Alexandria Daily Advertiser

Extract from Le Mercure de France.

It is at length certain, that the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia are formally invested with the rank of Mediators. In the actual state of the war, and after the turn which it has taken, the interference of these powers was unavoidable. Whatever may be said of the appearance of a French army in the extremity of the North of Germany, it cannot but be productive of inconvenience. But the shutting up of the Elbe and the Weser, and almost all the pretended claims of England, are still more inconvenient. It is curious to read the late notification made by Lord Hawkesbury to all the neutral powers. His majesty has lately received intelligence that a part of the banks of the Weser having been taken possession of by the French troops, the navigation is no longer free to his Majesty's vessels, or those of his subjects, whereby the neutrality of that river has been violated. His majesty has in consequence thought it proper to direct that the mouth of that river should be closely blockaded. It is afterwards stated, that His Majesty will be ready to withdraw the blockade as soon as his ships can sail up the river in security, in the same manner as those of other nations.

Such is the right set up by England respecting a blockade; it forms a part of the extraordinary maritime code of that nation. It will not allow other nations the right of marching but when it marches itself, nor of doing but what it does. Should its enemy have possession of any part whatever of the banks of the river, in as much as its navigation is in that case restricted, all the powers of inferior or superior territories must be shut out from it. Not an individual in Europe has the right of returning to his own country, unless England be at the same time allowed that of accompanying him thither. They talk of limitations made by the English government, in its acceptance of the mediation of Russia; we know not whether this doctrine, and these pretended rights, form any part of them.

When a people thus abandons every principle of right recognized amongst nations, it only remains for it to separate itself from them also. There are already four Barbary Regencies. A fifth may, at pleasure, be added to them; and the nations of Europe would even do well to pay it a tribute for permission to navigate their rivers, and the seas. These are not pretensions arising solely from vanity and pride: in that case they might be overlooked and suffered to pass without adjusting or disputing them. The Mediating Powers have already avoided all these questions in their last pacification with England. But, unfortunately, there is one thing which they cannot avoid, and that is, not to have it in their power to continue at peace from the moment that England shall go to war. They may again avoid them.

England cannot, in fact, enter into any contest without instantly reviving its pretended right of searching ships of war, blockade, that of carrying them into her ports, and, in a word, the right of destroying, from the bare circumstance of its being at war with one nation, the navigation of all others. The commerce of Europe is now so accustomed to this order of things, that the first sound of a cannon discharged by England, becomes the signal for the interruption of every kind of maritime enterprise.