Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

FRENCH DECREES.

The following letter is not among those lately sent to Congress. In the series printed at the last session, it immediately preceded the first of those now communicated.

Extract of a letter from Joel Barlow, Esq. to the Duke of Bassano, dated Paris, Aug. 1, 1812.

In the note I had the honor to address your excellency on the 10th November last, the spirit of the English government was so far noticed as to anticipate the fact now proved by experience, that its orders in council, violating the rights of neutrals, would not be revoked. The declaration of the Prince Regent of the 21st April, has placed that fact beyond all question. In doing this, he has repeated the assertion so often advanced by his ministers and judges, that the decrees of France of similar character are likewise unrevoked.

You will notice that he finds a new argument for this conclusion in your excellency's late report to the emperor concerning neutral rights, in which you avoid taking notice of any repeal or modification of these decrees, or of their non-application to the United States. We know that they do not apply to the United States, because we do not suffer our flag to be denationalized in manner evidently contemplated by the emperor in the rule he meant to establish. But it would have been well if your excellency had noticed their non-application to the United States, since his majesty had uniformly done it in his decisions of prize causes since Nov. 1810.

It is much to be desired that the French government would now make and publish an authentic act, declaring the Berlin and Milan decrees, as relative to the United States, to have ceased in November, 1810, declaring that they have not been applied in any instance since that time, and that they shall not be so applied in future.

The case is so simple, the demand so just, and the necessity so urgent, that I cannot withhold my confidence in the prompt and complete success of my proposition.

In answer to this note, the Duke of Bassano sent him a repealing decree, dated April, 1811. Our government, and its ministers, declare that they never saw or heard of it before it was at this time communicated.

On the above letter the London Courier has the following remarks.

The American papers of the 15th of March contain Mr. Barlow's correspondence with the French government, in which our readers will see further proofs, if any were wanting, of the delusion practised by the French government, and connived at by the Americans, relative to the Berlin and Milan decrees. Mr. Barlow, accommodating ambassador! had no doubt himself that the decrees were bona fide repealed from Nov. 1810. But he closes his letter to Maret, (Duke of Bassano) by saying 'that it is much to be desired that the French government would now make and publish an authentic act, declaring that the Berlin and Milan decrees ceased to have effect from Nov. 1810.' But this desire the French government are extremely reluctant to comply with. Mr. Barlow, in his next letter, mentions a sharp conversation with Bassano, and a strong reluctance to answer his note of the 1st May. But at length Bassano produces a decree of the 28th April, 1811, stating, that the Berlin and Milan decrees are repealed.

'I made no comment,' says Barlow, 'on the strange manner in which this decree had been so long concealed.' Why did he not? The reason is obvious, because he knew, or had reason to suspect, that the decree had just then been fabricated for the occasion.