words here quoted. We have sought, but in vain, for some erroneous translation of Cadore's letter to Armstrong, to apo logize for this mutilation, as well in the letters of the British Secre tary of State to Mr. Pinkney, as in the judgments on the Fox, and on the Snipe, and in the paper before us; and we may truly say, that we should have been glad to find it, but we have never seen any such, and in the Appendix referred to in the margin of this passage in the report, the words are stated at length; and they are substantially repeated in another document in this Appendix, equally before the court, "conformably to the act communicated.”

But we have in this paragraph a distinct avowal that the condition required of us to insure our emancipation from the effects of your orders, was, that we should obtain of France a general and unqualified revocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as well in respect to other nations as to ourselves. And this is the termination of all the zig-zaggery and equivocation that were used in approaching our Government on the subject.-It was rather too much to demand of us at any rate, since we never belonged to the neutral family that armed to defend their mutual rights against your incroachments; we never interfered with your invasions of those rights, either in the attack on the Spanish frigates, or the bombardment of Copenhagen; though, by the way, had we sought a cause of quarrel, we might have found it as cre ditors of Spain in this diminution of her means of payment ;-we could but deplore these indelible stains on the land of our Ancestors :-but after your instructions to Mr. Erskine to confine the revocation of your decrees to its operations as far as respected America; a modest Minister might well be backward in propounding such an absurdity as that of the United States of America legislating for the states of Europe.

It is matter of regret that this inconsistency escaped the researches of the profound civilian; (who, playing Grumio, in his judgment on the Snipe, has given us a lecture on family duty;) as he must have concluded that "the rule could have no locality ;" and that what the United States had a right to agree to with Mr. Canning, they had an equal right to agree to with the Duc de Cadore.

Par. 27.-" In order to provide for the contingency of a Declaration of War on the part of the United States, previous to the arrival in America, of the said Order of Revocation, instructions were sent to his Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary accredited to the United States (the execution of which in structions, in consequence of the discontinuance of Mr. Foster's functions, were at a subsequent period intrusted to Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren,) directing him to propose a cessation of hostilities, should they have com

menced; and further to offer a simultaneous repeal of the Orders in Council on the one side, and of the Restrictive Laws on British ships and commerce on the other."

Not disputed.

Par. 28." They were also respectively empowered to acquaint the American Government, in reply to any inquiries with respect to the blockade of May, 1806, whilst the British Government must continue to maintain its legality,' that in point of fact this particular blockade had been discontinued for a length of time, having been merged in the general retaliatory blockade of the enemy's ports under the Orders in Council, and that his Majesty's Government had no intention of recurring to this or to any other of the blockades of the enemy's ports, founded upon the ordinary and accustomed principles of maritime law, which were in force previous to the Orders in Council, without a new notice to neutral powers in the usual form."

Here is a distinct avowal that the blockade of May, 1806, was merged in the subsequent Orders in Council. We beg a recurrence therefore to what has been said under Paragraph 18. The construction given to the subsequent orders by our Government is here distinctly confirmed, so that it not only appears that we had always imagined that we were demanding the revocation of this deed in demanding the revocation of its successors, but that we imagined rightly. How then can it be asserted (Paragraph 18.) that this order was never considered by us as one of the edicts which violated the commerce of the United States. The truth is, and it will so clearly appear by a recurrence to the correspondence, that the view of the case now formally asserted was that under which the United States treated it. It was only relinquished by Mr. Pinkney, when it was found convenient by your Government to adopt another construction.-It was only on finding that Marquis Wellesley had "not adopted," but "had resisted" the idea of incorporation here re-asserted, that he treated of it on separate ground. (Pinkney to Wellesley, 21st Sept. 1810.)

The offer made by Mr. Foster, in this case, was not merely that a new notice would be given to neutral powers, which is here attempted by a side wind to be let in as sufficient; but also that the blockade, if renewed, should be accompanied by a sufficient force to make it legal.

Par. 29.-"The American Government, before they received intimation of the course adopted by the British Government, had, in fact, proceeded to the extreme measure of declaring war, and issuing "Letters of Marque," notwithstanding they were previously in possession of the report of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, of the 12th of March, 1812, promulgating anew the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as fundamental laws of the French Empire, under the false and extravagant pretext, that the monstrous princi

ples therein contained were to be found in the Treaty of Utrecht, and were therefore binding upon all States. From the penalties of this code, no nation was to be exempt, which did not accept it, not only as the rule of its own conduct, but as a law, the observance of which it was also required to enforce upon Great Britain."

It is notorious on the face of the French document here referred to, that it did not contemplate America at all.--Not only is there no mention made of America in it; but Europe, the continental system, and the ports of the continent, are, as we before observed, the continual burden of the song.-France and the countries in alliance with, or in subjugation to her, as the paper before us expresses it, (and to which, whether incorporated or conquered, we could have no access without the consent of the ruling powers,) were alone parties to this instrument, which announces the continuance of the Berlin and Milan Decrees against those powers only who allow their flags to be denationalized. It is not true then that no nation was to be exempt from the penalties of this code; for from this character of Denationalization the flag of the United States was already exempted by the operation of the law against you, which had been offered to you against your enemy. And it was still in your power, by revoking your hostile edicts, as they affected us, and us only if you please, to liberate your commerce, and your marine, from every restraint that was imposed upon it.—And had it been otherwise; had the French document had any reference to us, still it was only the declaration of France; our consent was necessary to make us party to it; and to this we were not only not invited, but it was before your eyes in documents and correspondence to which you were party with us, that we distinctly disavowed the French doctrines promulgated in it, and subscribed to the English in every point of the law of nations, which it embraces.'-Your effort, in your declaration of the 21st of April, to lead the world, and none more than your own people, into the erroneous belief of French influence on our councils, by blending us with France, as the supporters of those doctrines, with this evidence before your eyes, has already been treated by our President as an insult, and chastised as it deserves.2

Par. 30.-"In a Manifesto, accompanying their declaration of hostilities, in addition to the former complaints against the Orders in Council, a long

1 See Letter from a Calm Observer to a Noble Lord. (Gale and Curtis, 1812.)

2 President's Message, 1st June, 1812, par. 12, as printed in the Times, "And as an additional insult, &c."

list of grievances was brought forward; some trivial in themselves, others which had been mutually adjusted, but none of them such as were ever before alleged by the American Government to be grounds for war."

In this Paragraph, there is the highest evidence of the anxiety of the United States to maintain to the last extremity the relations of Peace; of their forbearance under multiplied injuries;-of their efforts to avert the storm which must be prejudicial to the mutual interests of two countries, whose interest must ever be mutual in the eyes of every enlightened statesman.-We know not whether we can take credit for what is here said, that none of our grievances were ever before alleged by our government to be grounds for War.-Certainly, we have given some broad hints that they were so; though to use the words of Mr. Madison," it is no less true that we are warmly disposed to cherish all the friendly relations subsisting with Great Britain.” If in this temper, and with this view, we have forborne to allege those grievances as grounds for war, can any one look at them for a moment without seeing that they are such, and that such forbearance is the best evidence of patience and long suffering on our part? Can any one look at them without seeing that while the cup of bitterness was swelling to the brim, we were draining the cup of conciliation to the dregs.-The catalogue is too copious, and would indeed be too humiliating, to be recapitulated without some feelings of indignation, that our government had borne them so long, were it not for the hostile feelings excited by the misconduct of your enemy, and our aversion from indulging, at your expense as well as our own, the rapacity of your cruisers. We will select but one of

them: look at the American seaman impressed on board a British man of war; chained to the gun of his oppressor to deal out death to a brother of mankind, perhaps his own brother, and in every case no enemy of his :--see him brought to the gangway for disobedience to an officer who has no right to command him, and even for an effort to advise the officers of his own Government of his situation; -see him wounded in such a cause, and dying by the side of a brave English messmate; and hear their mutual groans;-the one soothed by the reflection that can sweeten death" I die for my country;"-the other, turning his eyes to the forger of his chains-"I am mur. dered and unrevenged.”—And is it to be imputed to us as a fault that we are at length at war for such, among other causes; because, in the hope of redress, we have worn out years in secking the abolition of this

• See this quotation more at large in Letters from a Cosmopolite to a Clergyman, page 55, or the Monthly Review for August last.

practice by just and prudent arrangements between thetwo governs ments. You would make war with all the world for treating a single sailor of yours, as you have treated many thousands of ours.-Nay, you would not spare a precious subject of your own that should commit the comparatively venial crime of putting one of them on shore on a desert Island, where at worst he could only starve; and this multiplied and continual aggression on your part is not to be considered a ground for War, because we have borne it so long without alleging it as such.

You ought to know, for it is no secret in your Navy, that many of your officers make no scruple to impress an American seaman, wherever they can find him; and even boast of it.-Perhaps too, if you scrutinize, you will find that your own orders to restore such have not always been obeyed.-We do not acquit you of any share in this iniquity; the shoals of our seamen sent ashore in the Fox administration, and only then, furnish pretty strong presumptive evis dence of connivance in their successors as well as in those that preceded them; but we believe you are sometimes deceived, and clear it is, that the best intentions of an administration must fail, while officers, not immediately under their eye, and wanting men, are licensed judges in their own cause.-We would do every thing in the world,-would even help to procure for you every man to whom you are entitled, according to your own principles and acknowledged practice; but as long as you will not suffer the officer of any nation under the sun to visit your ships, and take out whomsoever he may please to call subjects of his own; you will look in vain for any acquiescence on our part in a measure fraught with such distressing injury to our citizens.

31st Par." As if to throw additional obstacles in the way of peace, the American Congress at the same time passed a law, prohibiting all intercourse with Great Britain, of such a tenor, as deprived the Executive Government, according to the President's own construction of that Act, of all power of restoring the relations of friendly intercourse between the two states, so far, at least, as concerned their commercial intercourse, until Congress should re-assemble."

t

The law here referred to put an end to those powers for restoring the intercourse which the President had in vain exerted for years, and which were incompatible with a state of war. No encouragement could be entertained in America, at that time, to hope for a revocation of the Orders in Council. It was five days after the declaration of war in America that those orders were revoked in

1 See the case of Captain Lake.