The New Hampshire Gazette

Revocation of the French Decrees.

FRANCE.

PARIS, AUGUST 9, 1810.

COPY OF A LETTER

From the Minister of Foreign Relations to Mr. ARMSTRONG.

PARIS, AUG. 5, 1810.

"Sir—I have laid before his Majesty the Emperor and King, the act of Congress of the 1st of May, extracted from the papers of the United States, which you had transmitted to me.

His Majesty could have wished that this act, and all other acts of the United States that may concern France, had been always officially notified to him. The Emperor applauded the General Embargo laid by the United States on all their vessels, because that measure, if it has been prejudicial to France, contained at least, nothing offensive to her honor. It has caused her to lose her colonies of Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Cayenne. The Emperor did not complain of it. He made this sacrifice to the principle which determined the Americans to impose the embargo, and which inspired them with the noble resolution of interdicting themselves the use of the sea, rather than submit to the laws of those who wish to become its tyrants.

The act of the 1st of March removed the embargo, and substituted for it—a measure the Non Intercourse act—which must have been particularly injurious to the interests of France.

That act, with which the Emperor was not acquainted for a considerable time after, interdicted to American vessels the commerce of France, while it authorized a trade with Spain, Naples, and Holland, that is to say, with countries under French influence, and denounced confiscation against all French vessels that should enter the ports of America.

Reprisal was a matter of right, and commanded by the dignity of France, a circumstance upon which it was impossible to make any compromise. The sequestration of all the American vessels in France was the necessary result of the measure taken by Congress.

At present the Congress treads back its steps. It revokes the act of the 1st of March. The ports of America are open to French commerce, and France is no longer interdicted to the Americans. In short, the Congress engages to oppose such of the belligerent powers as shall refuse to recognize the rights of neutrals.

In this new stage of things, I am authorized to declare to you, sir, that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that from the 1st of November they will cease to be in force, it being understood that in consequence of this declaration the English shall revoke their Orders in Council, and renounce the new principle of blockade which they have attempted to establish; or, that the United States, conformably to the act which you have just communicated, shall cause their rights to be respected by the English.

It is with the most particular satisfaction that I inform you of this resolution of the Emperor. His Majesty loves the Americans. Their prosperity and their commerce enter into the views of his policy. The independence of America is one of the principal titles of the glory of France.

Since that epoch, the Emperor has felt a pleasure in aggrandizing the United States; and in all circumstances, whatever can contribute to the independence, the prosperity, and the liberty of the Americans, will be regarded by the Emperor as conformable to the interests of his empire."