It is presumed that the communications which I have had the honour to make to you, of the revocation by France of her decrees, so far as they violated the neutral rights of the United States, and of her conduct since the revocation, will present to your government a different view of the subject from that which it had before taken, and produce in its councils a corresponding effect.

I have the honour to be, &c.

Aug. J. Foster, Esq. &c.

JAMES MONROE.

Mr. Foster to Mr. Monroe. Washington, July 26, 1811.

SIR, I have had the honour to receive your letter of July 23d, in answer to mine of the 3d and 14th instant, which, give me leave to say, were not merely relative to his majesty's orders in council, and the blockade of May, 1806, but also to the President's proclamation of last November, and to the subsequent act of Congress of March 2d, as well as to the just complaints which his royal highness, the prince regent, had commanded me to make to your government with respect to the proclamation and to that act.

If the United States government had expected that I should have made communications which would have enabled them to come to an accommodation with Great Britain, on the ground on which alone you say it was possible to meet us, and that you mean by that expression a departure from our system of defence against the new kind of warfare still practised by France; I am at a loss to discover from what source they could have derived those expectations, certainly not from the correspondence between the marquis Wellesley and Mr. Pinkney.

Before I proceed to reply to the arguments which are brought forward by you, to show that the decrees of Berlin and Milan are repealed, I must first enter into an explanation upon some points on which you have evidently misapprehended, for I will not suppose you could have wished to misinterpret my meaning.

And first, in regard to the blockade of May, 1806, I must aver, that I am wholly at a loss to find out from what part of my letter it is that the President has drawn the

unqualified inference, that should the orders in council of 1807, be revoked, the blockade of May, 1806, would cease with them. It is most material that on this point no mistake should exist between us. From your letter it would appear as if, on the question of blockade which America had so unexpectedly connected with her demand for a repeal of our orders in council, Great Britain had made the concession required of her; as if, after all that has passed on the subject, after the astonishment and regret of his majesty's government at the United States having taken up the view which the French government presented, of our just and legitimate principles of blockade which are exemplified in the blockade of May, 1806, the whole ground taken by his majesty's government was at once abandoned. When I had the honour to exhibit to you my instructions, and to draw up, as I conceived according to your wishes, and those of the President, a statement of the mode in which that blockade would probably disappear, I never meant to authorize such a conclusion, and I now beg most unequivocally to disclaim it. The blockade of May, 1806, will not continue after the repeal of the orders in council, unless his majesty's government shall think fit to sustain it by the special application of a sufficient naval force, and the fact of its being so continued or not, will be notified at the time. If in this view of the matter, which is certainly presented in a conciliatory spirit, one of the obstacles to a complete understanding between our countries can be removed by the United States' government waving all further reference to that blockade, when they can be justified in asking a repeal of the orders, and I may communicate this to my government, it will, undoubtedly, be very satisfactory: but I beg distinctly to disavow having made any acknowledgement that the blockade would cease merely in consequence of a revocation of the orders in council. Whenever it does cease, it will cease because there will be no adequate force applied to maintain it.

On another very material point, sir, you appear to have misconstrued my words; for in no one passage of my letter can I discover any mention of innovations on the part of Great Britain, such as you say excited a painful surprise in your government. There is no new pretension set up by his majesty's government. In answer to questions of

yours as to what were the decrees or regulations of France which Great Britain complained of, and against which she directs her retaliatory measures, I brought distinctly into your view the Berlin and Milan decrees; and you have not denied, because indeed you could not, that the provisions of those decrees were new measures of war on the part of France, acknowledged as such by her ruler, and contrary to the principles and usages of civilized nations. That the present war has been oppressive beyond example by its duration, and the desolation it spreads through Europe, I willingly agree with you, but the United States cannot surely mean to attribute the cause to Great Britain. The question between Great Britain and France is that of an honourable struggle against the lawless efforts of an ambitious tyrant, and America can but have the wish of every independent nation as to its result.

On a third point, sir, I have also to regret that my meaning should have been mistaken. Great Britain never contended that British merchant vessels should be allowed to trade with her enemies, or that British property should be allowed entry into their ports, as you would infer; such a pretension would indeed be preposterous; but Great Britain does contend against the system of terrour put in practice by France, by which usurping authority, wherever her arms or the timidity of nations will enable her to extend her influence, she makes it a crime to neutral countries as well as individuals that they should possess articles, however acquired, which may have been once the produce of English industry or of the British soil. Against such an abominable and extravagant pretension, every feeling must revolt; and the honour, no less than the interest, of Great Britain engages her to oppose it.

Turning to the course of argument contained in your letter, allow me to express my surprise at the conclusion you draw in considering the question of priority, relative to the French decrees or British orders in council. It was clearly proved that the blockade of May, 1806, was maintained by an adequate naval force, and therefore was a blockade founded on just and legitimate principles; and I have not heard that it was considered in a contrary light, when notified as such to you by Mr. Secretary Fox, nor

until it suited the views of France to endeavour to have it considered otherwise. Why America took up the view the French government chose to give of it, and could see in it grounds for the French decrees, was always matter of astonishment in England.

Your remarks on the modifications at various times, of our system of retaliation, will require the less reply, from the circumstance of the order in council of April, 1809, having superseded them all. They were calculated for the avowed purpose of softening the effect of the original orders on neutral commerce, the incidental effect of those orders on neutrals having been always sincerely regretted by his majesty's government; but when it was found that neutrals objected to them, they were removed.

As to the principle of retaliation, it is founded on the just and natural right of self defence against our enemy; if France is unable to enforce her decrees on the ocean, it is not from the want of will, for she enforces them wherever she can do it; her threats are only empty where her power is of no avail.

In the view you have taken of the conduct of America, in her relations with the two belligerents, and in the conclusion you draw with respect to the impartiality of your country, as exemplified in the non-importation law, I lament to say I cannot agree with you. That act is a direct measure against the British trade, enacted at a time when all the legal authorities in the United States appeared ready to contest the statement of a repeal of the French decrees, on which was founded the President's proclamation of November 2d, and consequently to dispute the justice of the proclamation itself.

You urge, sir, that the British government promised to proceed pari passu with France in the repeal of her edicts. It is to be wished you could point out to us any step France has taken in the repeal of hers. Great Britain has repeatedly declared that she would repeal when the French did so, and she means to keep to that declaration.

I have stated to you that we could not consider the letter of August 5, declaring the repeal of the French edicts, provided we revoked our orders in council, or America resented our not doing so, as a step of that nature; and the French government knew that we could not; their object was, evidently, while their system was adhered to

in all its rigour, to endeavour to persuade the American government that they had relaxed from it, and to induce her to proceed in enforcing the submission of Great Britain to the inordinate demands of France. It is to be lamented that they have but too well succeeded; for the United States' government appear to have considered the French declaration in the sense in which France wished it to be taken, as an absolute repeal of her decrees, without adverting to the conditional terms which accompanied it..

But you assert that no violations of your neutral rights by France occur on the high seas, and that these were all the violations alluded to in the act of Congress of May, 1810. I readily believe, indeed, that such cases are rare, but it is owing to the preponderance of the British navy that they are so. When scarce a ship under the French flag can venture to sea without being taken, it is not extraordinary that they make no captures. If such violations alone were within the purview of your law, there would seem to have been no necessity for its enactment. The British navy might have been safely trusted for the prevention of their occurrence. But I have always believed, and my government has believed, that the American legislators had in view in the provisions of their law, as it respects France, not only her deeds of violence on the seas, but all the novel and extraordinary pretensions and practices of her government which infringed their neutral rights.

We have had no evidence, as yet, of any of those pretensions being abandoned. To the ambiguous declaration in M. Champagny's note, is opposed the unambiguous and personal declaration of Bonaparte himself. You urge that there is nothing incompatible with the revocation of the decrees, in respect to the United States, in his expressions to the deputies from the free cities of Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck; that it is distinctly stated in that speech that the blockade of the British Islands shall cease when the British blockades cease, and that the French blockade shall cease in favour of those nations in whose favour Great Britain revokes hers, or who support their rights against her pretension.

It is to be inferred from this and the corresponding parts of the declaration alluded to, that unless Great Britain sacrifices her principles of blockade, which are those aur