STATE PAPERS. 



259 



swer of the court of Copenhagen 

 to this request, only a new occasion 

 of manifesting these dispositions. 

 In transmitting tliis note to the 

 secretary of state, the undersigned 

 avails himself, with pleasure of this 

 opportunity, to assure him of the 

 high consideration with which he 

 has the honour to be his very hum- 

 ble and very obedient servant, 



W. Drummond. 



Answer of Count Bernstorff. 



The undersigned secretary of state 

 for foreign affairs, having given an 

 account to the king, his master, of 

 the contents of the note which Mr. 

 Drummondhas done him the honour 

 to transmit to him on the 27th in- 

 stant is authorised to return the 

 answer which follows : the court of 

 London must have received very in- 

 correct information, to have been 

 able for a moment to presume, that 

 Denmark had conceived projects 

 hostile against it, or incompatible 

 with the maintenance of the good 

 understanding which subsists be- 

 tween the two crowns; and the 

 king is very much obliged to his 

 Britannic majesty, for having fur- 

 nished him with the opportunity of 

 contradicting, in the most positive 

 manner, reports as ill founded, as 

 contrary to his most decided senti- 

 ments. The negociation which is 

 cari-ying on at St. Petersburgh, be- 

 tween Russia, Prussia, Sweden and 

 Denmark, has no other object than 

 the renewal of the engagements, 

 which, in the years 1780 and 1781, 

 were contracted by the same powers 

 for the safety of their navigation, 

 and of which a communication was 

 at that time made to all the courts 

 of Europe. His majesty, the em- 

 peror of Russia, having proposed to 



the powers of the north to re-esta- 

 blish these engagements in their 

 original form, Denmark has so much 

 the less hesitated to consent to it, 

 as, far from having ever abandoned 

 the principles professed in 1780, 

 she has thought it her duty to main- 

 tain them, and claim them upon all 

 occasions, and not allow herself to 

 admit in respect of them any other 

 modifications than^those which re- 

 sult from her treaties with the bel- 

 ligerent powers. Very far from 

 wishing to interrupt those powers 

 in the exercise of rights which the 

 war gives them, Denmark intro- 

 duces into the negociation with her 

 allies none but views absolutely de- 

 fensive, pacific, and incapable of 

 giving offence or provocation to 

 any one. The engagements she 

 will make will be founded upon the 

 strictest fulfilment of the duties of 

 neutrality, and of the obligations 

 which her treaties impose upon her; 

 and if she wishes to shelter her in- 

 nocent navigation from the manifest 

 abuses and violence which the mari- 

 time war produces but too easily, 

 she thinks she pays respect to the 

 belligerent powers, by supposing, 

 that, far from wishing to authorise 

 or tolerate these abuses, they would, 

 on their side, adopt measures best 

 calculated to prevent or repress 

 them. Denmark has not made a 

 mystery to any one of the object of 

 her negociation, upon the nature 

 of which some suspicion has been 

 infused into the court of London ; 

 but she has not thought that she de- 

 parted from the usual forms, in 

 wishing to wait the definitive result 

 of it, in order to communicate an 

 official account of it to the powers 

 at war. The undersigned, not 

 knowing that any of the powers en- 

 gaged in this negociation has made 

 S2 



