STATE PAPERS. 



339 



commercial interests of the British 

 empire, than inconsistent with the 

 rights and independence of neutral 

 nations ; and having thereby plain- 

 ly developed the inordinate preten- 

 sions which that system, as (jro- 

 mulgated in the decrees of Berlin 

 and Milan, was from the first de- 

 signed to enforce ; his royal high- 

 ness the Prince Regent, aciing in 

 the name and on the behalf of his 

 Majesty, deems it proper upon this 

 formal and authentic republication 

 of the principles of those decrees, 

 thus publicly to declare his Royal 

 Highness's determination still firm- 

 ly to resist the introduction and 

 establishment of this arbitrary 

 code, which the government of 

 France openly avows its purpose 

 to force upon the world, as the 

 law of nations. 



From the time that the progres- 

 sive injustice and violence of the 

 French government made it im- 

 possible for his Majesty any longer 

 to restrain the exercise of the rights 

 of war within their ordinary limits, 

 without submi tling to consequences 

 not less ruinous to the commerce 

 of his dominions, than derogatory 

 to the rights of his crown, his 

 Majesty has endeavoured by a re- 

 stricted and moderate use of those 

 rights and retaliation, which the 

 Berlin and Milan Decrees neces- 

 sarily called into action, to recon- 

 cile neutral states to those mea- 

 sures, which the conduct of the 

 spemy had rendered unavoidable ; 

 and which his Majesty has at all 

 limes professed his readiness to rc- 

 vpk^, BO soon as the decrees of the 

 enemy, which gave occasion to 

 them, should be formally and un- 

 conditionally repealed, and the 

 commerce of neutral nations re- 

 stored to its accustomed course. 



At a subsequent period of the 

 war, his Majesty, availing himself 

 of the then situation of Europe, 

 without abandoning the principle 

 and object of the Orders in Coun- 

 cil of November, 1807, was in- 

 duced to limit their operation, as 

 materially to alleviate the restric- 

 tions thereby impo>ed upon neu- 

 tral commerce. The order in 

 Council of April, 1809, was sub- 

 stituted in the room of those of 

 November, 1807, and the retalia- 

 tory system of Great Britain acted 

 no longer on every country in 

 which the aggressive measures of 

 the enemy were in force, but was 

 confined in its operation to 

 France, and to the countries upon 

 which the French yoke was most 

 strictly imposed; and which had 

 become virtually a part of the do* 

 minions of France. 



The United States of America 

 remained nevertheless dissatisfied ; 

 and their dissatisfaction has been 

 greatly increased by an artifice too 

 successfully employed on the part 

 of the enemy, who has pretended 

 that the decrees of Berlin and Mi- 

 lan were repealed, although the de- 

 cree affecting such repeal has ne- 

 ver been promulgated ; although 

 the notification of such pretended 

 repeal distinctly described it to be 

 dependant on conditions, in which 

 the enemy knew Great Britain 

 could never acquiesce ; and al- 

 though abundant evidence has since 

 appeared of their subsequent exe- 

 cution. 



But the enemy has at length' 

 laid aside all dissimulation ; he now 

 publicly and solemnly declares, 

 not only that those decrees still 

 continue in force, but that they 

 shall be rigidly executed until 

 Great Britain shall comply with 



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