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Although the order in council authorizes you to permit the importations of the enumerated articles in any vessels not French, you will not grant these licenses to any except to vessels in amity with his majesty, unless you are convinced that the island will be exposed to serious embarrassments by so confining the importation in question.

Whatever importations are proposed to be made, under the order, from the United States of America, should be by your licenses confined to the ports of the EASTERN STATES EXCLUSIVELY, unless you have reason to suppose that the object of the order would not be fulfilled if licenses are not also granted for the importations from the other ports in the United States.

With respect to the licenses for exportation on board the vessels in which an importation shall have been previously made, you will observe that the order does not require that the port of destination in such case shall be the same as that from whence the importation had been made, but you will take care that in the body of the license be inserted the name of the vessel, her tonnage, the name of the master, and her national character, the port of clearance and the port of destination; and that the cargo be described in the body of the license, according to the words of the order, viz. rum, molasses, or any other goods and commodities whatsoever, except sugar, indigo, cotton wool, coffee and cocoa.

You will take care that the term of the import license does not exceed the term of the order on which it is granted, and that you do not issue any license for exportation under this order, after that period.

The fee payable for each license is not in any case to exceed the sum of one pound one shilling.

I have the honour to be, sir, &c.

To Lt. Col. Governour Harcourt, &c. &c.

MESSAGE

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. MARCH 3, 1813.

I TRANSMIT to the House of Representatives a report of the Secretary of State complying with their resolution of the first instant.

JAMES MADISON.

THE Secretary of State to whom was referred the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 1st instant, has the honour to submit to the President the enclosed papers, marked A and B.

All which is respectfully submitted.

JAMES MONROE.

Department of State, March 3, 1813.

(A.)

Extract of a Letter from Joel Barlow, Esq. to the Secretary of State. Paris, May 2, 1812.

"I HAVE the honour to enclose herewith the copy of my note of yesterday to the duke of Bassano. The importance of the objects and the urgency of the occasion I hope will justify the solicitude with which I have pressed the propositions.

The result, as far as it may be known within a few days, shall be transmitted by the Wasp. The Hornet sailed from Cherbourg the 26th April, with orders to land a messenger in England, with my despatches for Mr. Russell, but not to wait a return from London."

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[Enclosed in Mr. Barlow's Letter of May 2, 1812, to the Secretary of State.]

Extract of a Letter from Joel Barlow, Esq. to the Duke of Bassano. Paris, May 1, 1812.

"In the note I had the honour to address your excellency on the 10th of November last, the spirit of the English government was so far noticed as to anticipate the fact now proved by experience, that its orders in council violating the rights of neutrals, would not be revoked. The declaration of the prince regent of the 21st of April, has placed that fact beyond all question. In doing this he has repeated the assertion so often advanced by his ministers and judges, that the decrees of France of a similar character are likewise unrevoked.

"You will notice that he finds a new argument for this conclusion in your excellency's late report to the emperor concerning neutral rights, in which you avoid taking notice of any repeal or modification of these decrees, or of their non-application to the United States. We know indeed that they do not apply to the United States, because we do not suffer our flag to be denationalized in the manner evidently contemplated by the emperor in the rule he meant to establish. But it would have been well if your excellency had noticed their non-application to the United States, since his majesty has uniformly done it in his decisions of prize causes since November, 1810.

"It is much to be desired that the French government would now make and publish an authentick act, declaring the Berlin and Milan decrees, as relative to the United States, to have ceased in November, 1810, declaring that they have not been applied in any instance, since that time, and that they shall not be so applied in future.

"The case is so simple, the demand so just, and the necessity so urgent, that I cannot withhold my confidence in the prompt and complete success of my proposition."

Extract of a Letter from Mr. Barlow to Mr. Monroe. Paris, May 12, 1812.

"AFTER the date of my letter, of which I have the honour to enclose you a copy, I found from a pretty sharp

conversation with the duke of Bassano, that there was a singular reluctance to answering my note of the 1st of May. Some traces of that reluctance you will perceive in the answer which finally came, of which a copy is here enclosed. This, though dated the 10th, did not come to me till last evening. I consider the communication to be so important in the present crisis of our affairs with England that I despatch the Wasp immediately, to carry it to Mr. Russell, with orders to return with his answer as soon as possible. I am confident that the President will approve the motive of my solicitude in this affair, and the earnest manner in which I pressed the minister with it as soon as my knowledge of the declaration of the prince regent enabled me to use the argument that belonged to the subject. When, in the conversation above alluded to, the duke first produced to me the decree of the 28th of April, 1811, I made no comment on the strange manner in which it had been so long concealed from me, and probably from you. I only asked him if that decree had been published. He said, no, but declared it had been communicated to my predecessor here, and likewise sent to Mr. Serrurier, with orders to communicate it to you. I assured him it was not among the archives of this legation; that I never before had heard of it; and since he had consented to answer my note, I desired him to send to me in that official manner a copy of that decree, and of any other documents that might prove to the incredulous of my country (not to me) that the decrees of Berlin and Milan were in good faith and unconditionally repealed with regard to the United States. He then promised me he would do it, and he has performed his promise.

"I send you a copy of the April decree, as likewise the letter of the grand judge, and that of the minister of finances: though the two latter pieces have been before communicated to our government and published."

TRANSLATION.

The Duke of Bassano to Mr. Barlow. Paris, May 10,

1812.

SIR,-In conversing with you about the note which you did me the honour to address to me on the 1st of May, I

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could not conceal from you my surprise at the doubt which you had expressed in that note, respecting the revocation of the decrees of Berlin and Milan. That revocation was proven by many official acts, by all my correspondence with your predecessors and with you, by the decisions in favour of American vessels. You have done me the honour to ask a copy of the letters which the grand judge and the minister of the finances wrote on the 25th December, 1810, to secure the first effects of that measure, and you have said, sir, that the decree of the 28th of April, 1811, which proves definitively the revocation of the decrees of Berlin and Milan in regard to the Americans, was not known to you.

I have the honour to send you, as you have desired, a copy of these three acts. You will consider them, without doubt, sir, as the plainest answer, which I could give to this part of your note. As to the two other questions to which that note relates, I will take care to lay them before the emperor. You know already, sir, the senti ments which his majesty has expressed in favour of American commerce, and the good dispositions which have induced him to appoint a plenipotentiary to treat with you on that important interest.

Accept, sir, &c.

THE DUKE OF BASSANO.

TRANSLATION.

Palace of St. Cloud, April 28, 1811.

NAPOLEON, emperor of the French, &c. &c. On the report of our minister of foreign relations.

Seeing by a law passed on the 2d March, 1811, the Congress of the United States has ordered the execution of the provisions of the act of non-intercourse, which prohibits the vessels and merchandise of Great Britain, her colonies and dependencies, from entering into the ports of the United States.

Considering that the said law is an act of resistance to the arbitrary pretensions, consecrated by the British orders in council, and a formal refusal to adhere to a system

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