British orders of blockade, instead of being confined to fortified towns, had, as France asserted, been unlawfully extended to commercial towns and ports, and to the mouths of rivers; and, thirdly, that they had been applied to places, and to coasts which neither were, nor could be, actually blockaded. The last of these charges is not founded on fact; whilst the others, even by the admission of the American government, are utterly groundless in point of law,

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Against these decrees, his majesty protested and appealed he called upon the United States to assert their own rights, and to vindicate their independence, thus menaced and attacked; and as France had declared, that she would confiscate every vessel which should touch in Great Britain, or be visited by British ships of war, his majesty, having previously issued the order of January 1807, as an act of mitigated retaliation, was at length compelled by the persevering violence of the enemy, and the continued acquiescence of neutral powers, to revisit upon France in a more effectual manner, the measure of her own injustice, by declaring, in an order in council, bearing date the 11th of November, -1807, that no neutral vessel should proceed to France or to any of the countries from which, in obedience to the dictates of France, British commerce was excluded, without first touching at a port in Great Britain, or her depencencies.

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At the same time, his majesty intimated his readiness to repeal the orders in council, whenever France should rescind her decrees, and return to the accustomed principles of maritime warfare; and at a subsequent period, as a proof of his majesty's sincere desire to accommodate, as far as possible, his defensive measures to the convenience of neutral powers, the operation of the orders in council was, by an order issued in April, 1809, limited to a blockade of France, and of the countries subjected to her immediate dominion.

"Systems of violence, oppression, and tyranny, can never be suppressed, or even checked, if the power against which such injustice is exercised be debarred from the right of full and adequate retaliation: or, if the measures of the retaliating power are to be considered as matters of just offence to neutral nations, whilst the measure of original aggression and violence are to be tolerated with indifference, submission, or complacency.

"The government of the United States did not fail to remonstrate against the orders in council of Great Britain. Although they knew that these orders would be revoked, if the decrees of France, which had occasioned them, were repealed; they resolved at the same moment to resist the conduct of both belligerents, instead of requiring France, in the first instance, to

rescind her decrees. Applying most unjustly the same measure of resentment to the aggressor and to the party aggrieved, they adopted mea-> sures of commercial resistance against both a system of resistance which, however varied in the successive acts of embargo, non-intercourse, or non-importation, was evidently unequal in its operation, and principally levelled against the superior commerce, and maratime Great Britain.

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"The same partiality towards France was observable in their negociations as in their mea sures of alleged resistance.

"Application was made to both belligerents for a revocation of their respective edicts; but the terms in which they were made were widely different.c

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"Of France was required a revocation only of the Berlin and Milan decrees, although many other edicts, grossly violating the neutral commerce of the United States, had been promulgated by that power. No security was demanded, that the Berlin and Milan decrees, even if revoked, should not under some other form be re-established: and a direct engagement was offered, that upon such revocation the American government would take part in the war against Great Britain, if Great Britain did not immediately rescind her orders. Whereas no corresponding engagement was offered to,

Great Britain, of whom it was required, not only that the orders in council should be repealed, but that no others of a similar nature should be issued, and that the blockade of May, 1806, should be also abandoned. This blockade, established and enforced according to accustomed practice, had not been objected to by the United States at the time it was issued. Its provisions were on the contrary represented by the American minister, resident in London at the time, to have been so framed as to afford, in his judgment, a proof of the friendly disposition of the British cabinet towards the United States.

Great Britain was thus called upon to abandon one of her most important maritime rights; by acknowledging the order of blockade in question to be one of the edicts which violated the commerce of the United States, although it had never been so considered in the previous negociations-and although the president of the United States had recently consented to abrogate the non-intercourse act, on the sole condition of the orders in council being revoked; thereby distinctly admitting these orders to be the only edicts which fell within the contemplation of the law under which he acted. mokomai

"A proposition so hostile toGreatBritain, could not but be proportionably encouraging to the pretensions of the enemy. As, by their alleging

that the blockade of May, 1806, was illegal, the American government virtually justified, so far. as depended on them, the French decrees.

"After this proposition had been made, the French minister for foreign affairs, if not in concert with that government, at least in conformity with its views, in a dispatch, dated the 5th of August, 1810, and addressed to the American minister resident at Paris, stated, that the Berlin and Milan decrees were revoked, and that their operation would cease from the 1st day of November following, provided his majesty would revoke his orders in council, and renounce the new principles of blockade; or that the United States would cause their rights to be respected; meaning thereby, that they would resist the retaliatory measures of Great Britain.

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Although the repeal of the French decrees thus announced was evidently contingent, either on concessions to be made by Great Britain, (concessions to which it was obvious Great Britain could not submit), or on measures to be adopted by the United States of America; the American president at once considered the repeal as absolute. Under that pretence the nonimportation act was strictly enforced against Great Britain, whilst the ships of war, and merchant ships of the enemy, were received into the harbours of America. 19