subject but not in the sense in which you understand it. After reciting the note from the duke of Cadore of the 5th August last, to the American minister at Paris, which announced the repeal of the French Decrees, and the proclamation of the President in consequence of it, it states that all causes arising under those Decrees after the 1st of November, which were then before the court, or might afterwards be brought before it. should not be judged by the principles of the Decrees, but be suspended until the 2d February, when the United States having fulfiled their engagement, the captures should be declared void, and the vessels and their cargoes delivered up to their owners. This paper appears to afford an unequivocal evidence of the revocation of the Decrees, so far as relates to the United States. By instructing the French tribunal to make no decission till the 2d of February, and then to restore the property to the owners, on a particular event which has happened, all cause of doubt on that point seems to be removed. The United States may justly complain of delay in the restitution of the property, but that is an injury which effects them only. Great Britain has no right to complain of it. She was interested only in the revocation of the Decrees by which neutral rights would be secured from future violation; or if she liad been interested in the delay it would have afforded no pretext for more than a delay in repealing her orders the 2d of February. From that day at farthest the French Decrees would cease. At the same day ought her Orders to have ceased. I might add to this statement, that every communication received from the French government, either through our representatives there, or its representatives here, are in accord with the actual repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, in relation to the neutral commerce of the United States. But it will suffice to remark, that the best, and only adequate evidence of their ceasing to operate, is the defect of evidence that they do operate. It is a case where the want of proof against the fulfilment of a pledge is proof of the fulfilment. Every case occurring, to which if the Decrees were in force, they would be applied, and to which they are not applied, is a proof that they are not in force. And if these proofs have not been more multiplied, I need not remind you that a cause is to be found in the numerous captures under your Orders in Council, which con

tinue to evince the rigour with which they are enforced, af ter a failure of the basis on which they are supposed to rest.

But Great-Britain contends, as appears by your last letters, that she ought not to revoke her Orders in Council, until the commerce of the continent is restored to the state in which it stood before the Berlin and Milan Decrees were issued; until the French Decrees are repealed not only as to the United States, but so as to permit Great-Britain to trade with the continent. Is it then meant that Great-Britain should be allowed to trade with all the powers with whom she traded at thet epoch? Since that time France has extended her conquests to the north, and raised enemies against Greal-Britain, where she then had friends. Is it proposed to trade with them notwithstanding the change in their situation? Between the enemies of one state and those of another, no discrimination can be made. There is none in reason, nor can there be any of right, in practice. Or do you maintain the general principle and contend that Great-Britain ought to trade with France and her Allies? Between enemies there can be no commerce. The vessels of either taken by the other are liable to confiscation and are always confiscated. The number of enemies or extent of country which they occupy, cannot effect the question. The laws of war govern the relations which subsist between them, which especially in the circumstance under consideration are invariable. They were the same in times the most remote that they now are. Even if peace had taken place between Great Britain and the powers of the continent she would not trade with them without their consent. Or does Great-Britain contend, that the United States, as a neutral power, ought to open the continent to her commerce, on such terms as she may designate? Qn what principle can she set up such a claim? No example of it can be found in the history of past wars, nor is it founded in any recognized principle of war, or in any semblance of reason or right. The United States could not maintain such a claim in their own favor, though neutral-when advanced in favor of an enemy, it would be the most preposterous and extravagant claim ever heard of. Every power when not restrained by treaty, has a right to regulate its trade with other nations, in such a manner as it finds it most consistent with its interest; to admit, and on its own conditions, or to prohibit the

Mr. Foster to Mr. Monroe.

WASHINGTON, July 26th, 1811. SIR-I have had the honor to receive your letter of July 23d, in answer to mine of the 3d and 14th inst. which you will permit me to say were not merely relative to his majesty's Orders in Council, and the blockade of May 1806, but algo to the President's proclamation of last November, and to the consequent act of Congress of March 2d, as well as to the just complaints which his royal highness, the prince regent, had commanded me to make to your gov ernment, with respect to the proclamation and to that act.

If the U. States' government had expected that I should have made communications which would have enabled them to come to an accommodation with Great-Britain on the ground on which alone you say it was possible to meet us, and that you mean by that expression a departure from our system of defence against the new kind of warfare still practised by France, I am at a loss to discover from what source they could have derived those expectations; certainly not from the correspondence between the Marquis Wellesley and Mr. Pinkney.

Before I proceed to reply to the arguments which are brought forward by you to show that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are repealed, I must first enter into an explana tion upon some points on which you have evidently misapprehended, for I will not suppose you could have wished to misinterpret my meaning.

And first, in regard to the blockade of May, 1806, I must avow that I am wholly at a loss to find out from what part of my letter it is that the President has drawn the unqualified inference, that should the Orders in Council of 1807, be revoked, the blockade of May, 1806, would cease with them. -It is most material that, on this point, no mistake should exist between us. From your letter it would appear, as if on the question of blockade which America had so unexpectedly connected with her demand for a repeal of our Orders in Council, Great-Britain had made the concession required of her; asif, after all that has passed on the subject, after the astonishment and regret of his majesty's gov ernment at the United States having taken up the view which the French government presented, of our just and legitimate principles of blockade, which are exemplified in

the blockade of May, 1806, the whole ground taken by his majesty's government was at once abandoned. When I had the honor to exhibit to you my instructions, and to draw up as I conceived, according to your wishes and those of the President, a statement of the mode in which that blockade would probably disappear, I never meant to authorise such a conclusion, and I now beg most unequivocally-to disclaim it. The blockade of May, 1806, will not continue after the repeal of the Orders in Council, unless his majes ty's government shall think fit to sustain it by the special application of a sufficient naval force, and the fact of its being so continued or not, will be notified at the time. If, in this view of the matter, which is certainly presented in a conciliatory spirit, one of the obstacles to a complete understanding between our countries can be removed by the United States government waving all further reference to that blockade when they can be justified in asking a repeal of the Orders, and if I may communicate this to my government, it will undoubtedly be very satisfactory; but I beg distinctly to disavow having made any acknowledgment that the blockade would cease merely in consequence of a revocation of the Orders in Council; whenever it does cease, it will cease because there will be no adequate force to maintain it.

On another very material point, sir, you appear to have misconstrued my words; for in no one passage of my letter can I discover any mention of innovations on the part of Great-Britain, such as you say excited a painful surprise in your government. There is no new pretension set up by his majesty's government. In answer to questions of yours, as to what were the Decrees or regulations of France which Great-Britain complained of, and against which she directs her retaliatory measures, I brought distinctly into your view the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and you have not denied, because, indeed, you could not, that the provisions of those Decrees were new measures of war on the part of France, acknowledged as such by her ruler, and contrary to the principles and usages of civilized nations. That the present war has been oppressive beyond example by its duration, and the desolation it spreads through Europe, I wil lingly agree with you, but the United States cannot surely mean to attribute the cause to Great-Britain. The question

between Great-Britain and France is that of an honorable struggle against the lawless efforts of an ambitious tyrant, and America can but have the wish of every independent nation as to its result.

On a third point, sir, I have also to regret that my meaning should have been mistaken. Great-Britain never contended that British merchant vessels should be allowed to trade with her enemies, or that British property should be allowed entry into their ports, as you would infer; such a pretension would indeed be preposterous; but Great-Britain does contend against the system of terror put in practice by France, by which usurping authority wherever her arms or the timidity of nations will enable her to extend her influence, she makes it a crime to neutral countries as well as individuals that they should possess articles, however acquir ed, which may have been once the produce of English industry or of the British soil. Against such an abominable and extravagant pretension every feeling must revolt, and the honor no less than the interest of Great-Britain engages her to oppose it.

Turning to the course of argument contained in your let ter, allow me to express my surprise at the conclusion you draw in considering the question of priority relative to the French Decrees or British Orders in Council. It was clearly proved that the blockade of May, 1806, was maintained by an adequate naval force, and therefore was a blockade founded on just and legitimate principles, and I have not heard that it was considered in a contrary light when notified as such to you by Mr. Secretary Fox, nor until it suited the views of France to endeavor to have it considered otherwise. Why America took up the view the French government chose to give of it, and could see in it grounds for the French Decrees, was always matter of astonishment in England.

Your remarks on modifications at various times of our system of retaliation will require the less reply from the circumstance of the Orders in Council of April, 1809, having superceded them all. They were calculated for the avowed purpose of softening the effect of the original Orders on neutral commerce, the incidental effect of those Orders on neutrals having been always sincerely regretted by his ma jesty's government; but when it was found that neutrals objected to them they were removed.