have not, nor can they approve the blockade of an extenfive coaft. Nothing certainly can be inferred from any thing that has paffed relative to the blockade of May 1806, to countenance fuch an inference.

It is feen with fatisfaction, that you fill admit that the application of an adequate force is neceffary to give a blockade a legal character, and that it will lofe that character whenever that adequate force ceafes to be applied. As it cannot be alleged that the application of any fuch adequate force has been continued, and actually exifts, in the cafe of the blockade of May 1806, it would feem to be a fair inference that the repeal of the orders in council will leave no infuperable difficulty with refpect to it. To fuppofe the contrary, would be to fuppofe that the orders in council, faid to include that blockade, refting themselves on a principle of re-. taliation only, and not fuftained by the application of an adequate force, would have the effect of fultaining a blockade admitted to require the application of an adequate force, until fuch adequate force fhould actually take the place of the orders in council.Whenever any blockade is inftituted, it will be a fubject for confideration; and if the blockade be in conformity to the law of nations, there will be no difpofition in this government to con. test it.

I have the honor to be, &c. .

(Signed)

JAS. MONROE.

[Documents to be continued in No. 4.]

Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

This committee consisted of Messrs. Porter from New-York, Calhoun from South-Carolina, Grundy from Tennessee, Smilie from Pennsylvania, Randolph from Virginia, Harper from New-Hampshire, Key from Maryland, Desha from Kentucky, and Seaver from Massachusetts.] House of Representatives, Friday, Nov. 29, 1811. Mr. Porter, as chairman of the committee on Foreign Relations, made the following REPORT.

The Committee, to whom was referred that part of the President's message which relates to our Foreign Affairs, beg leave to report in part

THAT they have endeavored to give the fubject fubmitted to them, that full and difpaffionte confideration which is due to one fo intimately connected with the intereft, the peace, the fafety and the honor of their country.

Your committee will not encumber your journals and wafte your patience with a detailed hiftory of all the various matters growing out of our foreign relations. The cold recital of wrongs, of injuries and aggreflions, known and felt by every member of this Union, could have no other effect than to deaden the national fenfibility, and render the public mind callous to injuries with which it is already too familiar.

Without recurring then to the multiplied wrongs of partial or temporary operation, of which we have fo juft caufe of complaint against the two belligerents, your committee will only call your attention, at this time, to the fyftematic aggreflion of those powers, authorised by their edicts againft neutral commerce-a fystem, which, as regarded its principles, was founded on pretenfions that went to the fubversion of our national independence; and which, although abandoned by one power, is, in its broad and deftructive operation, as ftill enforced by the other, fapping the foundation of our profperity.

It is more than five years fince England and France, in violation of thofe principles of juftice and public law, held facred by all civilized nations, commenced this unprecedented fyftem, by feizing the property of the citizens of the United States peaceably purfuing their lawful commerce on the high feas. Tofhield themfelves from the odium which fuch outrage muft incur, cach of the belligerents fought a pretext in the conduct of the othereach attempting to juftify his fyftem of rapine as a retaliation for fimilar acts on the part of his enemy: As if the law of nations, founded on the eternal rules of juftice, could fanction a principle, which if engrafted into our municipal code, would excufe one robber, upon the fole plea that the unfortunate object of his rapacity was also a victim to the injuftice of another. The fact of priority could be true as to one only of the parties; and whether true or false, could furnish no ground of juftification.

The U. States, thus unexpectedly and violently affailed by the two greatest powers in Europe, withdrew their citizens and property from the ocean; and cherishing the bleffings of peace, altho the occafion would have juftified war, fought redrefs in an appeal to the juftice and magnanimity of the belligerents. When this appeal had failed of the fuccefs due to its moderation, other meafures, founded on the fame pacific policy, but applying to the interefts, inftead of the juftice of the belligerents, were reforted to. Such was the character of the non-intercourfe and non-importation laws, which invited the return of both powers to their former ftate of amicable relations, by offering commercial advantages to the one who fhould firft revoke his hoftile edicts, and impofing reftrictions on the other.

France, at length, availing herself of the proffers made equally to her and her enemy, by the non-importation law of May, 1810, announced the repeal on the firft of the following November, of the decrees of Perlin and Milan. And it affords a fubject of fincere congratulation to be informed, through the official organs of the government, that thofe decrees are, fo far at leaft as our rights are concerned, really and practically at an end.

It was confidently expected that this act on the part of France, would have been immediately followed by a revocation on the part of Great Britain of her orders in council.-If our reliance on her juftice had been impaired by the wrongs fhe had inflicted, yet when the had plighted her faith to the world that the fole motive of her aggreffion on neutral commerce was to be found in the Berlin and Milan decrees, we looked forward to the extinction of thof: decrees, as the period when the freedom of the feas would again be reftored.

In this reafonable expectation we have, however, been difappointed. A year has elapfed fince the French decrees were refcinded, and yet Great Britain,inftead of re-tracing pari passu that courfe of unjuftifiable attack on neutral rights, in which the profeffd to be only the reluctant follower of France, has advanced with bolder and continually increafing ftrides. To the categor ical demands lately made by our government for the repeal of her orders in council, the has affected to deny the practical extinction of the French decrees: and fhe has, moreover, advanced a new and unexpected demand, increafing in hoftility the orders themflves. She has infifted, through her accredited minifter at this place, that the repeal of the orders in council muft be preceded, not only by the practical abandonment of the Berlin and Milan decrees, fo far as they infringe the neutral rights of the U. States; but by the renunciation on the part of France, of the whole of her fyftem of commercial warfare againft Great Britain, of which thof decrees originally formed a part.

This fyftem is underftood to confift in a courfe of measures adopted by France and the other powers on the continent fubject to, or in alliance with her, calculated to prevent the introduction

into their territories of the products and manufactures of GreatBritain and her colonies; and to annihilate her trade with them.However hoftile these regulations may be, on the part of France towards Great Britain; or however fenfibly the latter may feel their effects, they are, nevertheless, to be regarded only as the expedients of one enemy againft another, for which the U. States as a neutral power, can in no refpect be refponfible; they are too, in exact conformity with thofe which G. Britain has herfelf adopted and acted upon in time of peace as well as war. And it is not to be prefumed that France would yield to the unauthorized demand of America, what the feems to have confidered as one of the most powerful engines of the prefent war.

Such are the pretenfions upon which Great-Britain founds the violation of the maritime rights of the United States-pretenfions not theoretical merely, but followed up by a defolating war upon our unprotected commerce. The fhips of the United States, laden with the products of our own foil and labor, navigated by our own citizens, and peaceably pursuing a lawful trade, are feized on our own coafts, at the very mouths of our harbors, condemned and confiscated.

Your committee are not, however, of that fect whofe worship is at the hrine of a calculating avarice: And while we are laying before you the juft complaint of our merchants against the plunder of their fhips and cargoes, we cannot refrain from prefenting to the juftice and humanity of our country the unhappy cafe of our impreffed feamen, Although the groans of thefe victims of barbarity for the lofs of (what fhould be dearer to Americans than life) their liberty-altho' the cries of their wives and children, in the privation of protectors and parents, have, of late, been drowned in the louder clamors at the lofs of property; yet is the practice of forcing our mariners into the British navy, in violation of the rights of our flag, carried on with unabated rigor and feverity. If it be our duty to encourage the fair and legitimate commerce of this country, by protecting the property of the merchants, then, indeed,by as much as life and liberty are more eftimable than fhips and goods, fo much more impreffive is the duty to fhield the perfons of our feamen, whofe hard and honeft fervices are employed, equally with thofe of the merchants, in advancing, under the mantle of its laws, the interefts of their country.

To fum up, in a word, the great caufes of complaint against Great Britain, your committee need only fay, that the United States, as a fovereign and independent power, claim the right to ufe the ocean, which is the common and acknowledged highway of nations, for the purposes of tranfporting, in their own veffels, the products of their own foil, and the acquifition of their own industry, to a market in the ports of friendly nations, and to bring home, in return, fuch articles as their neceffities or convenience may require; always regarding the rights of belligerents, as de. fined by the established laws of nations. Great Britain, in defi.