The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

The Secretary of State left this city yesterday for his seat in Virginia.

General Wilkinson left this city on Monday last for Baltimore.

The opposition prints are still industrious in their efforts to misrepresent the measures of the administration with respect to foreign nations. For this purpose, in defiance of truth, they ascribe to them a disposition to propitiate France by unworthy concessions, while more is required of England than we have a just claim to.

It is alleged, that, while the conduct of Britain is condemned in the most unqualified terms, that of France is viewed as at least venial, inasmuch as flowing altogether from the conduct of Britain.

Nothing can be more unjust or untrue than this representation. However censurable the measures of the British cabinet may be considered, they are not admitted to be a sufficient reason for the measures of France towards us. Although England may have no cause to complain of them, we have. The measures of both governments are viewed as unjust invasions of our rights, and we do not admit the right of one belligerent nation, on the plea of retaliation against another, to infringe, much less to destroy our essential rights. We venture to say, boldly, that our government, viewing the conduct of both governments in this light, has held the same language to them.

As this has, undoubtedly, been the course pursued by our government, so ought the sentiments on which it has been adopted be those of every friend to his country. Predilections or antipathies to this or that foreign nation, ought universally, in such an exigency, to give place to patriotism.

But the opposition prints will not suffer this honorable sentiment to prevail. They seem to have two objects equally at heart; to libel their own government, and to eulogise that of Britain. Hence their assiduity to prove France the original aggressor in those infractions of neutral rights which have caused the present crisis. If they can succeed in establishing this fact, they seem to consider their point gained, and especially to have altogether exculpated England.

Although for the reason we have assigned, even if their success in establishing this fact should be complete, they would not exonerate Britain from censure, or take from us just grounds of complaint against her, we will meet them on their own ground, and shew, to the satisfaction, we trust, of every candid mind, that the original aggressions on our rights were on the part of Britain.

We have no time, nor is it necessary to enter into an elaborate discussion of the subject. The view, we shall offer, shall be concise, and will principally consist in an enumeration of facts.

The Berlin decree of the 21st of November 1806, declaring the British Isles in a state of blockade, is pronounced the original aggression. But the absolute falsehood of this allegation appears by the following facts:

1. By the previous extensive violations, by Great Britain, of the colonial trade, under the order of council of June 11, 1803, unlawfully restricting the trade of the United States with a certain portion of the unblockaded ports of her enemies, and condemning vessels with innocent cargoes, on a return from ports where they had deposited contraband articles.

For ascertaining the character and extent of these invasions of neutral rights reference may be had to the numerous mercantile memorials presented to Congress in the session of 1805-6, which emanated principally from the opponents of the administration, and the orthodoxy of which they cannot therefore contest. From the volume of remonstrances presented on this subject, we shall confine ourselves to the following extract from a representation of Mr. Gore to the Secretary of State, made on the 18th of Nov. 1805.

"The principle," says Mr. Gore, "understood to be admitted by Great Britain is, that in time of war, a trade carried on between two independent nations, one neutral and the other belligerent, is unlawful in the neutral, if the same trade was not allowed and practised in time of peace. This principle, though assumed by Great Britain, is now, and always has been resisted as unsound by every other nation. She always assumes as a fact, that the trade with a colony has always been confined exclusively to ships of the parent country. In virtue therefore, of this assumption of principle and fact, she deems unlawful and derogatory to her rights, the trade of a neutral with the colonies of her enemies. However, in the last war she so far modified her principle, as to assent to the lawfulness of the voyage of a neutral, if direct between the ports of a neutral, and the colony of the enemy; and also a trade in such colonial articles, from the country of the neutral to any other country, even to the parent country of such colony, provided such articles were imported, bona fide, as in the other case."

And afterwards- "What renders the conduct of Great Britain peculiarly injurious to the merchants of our country, is the extension of this offensive doctrine, contrary to her own express and public declaration of the law during the last war; for it was then declared that the importation from an enemy's colony to the country to which the ship belonged, and the subsequent exportation was lawful, and so of property, the produce of the parent country, going from the U. States to the colony.

2. By various blockades, in virtue of orders of council, merely notified to our minister at London, and thence made a ground of capture, against the trade of the U. S. in entire disregard of the law of nations, and of the definition of legal blockades laid down by the British government itself; particularly by the blockade of the whole coast from the river Elbe to Brest, of the 16th of May, 1806--which, Lord Westmoreland, a distinguished member of the present ministry, has openly declared in his seat in Parliament to have been the cause of the Berlin decree. He adds, in defending the orders of 11th Nov. 1807, "The order of blockade of 1806 had been previously passed, and also the order of council of January 7, 1807. By the former of these measures the commerce of one half of Europe had been completely interdicted, and by the latter the direct trade of all neutrals had been totally prohibited. It amounted in fact to a total confiscation of all neutral trade. The blame, therefore, does not lie with us, but with our accusers," (the Fox's administration.)

3. By the numerous outrages committed by British armed ships on our coast, and especially by the destruction of a French national vessel within our waters.

This is one view of the subject, of itself abundantly conclusive; but take another.

Even separating all antecedent aggressions, the British orders of council of January 7, 1807, cannot be justified on the principle of retaliation. The Berlin decree, which they are said to have been issued to retaliate, bears date November 21, 1806, only six weeks antecedent, within which period it was impossible for it to have been known in the United States. In this view, therefore, the orders are to be considered as in fact preceding the Berlin decree.

2. This is further shewn by the note of the British commissioners accompanying the rejected treaty, which bears date the 31st of Decem. 1806, only 6 days after it was presented, which does no more than threaten to retaliate in case the United States should submit to the practical application of the Berlin decree to her. After referring to the provisions of the Berlin decree the commissioners add

"The undersigned cannot, therefore believe that the enemy will seriously attempt to enforce such a system. If he should, they are confident that the good sense of the American government will perceive the fatal consequences of such pretensions, to neutral commerce, and that its spirit and regard to national honor will prevent its acquiescence in such palpable violations of its rights and injurious encroachments on its interests.

"If however the enemy should carry these threats into execution, and if neutral nations, contrary to all expectation should acquiesce in such usurpation, his majesty might be compelled however reluctantly, to retaliate in his just defence, and to adopt, in regard to the commerce of neutral nations with his enemies, the same measures which those nations shall have permitted to be enforced against their commerce with his subjects. The commissioners of the U. States will therefore feel, that at a moment when his majesty and all neutral nations are threatened with such an extension of the belligerent pretensions of his enemies, he cannot enter into the stipulations of the present treaty, without an explanation from the United States, of their intentions, or a reservation on the part of his majesty in the case above mentioned if it should ever occur."

And yet, notwithstanding these explicit declarations and even assurances that retaliation would only ensue from the actual enforcement of the decree and the submission of the U. States, the orders of the 7th of January were issued, without the occurrence of any of the alleged causes of a just retaliation. It is, therefore, palpably absurd for its authors to justify it on the grounds of retaliation.

3. It cannot be said, in their justification, that the orders of January 7, 1807, are founded on the rule set up in 1756, because they are stated, on their face, (by the late administration) to be retaliatory; because they are expressly denied by the existing administration to be conformably to that rule; and because they are in fact very different from it.

4. The amount of depredations under these orders is much greater than that under the Berlin decree, on the high seas, committed, too, before any depredation under that decree.

The proceedings, therefore, under the British orders not being warranted, under these circumstances, by the Berlin decree, must be considered as the original aggressions.

As to the British orders of the 11th of November last being justified on the principle of retaliation, the following circumstances will shew the futility of this plea. They were issued before the practical extension of the Berlin decree to the U. States was known in England, the correspondence with M. Regnier, in which it is first avowed, not having been published in France at the time, or known for a considerable time thereafter in England. The case of the Horizon, the only instance of an American vessel captured under the decree, was not decided on by the subordinate tribunal until the 6th of October, and was certainly not known in England before the 11th of Nov. Moreover: the decision was not final. An appeal was entered on the part of the U. States from the prize court to the council of state, answerable to the English lords of appeal; and the appeal was not decided till the 19th of March last. During the intermediate time the original condemnation was subject to reversal; nor could the determination of the French government be ascertained until thus finally expressed. Then, and then only, could just grounds for retaliation exist. To shew that we are correct in this important, conclusive fact, we add a transcript of the act of final condemnation

COUNCIL OF STATE.

Napoleon, Emperor of the French. King of Italy and Protector of the confederation of the Rhine

Upon the report of our commission of controversies.

Having seen the plea set up by Mr. Alexander M'Clure, an American captain and proprietor of the ship Horizon and of the cargo on board, against the decision of the Imperial Council of Prizes of the 6th of last October, tending to annul the said decision, as to that part of the merchandise which is recognized as the growth or manufacture of the British isles;

The memoir produced in support of the plea;

The decision of the said council of the 18th September; and

The advice of our commission of controversies;

Considering that the spirit and letter of the Imperial decree of the 21st of November, 1806, ordain without distinction and in an unqualified manner the confiscation of all goods the produce of the soil or manufacture of Great Britain, and that in applying it in this sense to the cargo of the American ship Horizon, our Imperial council has conformed to the provisions of the said decree—

Our council of state being heard—

We have decreed and do decree as follows:

The plea of the American Captain, Alexander M'Clure against the decision of our Imperial council of prizes of the 16th of October, 1807, is rejected.

Approved in our place of the Thuilleries the 19th March, 1808.

Signed,
NAPOLEON,

By the Emperor.
The Secretary of State,

Signed,
HUGUES B. MARET.

Delivered by us
Secretary General of the Council of State,

Signed,
J. G. LOIRE.

Considering, therefore, the subject in the three views taken, it conclusively appears;

First, that the aggressions of Britain were numerous and aggravated before the Berlin decree was issued.

Second, that the British Orders of Council of Jan. 7, 1807, in fact preceded the Berlin decree; and

Thirdly, that the British orders of Nov. 11th last could not have arisen from that decree, as it either had not then been practically extended to the U. States, or was not known to have been so extended in England.

And, consequently, that the ground of retaliation, frivolous and unjust as it is, cannot be maintained by her in a single point taken by her apologists.