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And, when we America are of no value? know, when no man will deny, when official records of the fact exist, that hundreds of native Americans have been impressed and sent to serve on board our ships of war: when this is notorious; when it neither will nor can be denied, what is of value to America if this cause be not of value?-As to the proposition for making English seamen "contraband of war," it is so impudent, it is so shameful, it is even so horrid, that I will do no more than just name it, that it may not escape the reader's indignation.-Indeed, there needs no more than the reading of this one article to convince the Americans, that all the factions in England are, in effect, of one mind upon the subject of this war; and, I am afraid, that this conviction will produce consequences, which we shall have sorely to lament, though I shall, for my own part, always have the satisfaction to reflect, that every thing which it was in my power to do, has been done, to prevent those consequences.

tish Captain would equally suffer, if he "had all the risk and loss to incur of an "improper detention. Against this, how66 ever, the arguments are strong. The "American Captain may have been impo"sed upon by the similarity of language, &c.; and when brought into one of our 66 ports, where there is a competent Court to adjudge the point, a real American seaman might find it impossible to ad"duce proofs of his nativity. Besides, in "both events, the penalty would be inordinate.Another suggestion has been "made, that the, British naval officer im"pressing a seaman on board an American "vessel, and vice versa, should be bound "to make a certificate in duplicate (or "what the French call a proces verbal), to "the fact, one copy of which he should deliver to the American Captain, and transmit the other to the Admiralty to "be filed; and that the seaman seized "should have his action for damages in the "Courts of Law, the certificate to be produced by the Admiralty as proof of the "trespass, if the person can prove himself to be a native of the country that he "pretended to be. We confess we think Botley, 14th January, 1813. "that this ought to satisfy both Governments, for this would make officers can"tious in exercising the right which at the "same time cannot be safely surrendered.” This is poor, paltry trash. But, it contains cne assertion, which I declare to be false. It is here asserted, that "the right of im"pressment of seamen on board of trading

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ships, is a right which has, at all times "been asserted, and acquiesced in by sove"reign states respectively."-I give this an unqualified denial. I say, that it is a right, which no nation has before asserted, and that no nation ever acquiesced in. Let the Morning Chronicle name the nation that has ever done either: let him cite the instance of such a practice as we insist upon; let him name the writer, every English writer, on public law, who has made even an attempt to maintain such a doctrine; nay, let him name the writer, who has laid down any principle, or maxim, from which such a right can possibly be deduced. And, if he can do none of these, what assurance, what a desperate devotion to faction, must it be to enable a man to make such an assertion! The assertion of the "value of the cause" being slight to America, in comparison to what it is to us, has no better foundation. The value! what is of value, what is of any value at all, if the liberty and lives of the people of

WM. COBBETT.

OFFICIAL PAPERS.

AMERICAN STATES.. -Declaration of the
Regent of England against them.

The earnest endeavours of the Prince Regent to preserve the relations of peace and amity with the United States of America having unfortunately failed, His Royal Highness, acting in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, deems it proper publicly to declare the causes and origin of the war, in which the Government of the United States has compelled him to engage.

-No desire of conquest, or other ordimary motive of aggression has been, or can be, with any colour of reason, in this case, imputed to Great Britain: that her commercial interests were on the side of peace, if war could have been avoided, without the sacrifice of her maritime rights, or without an injurious submission to France, is a truth which the American Government will not deny. His Royal Highness does not, however, mean to rest on the favourable presumption to which he is entitled. He is prepared, by an exposition of the circumstances which have led to the present war, to shew that Great Britain has throughout acted towards the United States of America

circumstances of unparalleled provocation, His Majesty had abstained from any measure, which the ordinary rules of the law of nations did not fully warrant. Never was the maritime superiority of a Belligerent over his enemy more complete and decided. Never was the opposite Belligerent. so formidably dangerous in his power, and

with a spirit of amity, forbearance, and conciliation; and to demonstrate the inadmissible nature of those pretensions, which have at length unhappily involved the two countries in war.It is well known to the world, that it has been the invariable object of the Ruler of France, to destroy the power and independence of the British Empire, as the chief obstacle to the accom-in his policy to the liberties of all other naplishment of his ambitious designs.He tions. France had already trampled so first contemplated the possibility of assem- openly and systematically on the most sabling such a naval force in the Channel as, cred rights of neutral powers, as might combined with a numerous flotilla, should well have justified the placing her out of the enable him to disembark in England au pale of civilized nations. Yet in this exarmy sufficient, in his conception, to sub-treme case Great Britain had so used her jugate this country; and through the con- naval ascendency, that her enemy could quest of Great Britain he hoped to realize find no just cause of complaint and in orhis project of universal empire.By the der to give to these lawless decrees the apadoption of an enlarged and provident sys-pearance of retaliation, the Ruler of France tem of internal defence, and by the valour of His Majesty's fleets and armies, this design was entirely frustrated; and the naval force of France, after the most signal defeats, was compelled to retire from the ocean. An attempt was then made to effectuate the same purpose by other means; a system was brought forward, by which the Ruler of France hoped to annihilate the commerce of Great Britain, to shake her public credit, and to destroy her revenue; to render useless her maritime superiority, and so to avail himself of his continental ascendency, as to constitute himself, in a great measure, the arbiter of the ocean, notwithstanding the destruction of his fleets. —With this view, by the Decree of Berlin, followed by that of Milan, he declared the British territories to be in a state of blockade; and that all commerce, or even correspondence with Great Britain was prohibited. He decreed that every vessel and cargo which had entered, or was found proceeding to a British port, or which, under Against these Decrees, His Majesty proany circumstances, had been visited by a tested and appealed; he called upon the British ship of war, should be lawful prize: United States to assert their own rights, he declared all British goods and produce and to vindicate their independence, thus wherever found, and however acquired, menaced and attacked; and as France had whether coming from the Mother Country, declared, that she would confiscate every or from her colonies, subject to confiscation: vessel which should touch in Great Bri he further declared to be denationalized the tain, or be visited by British ships of war, flag of all neutral ships that should be His Majesty having previously issued the found offending against these his decrees: Order of January 1807, as an act of miti and he gave to this project of universal ty-gated retaliation, was at length compelled, ranny the name of the Continental System. by the persevering violence of the enemy, For these attempts to ruin the com- and the continued acquiescence of neutral merce of Great Britain, by means subver-powers, to revisit, upon France, in a sive of the clearest rights of neutral nations, France endeavoured in vain to rest ber justification upon the previous conduct of His Majesty's Government.- -Under

was obliged to advance principles of maritine law unsanctioned by any other authority than his own arbitrary will.The pretexts for these decrees were, first, that Great Britain had exercised the rights of war against private persons, their ships and goods, as if the only object of legitimate hostility on the ocean were the public property of a State, or as if the edicts, and the Courts of France itself had not at all times enforced this right with peculiar rigour. Secondly, that the 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.

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

security was demanded, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees, even if revoked, should not under some other form be reestablished; 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 en

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

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 dependencies. 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 sub-gagement was offered to Great Britain, of sequent period, as a proof of His Majesty's whom it was required, not only that the sincere desire to accommodate, as far as Orders in Council should be repealed, but possible, his defensive measures to the that no others of a similar nature should be convenience of neutral powers, the opera-issued, and that the blockade of May, 1806, tion 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 ty-issued. Its provisions were on the conranny, can never be suppressed, or even trary represented by the American Minister checked, if the power against which such resident in London at the time, to have injustice is exercised, be debarred from been so framed, as to afford, in his judgthe right of full and adequate retaliation: ment, a proof of the friendly disposition or, if the measures of the retaliating powof the British Cabinet towards the United er, are to be considered as matters of just States.--Great Britain was thus called offence to neutral nations, whilst the mea- upon to abandon one of her most important sures of original aggression and violence, maritime rights, by acknowledging the are to be tolerated with indifference, sub. Order of blockade in question, to be one mission, or complacency.- -The Govern- of the edicts which violated the commerce ment of the United States did not fail to of the United States, although it had never remonstrate against the Orders in Council been so considered in the previous negociaof Great Britain. Although they knew tions ;--and although the President of the that these Orders would be revoked, if the United States had recently consented to Decrees of France, which had occasioned abrogate the Non-Intercourse Act, on the them, were repealed, they resolved at the sole condition of the Orders in Council same moment to resist the conduct of both being revoked; thereby distinctly admitBelligerents, instead of requiring France, ting these orders to be the only edicts in the first instance, to rescind her Decrees. which fell within the contemplation of the Applying most unjustly the same measure law, under which he acted.A propo of resentment to the aggressor, and to the sition so hostile to Great Britain could not party aggrieved, they adopted measures of but be proportionably encouraging to the commercial resistance against both-a sys- pretensions of the enemy; as by thus altem of resistance which, however varied leging that the blockade of May 1806, in the successive acts of embargo, non-in- was illegal, the American Government tercourse, or non-importation, was evi- virtually justified, so far as depended on dently unequal in its operation, and prin- them, the French Decrees. After this cipally levelled against the superior com- proposition had been made, the French merce, and maritime power of Great Bri-Minister for Foreign Affairs, if not in contain. The same partiality towards France was observable, in their negociations, as in their measures 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.

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

cert 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 ope ration 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 mea- | repealed by the American Government : sures of Great Britain. Although the that they were not repealed in conformity repeal of the French Decrees thus announc-with a proposition simultaneously made to ed 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 Non-Importation 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.- The American Government, assuming the repeal of the French Decrees to be absolute, and effectual, most uujustly required Great Britain, in conformity to her declarations, to revoke her Orders in Council. The British Government denied that the repeal, which was announced in the letter of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, was such as ought to satisfy Great Britain; and in order to ascertain the true character of the measures adopted by France, the Govern ment of the United States was called upon to produce the instrument, by which the alleged repeal of the French Decrees had been effected. If these Decrees were really revoked, such an instrument must exist, and no satisfactory reason could be given for withholding it.At length, on the 21st of May 1812, and not before, the American Minister in London did produce a copy, or at least what purported to be a copy, of such an instrument.- -It professed to bear date the 28th of April 1811, long subsequent to the dispatch of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs of the 5th of August 1810, or even the day named therein, viz. the 1st of November following, when the operation of the French Decrees was to cease. This instrument expressly declared that these French Decrees were repealed in consequence of the American Legislature having, by their Act of the 1st of March 1811, provided, that British ships and merchandize should be excluded from the ports and harbours of the United States.

both Belligerents, but that in consequence of a previous Act on the part of the American Government, they were repealed in favour of one Belligerent, to the prejudice of the other: that the American Government having adopted measures restrictive upon the commerce of both Belligerents, in consequence of Edicts issued by both, rescinded these measures, as they effected that power, which was the aggressor, whilst they put them in full operation against the party aggrieved; although the Edicts of both powers continued in force; and lastly, that they excluded the ships of war, belonging to one Belligerent, whilst they admitted into their ports and harbours the ships of war belonging to the other, in violation of one of the plainest and most essential duties of a neutral nation. Although the instrument thus produced was by no means that general and unqualified revocation of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, which Great Britain had continually demanded, and had a full right to claim; and although this instrument, under all the circumstances of its appearance at that moment, for the first time, was open to the strongest suspicions of its authenticity; yet, as the Minister of the United States produced it, as purporting to be a copy of the instrument of revocation, the Government of Great Britain, desirous of reverting, if possible, to the ancient and accustomed principles of maritime war, determined upon revoking conditionally the Orders in Council. Accordingly, in the month, of June last, his Royal Highness the Prince Regent was pleased to declare in Council, in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, that the Orders in Council should be revoked, as far as respected the ships and property of the United States, from the 1st of August following. This revocation was to continue in force, provided the Government of the United States should, within a time to be limited, repeal their restrictive laws against British commerce. His Majesty's Minister in America was expressly By this instrument, the only document ordered to declare to the Government of produced by America, as a repeal of the the United States, that "this measure had French Decrees, it appears beyond a pos- been adopted by the Prince Regent in sibility of doubt or cavil, that the alleged" the earnest wish and hope, either that the repeal of the French Decrees was condi- "Government of France, by further relaxtional, as Great Britain had asserted; and "ations of its system, might render persenot absolute or final, as had been maintain- " verance on the part of Great Britain in ed by America: that they were not re-retaliatory measures unnecessary, or if pealed at the time they were stated to be" this hope should prove delusive, that His

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Treaty of Utrecht, and were therefore binding upon all States. From the penalties of this Code no nation was to be exempt, which did not accept it, not only

"Majesty's Government might be enabled, "in the absence of all irritating and re"strictive regulations on either side, to enter "with the Government of the United States "into amicable explanations, for the pur-as the rule of its own conduct, but as a law, pose of ascertaining whether, if the ne- the observance of which it was also recessity of retaliatory measures should un- quired to enforce upon Great Britain. "fortunately continue to operate, the parti- In a Manifesto, accompanying their De"cular measures to be acted upon by Great claration of hostilities, in addition to the "Britain, could be rendered more accept- former complaints against the Orders in "able to the American Government, than Council, a long list of grievances was brought "those hitherto pursued."In order to forward; some trivial in themselves, others provide for the contingency of a Declara- which had been mutually adjusted, but none tion of War on the part of the United States, of them such as were ever before alleged previous to the arrival in America of the by the American Government to be grounds said Order of Revocation, instructions were for war. As if to throw additional sent to His Majesty's Minister Plenipoten- obstacles in the way of peace, the Ametiary accredited to the United States (the rican Congress at the same time passed a execution of which instructions, in conse-law, prohibiting all intercourse with Great quence of the discontinuance of Mr. Foster's Britain, of such a tenor, as deprived the functions, were at a subsequent period in- Executive Government, according to the trusted to Admiral Sir John Borlase President's own construction of that Act, Warren), directing him to propose a ces- of all power of restoring the relations of sation of hostilities, should they have com- friendly intercourse between the two States, menced; and further to offer a simulta- so far at least as concerned their commercial neous repeal of the Orders in Council on Intercourse, until Congress should re-asthe one side, and of the Restrictive Laws on semble.The President of the United the British ships and commerce on the other. States, has, it is true, since proposed to -They were also respectively empowered Great Britain an Armistice; not, however, to acquaint the American Government, in on the admission, that the cause of war reply to any inquiries with respect to the hitherto relied on was removed: but on blockade of May, 1806, whilst the British condition that Great Britain, as a prelimiGovernment must continue to maintain its nary step, should do away a cause of war, legality, That in point of fact this now brought forward as such for the first "particular Blockade had been discontinued time; namely, that she should abandon "for a length of time, having been merged the exercise of her undoubted right of in the general retaliatory blockade of search, to take from American merchant "the enemy's ports under the Orders in vessels British seamen, the natural-born "Council, and that His Majesty's Govern- subjects of His Majesty; and this conces"ment had no intention of recurring to sion was required upon a mere assurance "this, or to any other of the blockades of that laws would be enacted by the Legisla"the enemy's ports, founded upon the or- ture of the United States, to prevent such dinary and accustomed principles of Ma- seamen from entering into their service; ritime Law, which were in force pre- but independent of the objection to an ex"vious to the Orders in Council, without clusive reliance on a Foreign State, for the "a new notice to Neutral Powers in the conservation of so vital an interest, no ex"usual form."- The American Go-planation was, or could be afforded by the vernment, before they received intimation | Agent who was charged with this Overture, of the course adopted by the British either as to the main principles upon which Government, had in fact proceeded to the such laws were to be founded, or as to the extreme measure of declaring war, and provisions which it was proposed they issuing "Letters of Marque," notwith-should contain.This proposition havstanding they were previously in possession of the Report of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, of the 12th of March, 1812, promulgating anew, the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as fundamental laws of the French Empire, under the false and extravagant pretext, that the monstrous principles therein contained were to be found in the

ing been objected to, a second proposal was made, again offering an Armistice, provided the British Government would secretly stipulate to renounce the exercise of this Right in a Treaty of Peace. An immediate and formal abandonment of its exercise, as a preliminary to a cessation of hostilities, was not demanded; but his

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