Norfolk Gazette And Publick Ledger

From the London Morning Post.
ORDERS IN COUNCIL.

The efforts of the opposition to deceive the country as to the effects of the orders in council are unwaranted. To their great mortification, that wise and necessary measure of retaliation against France, has not produced any resentful or hostile feelings in America, while it has reanimated in a great degree our wounded and expiring commerce; but they are determined that it shall, if possible, produce discontent and clamour, at this arduous crisis, among the manufacturers of England.

To promote this honest and patriotic end, arts are employed by which even their bad cause is disgraced, and especially the grossest misrepresentation of evidence and facts. It is alleged, for instance, in a morning paper, that the counsel for the petitioners at the bar of the house of lords, had clearly proved, in summing up his evidence, that the Berlin Decree, prior to our orders in council, was waste paper; that it had produced no injury to the commerce of neutrals, or to our own exports, by their means to the continent of Europe, nor even on the rates of insurance.

If the assertion had been, that the late winter produced no frost, and no fall of leaves in England, it would have been hardly more opposite to truth, or to publick notoriety. Not a merchant in the city of London, connected with European commerce, is ignorant that our export trade in neutral vessels to the continent, (a few daring adventurers excepted) was wholly stopped through the execution of the Berlin decree, as early as the beginning of September last, which was about two months and a half prior to the publication of our orders in council.-- Not an underwriter at Lloyd's could be asked what was the effect of the Berlin decree on premiums of insurance, in any branch of our trade, or in any branch of neutral trade within its prohibitions, who would not state them to have been enormously great. In particular the premiums on our trade in neutral vessels to the continent, rose in September and October from five to twenty-five and thirty guineas per cent..

Was the contrary then actually deposed to by any witness on the part of the petitioners? By no

means. They prudently avoided speaking a word of the English trade; they proved the state only of American trade; and for the most part. of such American trade only as could not be effected by the Berlin decree, the direct trade from the United States to continent.

With what view then, is it alleged thus boldly that a case has been proved in parliament, so repugnant to notorious truth, and so unfounded in evidence even of the petitioners themselves? For the sole purpose of deceiving our manufacturers in the country, and such other persons as have no opportunity or means of ascertaining the true state of the case.

With such men, it is hoped that the very boldness of the imposture will recommend it to credit. If a counsel really did thus sum up the evidence given in parliament, it will not easily be supposed that in doing so he advanced what the recollection of every member who heard him, or a reference to the minutes would have shown to be absolutely groundless.

The unfortunate manufacturer therefore may be led to suppose that the decline of his business is the fruit not of the enemy's system but of our own; not of the calamities of Europe. but the folly of our own councils. He may be cheated into mistaking the remedy for the disease, and seduced by falsehood into disaffection.

We wish the American party joy of these honourable expedients. We wish them joy of a cause which demands such expedients to sustain it.