546 
he is, to defend himself against an act of un- 
provoked hostility, his Majesty is anxious to 
refate in the face of the world the pretexts by 
which that act is attempted to be justified. 
The declaration asserts that his Majesty 
the Emperor of Russia, has twice taken up 
arms in a cause in which the interest of Great 
Britain was more direct than his cwn3 and 
founds upon this assertion the charge against 
Great Britain of having neglected to second 
and support the military operations of Russia. 
His Majesty willingly does justice to the 
metives which originally engaged Russia in 
the great stroggle against Frances Eis Ma- 
jesty avows with equal readiness the interests 
which Great Britain has uniformly taken in 
the. fates and fortunes of the powers of the 
continent. But it would surely be difficult to 
prove that Great Britain, who was herself in 
a state of hostility with Prussia when the war 
broke out between Prussia and France, had aa 
interest anda duty more direct in espousing 
the Prussian quarrel than the Emperor of 
Rassia, the ally of his Prussian Majesty, the 
Protector of the North of Eurepe, and the 
Guarantee of the Germanic Constitution. 
It. is not in a public declaration that his 
Majesty can discuss the policy of having, at 
any particular period of the war, effected, or 
omitted to eitect, disembarkations of troops on 
the coasts of Naples. But the instance of the 
war with the Porte is still more singularly 
chosen to illustrate the charge against Great 
Britain of indifference to the interests of her 
ally: a war undertaken by Great Britain at 
the instigation of Russia, and solely for the 
purpose of maintaining Russian interests 
against the influence of France. 
If, however, the Peace of Tilsit is indeed 
to be considered as the consequence and the 
punishment of the imputed inactivity of 
Great Britain, his Majesty cannot but regret 
that the Emperor of Russia should have re- 
sorted to so precipitate and fatal a measure, 
at the moment when he had received distinct 
assurances that his Majesty was making the 
most strenuous exertions to fulfil the wishes 
and expectations of his ally (assuraaces which 
his Imperial Majesty received and acknow- 
ledged with apparent confidence aad satisfac- 
tion) ; and when his Majesty was, in fact, 
prepared to employ for the advancement of 
the common objects of the war, those forces 
which, after the peace of Tilsit, he was 
under the necessity of employing to disconcert 
a combination directed against his own imme- 
diate inter<sts and security. 
‘The vexation of Russian commerce by Great 
Britain is in truth, little more than an 
imaginary grievance. Upon a diligent exa- 
mination, made by his Majesty’s command, 
of the records of the British court of admiralty, 
there has been discovered only a solitary 
instance, in the course of the present war, of 
the condemnation of a vessel really Russian ; 
a vessel which had carried naval stores to a 
port ef the commen encmy. There are but 
2 
State of Public Affairs in December. 
[Jan. 1, 
few instances of Russian vessels detained ; 
and none in which justice has been refused 
to a party complaining of such detention. It 
is therefore matter of surprize as well as of 
concern to his Majesty, that the Emperor of 
Russia should have condescended to bring 
ferward a complaint which, as it cannof be 
seriously felt by, those in whose. behalf it 
is urged, might appear to be intended to coun- 
tenance those exaggerated declamations, by 
which France perseveringly endeavours _to 
inflame the jealousy of other countries, and 
to justify her own inveterate animosity against 
Great Britain. 
The peaceof Tilsit was followed by an of- 
fer of mediation on the part of the Emperor of 
Russia, for the conclusion of a peace between 
Great Britain and France; which it asserted 
that bis Majesty refused. 
His Majesty did not refuse the » mediation of 
the Emperor of Russia; although the offer of 
it was accompanied by circumstances of con- 
cealment which might well have justified his 
refusal. The articles of the treaty of .Tiisit 
were not communicated to his Majesty; and 
specifically that article of the treaty in vir- 
tue of which the mediation was proposed, and 
which prescribed a limited time for the return 
of his Majesty’s answer to that proposal. And 
his Majesty was thus led into an apparent 
compliance with a limitation so offensive to 
the dignity of an independent Sovereign. 
But the answer so returned by his Majesty was 
not arefusal. It was a conditional acceptance, 
The conditions required by his Majesty were 
a statement of the basis upon which the ene- 
my was disposed to treat ; and a communica- 
tion of the articles of the peace of Tilsit. 
The first of these conditions was precisely the 
same which the Emperor of Russia had himself 
annexed not four months before to his own ac- 
ceptance of the proffered mediation of the 
Emperor of Austria. The second was one 
which his Majesty would have hadaright tore- 
quire, even as the ally of his Imperial Ma- 
jesty ; but which it would have been highly 
improvident to omit, when he was invited to 
confide to his Imperial Majesty the care of 
his honour and his interest. 
But even if these conditions (neither of 
which has been fulfilled, although the fulfil- 
ment of them has been repeatedly required by 
his Majesty’s Ambassador at St. Petersburgh), 
had not been in themselves perfectly natural 
and necessary: there were not watiting con- 
siderations which might have warranted his 
Majesty in endeavouring, with more than or- 
dinary anxiety, to ascertain the views and in- 
teations of the Emperor of Russia, and the 
precise nature and effect of the new rejations 
which his Imperial Majesty had contracted. 
The complete abandonment of the interests 
of the King of Prussia (who had twice reject-- 
ed proposals of separate peace, from a strict 
adherence to his engagements with his impe- 
rial ally), and the character of those provi- 
sions which the Emperer of Russia was con< 
teated 
