Martinsburgh gazette. [volume] (Martinsburgh, Va. [W. Va.]) 1810-1825, 1812-06-26

- PiociatihihS a general blockade OF the
BRUSH isles, at a time when the naval force
oil that enemy dared not toissue from his own
ports. She was reminded, without effect,
That her own prior blockades, unsupported by
an adequate naval force actually applied and
continued, were a bar TO this plea that exc
cu'ed edicts against millions of our property
could not be retaliation on edicts, confessibly
impossible to be executed that retaliation
to be just should fall en- the party setting the
guilty example, not on an innocent marty
which was not even chargsablo with an acqui-
sscenee III il.
Wien deprived ofthis nimsy veil for a nro.
hibition of our trade with her enemy. bv the
| repeal of his prohibition of our trade with q
britain, her cabinet, instead Of a correspond.
Ing repeal or a practical discontinued of its
Orders, formally avowinga determination 70
| persist in them against the United States. IN.
til the markess OF her enemy should be laid
open to British products; thus asserting an
obligation on a natural power to require one
belligerent to eucourag &c, by its internal repu-
lahons. the trade of another belligerent con
trsdicting her own practices to all nations in
peace as well as in war and betraying the
insincerity of those professions which lncul.
Gated a belief that, having resorted to her or
49, 'istf Is w DIN was ditAiO0H 10 Unu an
occasion for putting an end to them.
Abandoning still more all respect FOR the
neutral rights of the United States, and for
its own consistency, the British government
now demands as prerequisites to a repeaI of
its orders, as they relste TO the United States
that formality should be observed in the re-
vocation Of the French DEGREES no wise neces-
sary to their termination, nor exemplified by
British usage and that the French repeal.
besides including that portion of the DEGREES
which operates within a territorial iurisdic-
ton as well as that which operates on the high
seas against the of the u. States.
should not be a single special repeal in rela-
ton TO the U. S. but should be extended to
whatever other neutral nations unconnected
with them may be affected by those decres IS
And "a an additional insult, they are called
on for q formal disavowal of conditions and
pr~etensions advanced by the French govern.
ment, for which the United States are SO far
from having made themselves res ponsible
that, in official explanations, which have been
published to the world, and in a correspon
dence Of the American minister at London
with the British minister for Foreign Affairs.
such a responsibilities was explicitly and en-
phatically disclaimed.
1t has become indeed sufficiently certain
that the of the United States is TO
be sacrificed. not as interfering with the bel,
ligerent rights of Great Britain, not as sun
plying wants of her enemies, which she her
self supplies but as interfering with the mo-
nopoly which she covets for her own com.
merce and navigation. She carries on a war
against the lawful m of a friend.
that she may the better carry on a
with an enemy, a polluted by the
f~orgeries and perjuries which are for the most
part the only passports by which it can sue.
coed.
Anxious to make every experiment short
ofthe last resort o finjnred nations, the Uni
ted States have withheld from Great Britain.
under successive notifications, the benefits
of a free intercourse with their market, the
loss of which could not but outweigh the pro-
fits accruing from her restrictions of our
commerce with other nations. And to emit
tie these experiments to the more favorable
consideration, they were so framed as to ena-
bic her 10 place her adversary under the ex-
elusive operation of them. To these appeals
her COVE rnment has been equally indexible,
as if willing to make sacrifices of every sort,
rather than Weld to the claims OF Justice or
renouncc the errors of false pride. Nay, so
far were the attempts carried to overcome the
attachment of the British Cabinet to its un.
Just edicts, that it received every encourage
ment, within the competency of the executive
branch of our government, to expect that a
repeal of them would be followed by a war be-
tween the United States and France, unless
the French edicts should also be repealed.
! Even this communication, although silencing
forever the plea of a disposition in the United
States to acquiescc in those edicts, originally
the sole plea for them, received no attention.
If no other proof existed of a predetermina-
ton of the British government against a repeal
of its orders, it might be found in the cores
pondence of the minister pienipoientiary of
the United States at London, and the British
secretary for foreign affairs in 1910. on the