order in council of the seventh day of January, one thousand eight hundred and seven, and the order in council of the twentysixth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and nine, shall, without any further order, be, and the same are hereby declared from thenceforth to be wholly and absolutely revoked: And further, that the full benefit of this order shall be extended to any ship or cargo captured subsequent to such authentic act of repeal of the French decrees, although antecedent to such repeal such ship or vessel shall have commenced and shall be in the prosecution of a voyage which, under the said orders in council, or one of them, would have subjected her to capture and condemnation; and the claimant of any ship or cargo which shall be captured or brought to adjudication, on account of any alleged breach of either of the said orders in council, at any time subsequent to such authentic act of repeal by the French government, shall, without any further order or declaration on the part of his majesty's government on this subject, be at liberty to give in evidence, in the high court of admiralty, or any court of vice-admiralty before which such ship or cargo shall be brought for adjudication, that such repeal by the French government had been by such authentic act promulgated prior to such capture; and upon proof thereof, the voyage shall be deemed and taken to have been as lawful as if the said orders in council had never been made: saving, nevertheless, to the captors such protection and indemnity as they may be equitably entitled to in the judgment of the said court, by reason of their ignorance or uncertainty as to the repeal of the French decrees, or of the recognition of such repeal by his majesty's government at the time of such capture.

His royal highness, however, deems it proper to declare, that should the repeal of the French decrees, thus anticipated and provided for, prove afterwards to have been illusory on the part of the enemy; and should the restrictions thereof be still practically enforced, or revived by the enemy, Great Britain will be compelled, however reluctantly, after reasonable notice, to have recourse to such measures of retaliation as may then appear to be just and necessary.

And the right honourable the lords commissioners of his majesty's treasury, his majesty's principal secretaries of state, the lords commissioners of the admiralty, and the judge of the high court of admiralty, and the judges of the courts of vice-admiralty, are to take the necessary measures herein as to them shall respectively appertain. (Signed)

CHETWYND.

(Duplicate.) Sir,

Mr. Russell to Mr. Monroe.

London, 26th April, 1812. Í beg leave to hand you herewith a declaration and an order in council of this government of the twenty-first of this month, and a copy of a note from lord Castlereagh accompanying the communication of them to me. I have already transmitted to you other copies of these documents, and have now to add a copy of the note which I have addressed, in reply to that of his lordship.

I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your assured and faithful servant,

(Signed)

(Copy.) My Lord,

JONA. RUSSELL.

Mr. Russell to Lord Castlereagh.

18, Bentinck Street, April 25th, 1812. I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the note which your lordship addressed to me on the 21st of this month, enclosing, by the command of his royal highness the prince regent, a copy of a declaration, accompanying an order in council which had that day been passed.

It would have afforded me the highest satisfaction in communicating that declaration and order to my government, to have been able to represent them as conceived in the true spirit of conciliation, and with a due regard to the honour and interests of the United States. I regret, however, that so far from being able to perceive in them any evidence of the amicable sentiments which are professed to animate the councils of his royal highness, I am compelled to consider them as an unequivocal proof of the determination of his Britannic majesty's government, to adhere to a system, which, both as to principle and fact, originated and has been continued in error; and against which, the government of the United States, so long as it respects itself, and the essential rights of the nation over which it is placed, cannot cease to contend.

The United States have never considered it their duty to inquire, nor do they pretend to decide, whether England or France was guilty, in relation to the other, of the first violation of the public law of nations; but they do consider it their most imperious duty to protect themselves from the unjust operation of the unprecedented measures of retaliation, professed by both these powers to be founded on such violation. In this operation, by whichever party directed, the United States have never for a moment acquiesced; nor by the slightest indication of

such acquiescence, afforded a pretext for extending to them the evils by which England and France affect to retaliate on each other. They have in no instance departed from the observance of that strict impartiality which their peaceful position required, and which ought to have secured to them the unmolested enjoyment of their neutrality. To their astonishment, however, they perceived that both these belligerent powers, under the pretence of annoying each other, adopted, and put in practice, new principles of retaliation, involving the destruction of those commercial and maritime rights which the United States regard as essential and inseparable attributes of their independence. Although alive to all the injury and injustice of this system, the American government resorted to no measures to oppose it which were not of the most pacific and impartial character, in relation to both the aggressors. Its remonstrances, its restrictions of commercial intercourse, and its overtures for accommodation, were equally addressed to England and to France; and, if there is now an inequality in the relations of the United States with these countries, it can only be ascribed to England herself, who rejected the terms proffered to both, while France accepted them; and who continues to execute her retaliatory edicts on the high seas, while those of the latter have there ceased to ope

rate.

If Great Britain could not be persuaded by considerations of universal equity, to refrain from adopting any line of conduct, however unjust, for which she might discover a precedent in the conduct of her enemy; or to abandon an attempt of remotely and uncertainly annoying that enemy through the immediate and sure destruction of the vital interests of a neutral and unoffending state; yet it was confidently expected that she would be willing to follow that enemy also in his return towards justice; and, from a respect to her own declarations, to proceed pari passu with him, in the revocation of the offending edicts. This just expectation has, however, been disappointed, and an exemption of the flag of the United States from the operation of the Berlin and Milan decrees has produced no corresponding modification of the British orders in council. On the contrary, the fact of such exemption on the part of France appears by the declaration and order in council of the British government of the 21st of this month to be denied; and the engagement of the latter to proceed step by step with its enemy in the work of repeal and relaxation, to be disowned or disregarded.

That France has repealed her decrees, so far as they concerned the United States, has been established by declarations and facts satisfactory to them, and which, it was presumed, would

have been equally satisfactory to the British government. formal and authentic declaration of the French government, communicated to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, on the 5th of August, 1810, announced that the decrees of Berlin and Milan were revoked, and should cease to operate on the first of the succeeding November, provided that a condition presented to England, or another condition presented to the United States, should be performed. The condition presented to the United States was performed; and this performance rendered absolute the repeal of the decrees. So far, therefore, from this repeal depending on conditions in which Great Britain could not acquiesce, it became absolute, independently of any act of Great Britain, the moment the act proposed for the performance of the United States was accomplished. Such was the construction given to this measure by the United States, from the first; and that it was a correct one, has been sufficiently evinced by the subsequent practice of France.

Several instances of the acquittal of American vessels and cargoes, to which the decrees would have attached, if still in force against the United States, have, from time to time, been presented to his Britannic majesty's government. That these cases have been few is to be ascribed to the few captures, in consequence of this repeal, made by French cruisers; and should no other such case occur it will be owing to the efficacy of this repeal, and to the exact observance of it, even by the most wanton and irregular of those cruisers.

From the 1st of November, 1810, to the 29th of January of the present year, as appears by a note which I had the honour to address to the predecessor of your lordship on the 8th of February last, the Berlin and Milan decrees had not been applied to American property, nor have I heard that such application has

since been made.

But, against the authentic act of the French government of the 5th of August, 1810, and the subsequent conduct of that government, mutually explaining each other, and confirming the construction adopted by the United States, is offered a report said to be communicated by the French minister of foreign affairs to the conservative senate. Without pretending to doubt the genuineness of that report, although it has reached this country only in a newspaper, yet it is to be lamented that as much form and evidence of authenticity have not been required in an act considered as furnishing cause for the continuance of the orders in council, as in an act which, by the very terms of those orders, challenged their revocation. The act of the 5th of August, 1810, emanating from the sovereign of France, officially

communicated to the British government, and satisfactorily expounded and explained by the practical comments of more than eighteen months, is denied to afford convincing evidence of the repeal of the French decrees; while full proof of their continuance is inferred from a report, which by its very nature must contain the mere opinions and speculations of a subject, which is destitute of all authority until acted upon by the body to which it was presented, which has found its way hither in no more authentic shape than the columns of the Moniteur, and for the proper understanding of which not a moment has been allowed. But even were the value thus assigned to the report just, it is still difficult to discover what inference can be fairly deduced from it incompatible with the previous declarations and conduct of the French government exempting the United States from the operation of its decrees. The very exception in that report, with regard to nations which do not suffer their flag to be denationalized, was undoubtedly made with' a reference to the United States, and with a view to reconcile the general tenor of that report, with the good faith with which it became France to observe the conventional repeal of those decrees in their favour. However novel may be the terms employed, or whatever may be their precise meaning, they ought to be so interpreted as to accord with the engagements of the French government, and with justice and good faith.

Your lordship will, I doubt not, the more readily acknowledge the propriety of considering the report in this light, by a reference to similar reports made to the same conservative senate, on the 13th of December, 1810, by the duke of Cadore, the predecessor of the present French minister of exterior relations, and by the count de Simonville. In these reports, they say to the emperor (which sufficiently proves that such reports are not to be considered as dictated by him), "Sire, as long as England shall persist in her orders in council, so long your majesty will persist in his decrees;" and "the decrees of Berlin and Milan are the answer to the orders in council; the British cabinet has, thus to speak, dictated them to France; Europe receives them for her code, and this code shall become the palladium of the liberty of the seas." Surely this language is as strong as that of the report of the 10th of March, and still more absolute, for there is no qualification in it in favour of any nation; yet this language has, both by an explanation from the duke of Cadore to me at the time, and by the uniform conduct of the French govenment since, been reconciled with the repeal of these very decrees, so far as they concerned the United States.