friendship was not to be conciliated by any importunity of solicitation, or by any number of pious diplomatic pilgrimages. But it seems that we were too sanguine;-that the majority are about to relapse into that preposterous credulity from which they were but imperfectly reclaimed;-that a mere declaration of Bonaparte, full of palpable falsehoods and of arrogant pretensions, is to 'outweigh all the sad experience of the past, and to heal all the wounds which he has so recently inflicted both on our commerce and our honour. We call upon the reflecting men of this country to pause before they give full expansion to the fancy on this subject, and to determine, upon a comparison of the past language and conduct of Bonaparte with his present professions, whether there be any rational grounds for exultation at this crisis;—whether the character of the present French government, such as we have portrayed it, justifies the hope that we can, without certain destruction, ever form any close connexion with France while that government endures.

We shall commence an investigation of the past deportment of Bonaparte by a review of the Berlin decree; not because it is the first in the long funeral procession of our wrongs, but because it forms an epoch in the history of French injustice, and was the preface to a general plan of politics with respect to this country and to the continent of Europe. The leading object of this plan we suppose to have been,-the extinction of trade in all the countries subject to French influence, and as a conse quence the decay of the commercial spirit and of the genius of freedom. We mean however to consider the Berlin decree merely in the light of an unwarrantable invasion of neutral rights, and of the independence of all neutral nations. On this point also, little need be said, as the most zealous advocates of French injustice do not now hesitate to admit that it deserves to be so described. It was at first liberally interpreted as an act of territorial sovereignty alone, but this construction so soothing to the fears and hopes of our administration, was soon invalidated by a solemn declaration of the framers.*

*It is rather singular that this decree should at any time have been considered as an exercise of mere territorial sovereignty. This would have been its true character if it had been only a prohibition to neutrals to enter the ports of France after having touched in England, but according to the official expositions given of it at the time of its enactment, it went so far as to interdict England as a place of destination to neutrals leaving the ports of France. This was an exertion of authority beyond the limits of municipal jurisdiction. It is said expressly in a report made by Talleyrand to the emperor on this subject, of the date of the 20th November 1806-" that every vessel which "should attempt to sail from the ports of France or her dependencies for "England, should be seized and confiscated." The same idea is repeated in VOL. I.

B

The secondary aim of the French government in enacting this decree was, we believe, to provoke the British cabinet into measures of retaliation, and thus both to facilitate the destruction of trade on the continent, and to fan the flame of discord between us and Great Britain. The studied ambiguity with which it was worded, was treacherously calculated to second this part of the design; and its operation was intentionally narrowed in order to lull the apprehensions of our merchants, and to enable the American government to save appearances by giving it an interpretation favourable to the integrity of their rights. As soon as the British orders in council appeared, conformably, as we think, to the wishes and expectations of Bonaparte, the mask was entirely removed, as it was at once seen that in consequence of the severer pressure of those orders upon our trade, nearly the whole weight of the public resentment would be turned against England, and that our administration, if not precipitated by popular fury and factious intrigue, into a war with that power, would, at least, be relieved from the embarrassment of making even a show of resistance to France. The Berlin decree was then,-in violation of the law of nations and of the particular treaty existing at that time between the United States and France, officially announced to have been intended from the beginning as a prohibition to neutrals of all trade with England. Such was the first general attack made on our neutral rights by Bonaparte; and the injury of this proceeding was aggravated by the insulting deception practised in the first instance with regard to the scope of his decree;-by the mockery of a delusive interpretation from the minister of the marine, written without doubt-as all the public declarations of such a functionary must be,-under the authority of the Emperor, and afterwards so impudently disavowed and cancelled. In this transaction, as well as in all our subsequent

the proclamation of General Bourieme to the senate of Hamburg, dated Nov. 23d, 1806.

The French minister of foreign affairs condescended to trifle with general Armstrong in the following way. In a letter dated 21st of August 1807 on the subject of the Berlin decree he holds this language, "As the "execution of the maritime measures indicated by the imperial decree of "Berlin rests naturally with his excellency the minister of the marine, and as, moreover, he has already had the honour of addressing some observa"tions to you on the subject of the application of that decree, I asked him "for the new explanations which you might desire." In a second letter dated September 18th, 1807, he tells general Armstrong that he had submitted to his imperial majesty the doubts of his excellency the minister of the marine on the subject of the extent of some of the provisions of the imperial decree and that his majesty had not decided “whether French cruizers might possess themselves of neutral vessels going to or from England, although they had no English merchandise on board,”—and finally, in a third letter of October 7, 1807-" that his majesty did consider every neutral vessel going

"

relations with France, and eminently in the late proceedingsnot only has our independence been trampled upon, and our property plundered, but we have been treated like children and dotards,-as poltroons and dupes-alternately bullied and cajoled, spurned and caressed.

The justification alleged for the Berlin decree by the framers, and the palliation offered in this country by the friends of France, rest upon the system which the British cabinet had antecedently pursued with respect to neutral commerce. We will not hesitate to allow that this system was not always liberal or just, and that it has often savoured more of "the waywardness of will than of the steadfastness of law."* Nor are we more backward to assert that it has not deserved all the invectives with which it has been alternately overwhelmed by every commercial nation; and that the acts of rigor and oppression with which it is charged may be as frequently traced to an erroneous conception of right or to the pressure of a seeming necessity, as to the lust of plunder or the spirit of lawless usurpation. But, it is not necessary to investigate the injustice of British claims, or the abuses of British power, in order to show that they afforded no solid platform for the Berlin decree under the circumstances in which the world was placed at the period of its enactment. Nor will it, we trust, be deemed incumbent upon us to trace the previous history of Bonaparte in order to make our readers sensible with how poor a grace, or rather with what matchless effrontery, he now undertakes to inveigh against the abuses of power, and to proclaim himself the avenger and the champion of neutral rights.

It cannot be denied but that our trade was in a most flourishing condition at the period when the Berlin decree

"from English ports with cargoes of English merchandise, or English origin, as lawfully seizable by French armed vessels."

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If the world were in any other state than the present we would remind the British nation of the following passage from Mr. Burke.

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"Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take one "precaution against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded. It is ridiculous to say we are not men; and that, as men, we shall never wish to aggrandize "ourselves in some way or other.-Can we say, that even at this very hour "we are not invidiously aggrandized? We are already in possession of almost "all the commerce of the world. Our empire in India is an awful thing. If we "should come to be in a condition not only to have all this ascendant in commerce, but to be absolutely able, without the least control, to hold "the commerce of all other nations totally dependent upon our good pleasure, we may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto "unheard of power, but every nation will think we abuse it. It is not "impossible but that sooner or later, this state of things may produce a "combination against us, which may end in our ruin."

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was promulgated. Our commercial prosperity was in "its "high and palmy state" notwithstanding the vexations and losses arising from the British system. France and the countries subject to her control were as abundantly supplied with articles of foreign produce as was consistent with the character of the war which they waged, and with the nature of the offensive means employed by their enemy. After Great Britain had annihilated the marine of her antagonists, it followed of course and of right, that the active foreign trade of the latter was to cease, and that their ports were to be blockaded when an actual force could be provided for that purpose; that the field of enterprise for neutral trade was to be narrowed, and the number of ports for its reception greatly curtailed. These were the natural and legitimate consequences of a maritime superiority achieved with a vast expenditure of blood and treasure, in a regular course of fair hostilities. These were the consequences which we were to expect. Of these neither this country nor France had a right to complain. They were not breaches of the laws of nations, but the natural and necessary effects of naval force which, from time immemorial, had been so applied.

The emperor of France could not but be sensible of these truths, and therefore, in order to make out something like a case against Great Britain in his official vindication of the Berlin decree, he is compelled to assert quite a new code of public law which never existed but in the distempered fancies and wild-theories of the revolutionary madmen of France, and in the absurd writings of some of our own visionary politicians. It is declared that none but fortresses can be lawfully blockaded; and England is stigmatized as the tyrant of the seas, and accused of trampling upon the public law of Europe because she exercises the right of search, and captures even the merchant-vessels of her enemy at sea.* We had once at the head of the councils of this nation a speculative and philosophic friend of Bonaparte and, consequently, of the human race, who it is said had adopted this novel scheme of maritime war, but we presume that there is no man now engaged in the direction of our affairs,-no sober-minded person in this country, who would consent to fight the British, or who would defend the Berlin decree, on such grounds as these. As well might England have announced to the world that the public law of Europe was violated, whenever continental war

See the Reports made to the emperor and to the French senate on the subject of the Berlin decree and the letter of Champagny to general Armstrong dated August 22d, 1809.

fare was extended beyond the mere rencounter and capture or destruction of troops, and have issued and justified her orders in council upon the ground that the unfortified towns of her allies were occupied,-contributions levied upon them, and soldiers billeted upon their inhabitants! If our disputes with the British concerning the impressment of seamen, the right of a direct colonial trade, or the affair of the Chesapeake,-questions in which France had no real interest, could justify the interference of Bonaparte by the Berlin decree, then might the British have enacted their orders in council upon the ground of our separate altercations with France,-upon the confinement of American seamen in her prisons, the arbitrary detention and seizure of American vessels in her ports; the burning of them at sea,-the boundaries of Louisiana and a host of etceteras. There is a perfect parity of reasoning in the two cases, and a much broader basis of analogy for the British.

That which appears to the eyes of our public as the strongest point of defence, and the most plausible pretext for the Berlin decree, is, the manner in which the British are said to have exercised the right of blockade, even according to their own definition. We must confess that after a very diligent research into this matter, we can find but few instances in which the principles of blockade were enforced for any length of time under the avowed authority of the British government, without an actual investiture. Certainly the cases which have occurred were not a sufficient ground for war; nor can the most extravagant advocate of France contend that the general practice under this system was such as to warrant so tremendous a retaliation as the Berlin decree.

The leading case of constructive blockade which Bonaparte, knowing well how insufficient it was for his purpose, forbears to specify in his official vindication of his decree, is that of May 1806, comprising the whole coast from the Elbe to Brest. It may be well briefly to examine this case, in order to ascertain what foundation it affords for the Berlin decree. It is not avowed as a constructive blockade, nor is the right of blockading without actual force arrogated, by Mr. Fox in his official notification of this measure to Mr. Monroe. His Britannic majesty is declared to have ordered

The notification is as follows.

MR. FOX TO MR. MONROE.

Downing street, May 16, 1806. The undersigned, his majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, has received his majesty's commands to acquaint Mr. Monroe, that