as that they shall cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United States,' to declare the same by proclamation. In consequence of power vested by the first act, the arrangement with Erskine was made, and the revocation of the orders in council of January and November 1807, was considered as full compliance with the law, and of course as removing all the anti-neutral edicts. Yet under the act of May 1810, which vests the very same power, a revocation of this blockade of May 1806 is made by our cabinet a sine qua non; an indispensable requisite!"

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To escape from the charge of gross inconsistency in this affair, and from a still severer reproach, to which we shall revert immediately, it would be necessary for our administration to prove, what the committee of the house of representatives, seeing, no doubt, the dilemma, have thought it expedient to assert generally, "that this blockade had been, since the period of the arrangement of Erskine, perverted to other poses than those to which it was previously applied." Now, of this, there is not a particle of proof. The reverse is selfevident. This blockade, during its separate existence, until the enactment of the orders in council,-when it was merged in those orders, according to the express declarations, made by lord Wellsley to Mr. Pinkney in 1810,-retained invariably the same character, and remained undisturbed by any remonstrance or objection on our part. The arrangement with Erskine proves, that its incorporation, or co-existence, with the orders in council, did not induce Mr. Madison to view it, in a less favourable light than before. Since that arrangement, it cannot in the nature of things, (the orders in council which comprehended all its possible efficacy, being still in force), have undergone any alteration. If any change can be said to have taken place in its aspect, it is that, of its having been put by Mr. Foster, as we shall presently show, on a footing the most perfectly agreeable to our rights, and just expectations.

It was not, the address most truly observes, "until after the first of May 1810, until after the American government was apprized of the ground which it was the will of France, should be taken on the subject," that our administration denounced this blockade as a violation of neutral rights, and urged its repeal, as an indispensable requisite, to the continuance of amity between this country and Great Britain!!-When the British ministry,as they must have done, for the thing was too glaring to escape notice, compared this simple fact, with that of the previous silence of our government, under the circumstances we

have stated above, was it not natural, that untoward suspicions should arise in their minds, concerning the influence under which the new requisition was made, and the purposes for which it was intended? Was it not natural, they should fancy, that the whole affair of the mutual repeal, of which this was said to be the initiatory step, was but a matter of collusion between France and the United States, having for its object the alternative, either of war between the latter, and Great Britain, or of a complete accession on her part, to the new French code of public law, as expounded in the preamble to the Berlin decree?

Can we be surprised at the remark made by lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney, which our minister and his government took in such high dudgeon;-" Combining your requisition with that of the French minister, I must conclude, that America demands the revocation, of that order of blockade (that of May 1806,) as a practical instance, of our renunciation, of those principles of blockade which are condemned by the French government?"-Can we be surprised, if, labouring under this suspicion, and the general distrust of our intentions, so naturally excited, he should have adopted that course of conduct, which Mr. Madison proclaims in his message, as a terrible grievance,-"neither declared the non-existence of the blockade, nor suffered its non-existence to be inferred, by the American plenipotentiary?"

There is another question, growing out of the portentous assertion, of the thirty-four members of congress-that the revocation of this blockade was not demanded, until after the American government was apprized of the ground, which it was the will of France should be taken on the subject-there is another question, we say, which naturally suggests itself, and to which we blush to think, that any American adminis tration, has ever given, even the slightest colour of reason.Can it be matter of astonishment or reprehension, if, dwelling on the circumstances of the case under consideration, and combining them with the general conduct and language, of our administration, in relation to France,-with the coincidence in effect and time, between our restrictive measures, and the development of the continental system,-with the tone of Barlow's correspondence,-with particular features of the war just declared,-many, very many, of the most upright, liberal, and enlightened men of this country, should suspect, that our honour and prosperity have been, in some sort, betrayed to France; that our present melancholy condition, is

but the result, of a clandestine concurrence in her views, and a base subserviency to her will; or at least, "that the success or disappointment of the private, selfish, vindictive schemes, of a small number of individuals, is the pivot, upon which the whole public policy of this nation has turned, for some years past?"

On the subject of the blockade in question, Mr. Madison states in his message "that it had been ascertained, that the French government, which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was willing, in the event of its removal, to repeal that decree, which being followed by alternate repeals, of the other offensive edicts, might abolish the whole system on both sides." We know not which to admire most, the accuracy of the assertion, contained in the first part of this sentence, or the candour of the last clause, as well as of the whole paragraph, from which it is taken.-The sole ground for this assertion, is a communication, from general Armstrong to the secretary of state, wherein he says, that “ on inquiring officially, on what terms his imperial majesty of France, would revoke his decrees, he received for answer, verbally, 'that the condition required by his majesty for the revocation of his Berlin decree, was the previous revocation by the British government of her blockades of France, or part of France (such as that from the Elbe to Brest, &c.)" Now, even allowing to this loose answer, the force of a pledge, we see that the blockade of May 1806, was not the only one in question. It was used merely as an illustration, of the kind of blockades to be relinquished, or rather, merely enumerated among others.

If the British could have acted at all, upon so vague and indirect a declaration, as the foregoing, they must have considered themselves, as called upon to repeal, not only the blockade of May, but others; and in this supposition, they would have been further justified, by the proceedings of our government in the case. For, we find, that Mr. Pinkney, in his letter to lord Wellesley of September 21st, 1810, demands a repeal, not only of the blockade from Elbe to Brest, but of those of Zealand, and of the Isles of Mauritius and Bourbon.-And in his letter of January 14th, 1811, to the same minister, he speaks also "of other blockades, (including that of the Isle of Zealand) which the United States expected, to see recalled, besides the blockade of May." We should not omit to remark here, that, in this letter, he suggests an idea directly calculated, and perhaps designed, to alarm the British ministry, as to the

ulterior views of our government, on the subject of blockade in general, and to discourage them from a compliance with our demand, concerning the blockade of May. We allude to the following extraordinary passage. "It is by no means clear, that it may not be fairly contended, that a maritime blockade is incomplete, with regard to states at peace, unless the place which it would affect, is invested by land, as well as by sea. The United States, however, have called for the recognition of no such rule. They appear to have contented themselves with urging in substance, that ports not actually blockaded by a present, adequate, stationary force," &c.

There existed for the British ministry, in numerous declarations of the French government, much more formal and authoritative, than the verbal one made to general Armstrong such as it is, abundant evidence, not only that the point stated by our good president, was not ascertained, but that the very reverse was the case. They had but to refer to the preamble of the Berlin decree itself, wherein it is announced, that the decree was to be considered, as the fundamental law of the empire, until England had acknowledged the rights of war to be the same at sea as on land, &c. The same pledge is given in the body of the Milan decree, and in the letter of Champagny to general Armstrong, of August the 22d, 1809, in which it is said, that the restriction of the right of blockade to fortified places, is one of "the invariable principles that have regulated, and will regulate the conduct of his imperial majesty on the great question of neutrals." In the celebrated letter of the duke of Cadore of the 5th of August, we find the condition of the repeal there announced, to be, the revocation by the British, of their orders in council, and of their new principles of blockade; not of any particular blockades, and much less that of May 1806 alone. By referring to this letter, as well as to any other official document ever published by the French government, with respect to its decrees, Mr. Madison will be convinced, that he committed a mistake, when he supposed, that it had been ascertained, &c.

At this time, the most important topic for consideration, with respect to the blockade of May 1806, is, whether our administration was entitled to regard and exhibit it, as a distinct, substantial ground of war? On this head the reasoning of the address, is absolutely conclusive. Nothing more, indeed, can be necessary for our readers than what has been al ready said. We have seen, that this blockade is merged in

the orders in council, according to the explanations of the British ministry. Mr. Madison states in his message, "that by representing the blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States were compelled so to regard it, in their subsequent proceedings." But, if there could be, under such circumstances, any doubt of the absurdity of taking it, as a separate ground of war, there can be none on the subject, when attention is paid, to the aspect it received, from the official explanations of Mr. Foster.

"The blockade of May 1806," says the British minister, "will not continue after the repeal of the orders in council, unless his majesty'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." Here the whole affair is resolved into a mere question of fact, to be determined on the repeal of the orders in council. Elsewhere in his correspondence, Mr. Foster has explicitly recognized, all our own principles, in relation of the right of blockade. We are at a loss to know, what more we could ask, with any colour of reason. There is here stipulated to be done, all that our own theory requires, so far as it is applicable to the blockade. The blockade is, on all sides, admitted to be incapable of any agency, until a repeal of the orders in council, to which, as Mr. Pinkney remarks in one of his letters, "it has yielded its functions." The sole ground, then, upon which it can, with these modifications, be adduced as a cause of war, is, either the wish of the French Emperor, that it should be so represented, or the possibility, that the solemn promises made by the British government in reference to it, will not be fulfilled. The impartiality, candour, and scrupulousness of our administration in regard to this blockade, cannot be better summed up, than by the following paragraph from the address. "Now after the British minister has directly avowed, that this order of blockade would not continue, after the revocation of the orders in council, without a due application of an adequate force, the existence of this blockade, is insisted upon as a justifiable cause of war, notwithstanding that our government admits a blockade is legal, to the maintenance of which an adequate force is applied.

The British orders in council are the principal topic of reprehension in the two manifestos of our government, and fall, of course, under the consideration, of the members of the house of representatives, in their address. Their general and preliminary views of the question of the orders, and of that

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