Virginia Argus. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1796-1816, 1809-01-24

oioh W Tic ctuOdTSo as 10 JrcdC Drl-
tain, while it still continued to be en-
forced against France"
The general idea to which the note
refers is that justice and interest con-
sPired TO recommend that you should
take advantage of my proposal. The
particular positions are, that, if your or
ders and our embargo should be res
cinded In the manner suggested, our
commercial intercourse would be i'm
mediately revived that, if France fol
owed your example and retracted her
DEGREES, the avowed purpose of your
orders would be accomplished; that,
# France refused to retract, the Amer
lean embargo, continuing as to her,
would occupy the place of your orders,
and perform their Office, even better
than they could perform it themselves,
without any of the disadvantages in
separable from such system.
tits certain that in our conversati-
ons endeavored to prove that these
general and particular notions were
founded in truth, by a variety of argu-
nents, thrown out in very desultory
way, with more zeal than precision,
AID with that entire freedom which
Unlimited confidence in your candor,
and firm opinion that the views of
my government would derive new ii
ties to respect from full examination,
were calculated to produce.
l should not deal ingenuously with
you, sir, if were to pretend that l
think myself able to recapitulate these
disiointed arguments as they were ac-
tually delivered. And / am quite
sure thatI shall consult your grati6ca-
lion, as well as my own credit, by de-
Ginning such an undertaking. But
think 1 can state, in condensed form,
what | intended you should under
stand; and I presume that what did
say was not very wide of my real i'm
pressions.
Upon the footing on which my over
ture would place the justice of the
British orders, l did not go into much
detail, at any one of the three inter-
views mentioned in your letter. But
combining my unconnected and occa
sIonal observations on that point as
they were made at different times, and
more especially as they were after
wards gwen and enlarged upon when
had the honor to see you on the Goth
OF August (of which, however, it is
proper to say have only very scan
~ memorandum their import will not,
perhaps, be found to be much if at all
mistaken in such parts of the follow
ing statement as relate to that branch
OF the subject.
l meant to suggest, then, that upon
your own principles it would be ex-
tremely difficult to decline my propo-
sal, that your orders inculcate, as the
duty of neutral nations, resistance t.
the maritime DEGREES of France, as
overturning the public law oil the
world, and professedly rely upon that
duty, and an imputed abandonment OF
1t, Tor their inducement and their JUS
tiicarion; that, of these orders, tha
of the 9TH of January 1907, (of which
the subsequent orders of Novemb, r
are said, in your official reply to my
note of the Esd of August, to be only
an extension, "an extension in opera
ton, not in principle'') was promulga-
ted and carried into effect only few
weeks after the Berlin decree had
made its appearance, when the Ameri-
can government could notpossibly know
that such decree existed, when there
had been no attempt to enforce it, and
when it had become probable that it
would not be enforced at all to he
prejudice of neutral rights, that the o.
Their orders were issued, before the
American government, with reference
to any practical violation of its rights,
by an attempt TO execute the Berlin
decree, in sense different from the
stipulations of the treaty subsisting
between the United States and France,
and from the explanations given 70
general Armstrong by the French nil
mister of marine, and afterwards i'm
pliedly confirmed by general Cham
pagny, as well as by correspondent
practice, had any sufficient opportunity
of opposing thas decree Otherwise
than it did oppose it that your or