The Kentucky Gazette

FROM THE REDACTEUR OF FEB. 23.

NEUTRAL POWERS.

The horrid genius of the cabinet of St. James's, is in motion : enraged to see itself assailed by us with the very arms which, it forged to ruin us, it has dispatched emissaries in every direction to mislead, if not to corrupt the governments who, by their wisdom have until now preserved themselves from the scourge of war. Already does it boast of arming a new coalition in the North against the law that declares English merchandize to be contraband.

Does England expect to make the world forget that it is herself provoked that measure: that it strikes solely at her, and that the law far from being prejudicial to the neutral powers, offers them invaluable advantages.

It is England, we repeat, that has provoked the measure. Firmly attached to her homicidal plan of famishing France, she swelled the list of contraband articles in such a manner that nothing that is useful was suffered to enter our ports. Not satisfied with publicly multiplying prohibitory acts, she gave private instructions to each of her cruisers, and these instructions declared every article of the produce of our colonies to be good prize. Therefore the law against English merchandizes was, on our part, but a just reprisal, it merely inflicted upon her the punishment pronounced by the "Lex Talionis!"

It is also England alone that receives the blow. for the law prohibits merely the produce of her territory and manufactures a preference infinitely beneficial, in favor of the produce of the territories and manufactures of other powers; since they are thereby invited to furnish us every article which the English are no longer suffered to supply us with, and that in consequence, their commerce taking possession of all the markets from which the English are shut out, will open to them new sources of wealth and prosperity. Can it be possible, that they should so far disregard their own interest as to espouse those of the British government; could they forget, that by crushing that tyrant of the ocean that universal forestaller, we do not only defend our own cause, but that of all the commercial nations. Let them remember what a celebrated writer said in speaking of the exclusive dominion of the seas? "This is a kind of monarchy, which Europe ought to wipe out of the hands of England, by restoring to each maritime state the liberty and the power which each of them has a right to, upon the watery element that borders its coast. This is a system of public utility founded on natural equity ; here justice is the expression of the general interests."

These principles are our own; let them also be those of all commercial states, and united in sentiment as well as by interests, let us compel England to a peace, to such a one as shall forever re-establish equality upon the high seas. The French republic, desires nothing more ardently than to lay these cases and adopt a maritime Code, that shall blot out even the name of contraband, as every thing ought to be held sacred on board a neutral vessel.

Neutral vessel, wherever they may be bound.

But if a state under the mask of an insidious neutrality unites with England instead of acceding to our pacific and philanthropic views, if it conceals itself personally attacked by the blow which the law against British produce and merchandizes strikes at England then it offers itself the proof, that it has made her cause its own, and its profession of faith is completed.

Let the neutrals declare themselves. The French republic prefers an open hostility to a clandestine war that is entirely to the advantage of the enemy of mankind. Woe at all events, to those governments who are the slaves of the corrupt cabinet of St. James's! They will attract upon their heads the execration of their own nations, whose blood it will appear, they sold at the price of English gold.

Let them take care of the hour, when they shall awake from their lethargy - it will be the hour of punishment for their infamous traffic.