STATE PAPERS. 



411 



break down neutral commerce, 

 with a view to destroy the opu- 

 lence, and cripple the power of a 

 rival, whose best interest and 

 whose real policy were, to uphold 

 that commerce so essential to her 

 own prosperity. 



It is not for us to decide whether 

 the enemy of France did, or did 

 not, adopt the most natural and 

 efficacious means of repelling her 

 injustice. It is sufficient that we 

 are persuaded the United States 

 might, by a firm and dignified, yet 

 pacific resistance to the French de- 

 crees, have prevented the recur- 

 rence of any retaliatory measures 

 on the part of Great Britain — mea- 

 sures not intended to injure us, 

 but to operate on the author of this 

 unjust and iniquitous system. And, 

 however honourable men may dif- 

 fer as to the justice of the British 

 retaliatory orders in council, we do 

 not hesitate to say, that France 

 merited from our government 

 amuch higher tone of remonstrance 

 and a more decided opposition. 



In reviewing the avowed causes 

 of the present war we would, if it 

 were possible, pass over a series of 

 transactions imperfectly explained 

 and calculated to excite our alarm 

 and regret, at the hasty manner in 

 which it was declared. But the 

 history of the intended repeal of 

 the French decrees, which, if our 

 government was sincere, we are 

 bound to believe was the immedi- 

 ate cause of the war, is so well at- 

 tested, and has been so often dis- 

 cussed, and is, besides, so import- 

 ant in this inquiry, that mere mo- 

 tives of delicacy cannot induce us 

 to pass it over without notice; 



If war could be justified, against 

 Great Britain exclusively, it must 

 have been on the ground assumed 



by our government, that the 

 French decrees were actually re- 

 pealed on the 1st Nov. 1810. The 

 indiscriminate plunder and the de- 

 struction of our commerce — the 

 capture of our ships by the cruisers 

 of France, and condemnation by 

 her courts, and by the emperor in 

 person, his repeated and solemn 

 declaration, that these decrees were 

 still in force, and constituted the 

 fundamental laws of his empire, 

 at a period long subsequent to the 

 pretended repeal, seemed to furnish 

 an answer sufficiently conclusive to 

 this question ; and we cannot but 

 lament that evidence so satisfac- 

 tory to the restof the nation, should 

 have had so little weight with that 

 congress, whose term of service 

 has lately expired. 



But this important question is 

 now definitively answered, and the 

 American people have learned, 

 with astonishment, the depth of 

 their degradation. The French 

 emperor, as if for the perfect and 

 absolute humiliation of our go- 

 vernment, and for the annuncia- 

 tion to the world, that he held us 

 in utter contempt, reserved till 

 May, 1812, the official declaration 

 of the fact that, these decrees were 

 not repealed until April 1811 ; and 

 then, not in consequence of hi.s 

 sense of their injustice, but because 

 he had complied with the condi- 

 tion he had prescribed, in the let- 

 ter of the duke of Cadore, in 

 causing " our rights to be respect- 

 ed," by a resistance to the British 

 orders ; and he has since added, 

 that this decree of repeal was com- 

 municated to our minister at Parisj 

 as well as to his own at Washing- 

 ton, to be made known to our 

 cabinet. As the previous pledge 

 of Great Britain gave the fullest 



