The enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1804-1815, 1812-06-09


may then appear to be just and necessary.
And the Right Honorable the Lords Com
missioners of His Majesty's Treasury, His
Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State,
the Lords manufacturers of the Admiralty,
and the Judges of the High Court of Adj
miralty, and the Judges of the Courts of
Vice-Admiralty, are to take the necessary
measures herein as to them shall resDectiye-
ly appertain.
.CHETWYND.
|, IMPORTANT DECLARATIONS
LONDON, April %, 1912.
his morning the following Declaration
was published by His Majesty's Govern
ment -
" The governme Mt of France, having by
an official report communicated by it's Min
lister for Foreign Affairs to the Conscrva-
tive Senate on the 10th day of March last,
removed all doubt as to the perseverance
OF that Government in the assertion of prin-
clpies, and III the maintenance of system,
not more hostile to the maritime rights &
commercial interests of the British Empire,
than inconsistent with the rights and indie
pendence ofneutral nations; x having there
by plainly developed the inordinate prcten-
sions, which that system, as promulgated
iii the DEGREES of Berlin & Milan, was from
the first designed to enforce His Royal
Highness the Prince Regent acting in the
name and OH the behalf of His Majesty,
deems it proper, upon this formal & authen-
TIC republication of the principles of those
DEGREES, thus publicly to declare His Roy
al Highness's determination still firmly to
resist the introduction and establishment OF
this arbitrary code, which the Government
OF France openly avows its purpose to inn
pose by force upon the world, as the law of
Nations.
" From the time that the progressive in
justice and violence of the French Govern
ment, made it impossible for his Majesty
any longer to restrain the exercise of the
rights of war within their ordinary limits,
without submitting to consequences not less
rumous to the commerce of his dominions,
than derogatory to the rights of his crown,
his Majesty has endeavored by restricted
and moderate use of those rights of retalia-
ton, which the Berlin and Milan DEGREES
necessarily called into action, to reconcile
neutral States to those measures, which the
conduct of the enemy had rendered una
voidable and which his Majesty has at all
times protested his readiness to revoke, SO
soon as the DEGREES of the enemy, which
gave occasion to them, should be formally
&u nconditionally repealed, & the commerce
OF neutral nations be restored to its accus-
toned course.
" AT subsequent period of the war, his
Majesty, availng himself of the then situa-
ton of Europe, without abandoning the prin-
ciple and object of the Orders in Council of
November, 1907, was induced so to limit
their operation, as materially to alleviate
the restrictions imposed upon neutral COM
merce. The Order in Council of April,
1909, was substituted in the room of those of
November, 1907, and the retaliatorv system
OF Great Britain acted no longer on every
country in which the aggressive measures
OF the enemy were in force, but was conf
ned in its operation to France, and to the
countries upon which the French yoke was
most strictly imposed, and which had be-
come virtually part Of the dominioms of
France.
The United States of America remain
ed nevertheless dissatisfied and their dis
satisfaction has been greatly increased by
an article too successfully employed by the
enemy, who has pretended, that the DEGREES
of Berlin and Milan were repealed, altho'
the Decree affecting such repeal has never
been promulgated /; although the notificati-
on of such pretended repeal distinctly de
scribed it to be dependent OH conditions, in
which the enemy knew Great Britain could
never acquesce; and although abundant G.
violence mas since appeared OF their subsc-
quent execution.
" But the enemy has at length laid aside
all discrimination he now publicly and So
lemnly declares, not only that those DEGREES
still continue i'll force, but they shall be ri
gidly executed until Great Britain shall
comply with additional conditions, equally
extravagant; and he further announces the
penalties OF those DEGREES to be in full force
against all Nations which shall suffer their
flag to- be, as it is termed in this Code, &" de-
nationalized."
-" In addition to the disavowal Of the
blockade of May, 1906, and Of the princi-
pies on which that blockade was establish
cd, and in addition to the repeal Of the Bri-
fish Orders in Council-he demands an adj
mission of the principles, that the goods Of
an enemy, carried undera neutral flag, shall
be treated as neutral that neutral pro-
perry under the Gag of an enemy shall be
treated as hostile that arms and warlike
stores alone Ito the exclusion Of ship timber
and ether articles Of naval equipmcnts)