subjects to the state, they, in common with all their fellow-citizens, may be put in possession of complete religious freedom, and allowed to worship their Maker, and maintain their Christian profession, according to their own views, and their incumbent duty, without being subjected, under the sanction of law, to any penalties or disabilities in consequence of their dissent from the Established Church.

That your petitioners, confiding in the wisdom and justice of this right honourable house, pray that their cause may be taken into consideration, and the relief granted to them for which they supplicate. April, 1812.

DECLARATION OF PRINCE REGENT. The government of France, having by an official report, communicated by its minister for foreign affairs to the conservative senate on the 10th day of March last, removed all doubts as to the perseverance of that government in the assertion of principles, and in the maintenance of a system, not more hostile to the maritime rights and commercial interests of the British empire, than inconsistent with the rights and independence of neutral nations; and having thereby plainly developed the inordinate pretensions, which that system, as promulgated in the decrees of Berlin and Milan, was from the first designed to enforce; his royal highness the prince regent, acting 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 firmly to resist the introduction and establishment of this arbitrary code, which the government of France openly

avows its purpose to impose by force upon the world as the law of nations.

From the time that the progressive injustice and violence of the French government made it impassible for his majesty any longer to restrain the exercise of the rights of war within their ordinary limits, without submitting 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 restricted and moderate use of those rights of retaliation, which the Berlin and Milan decrees necessarily called into action, to reconcile neutral states to those measures which the conduct of the enemy had rendered unavoidable; and which his majesty has at all times professed his readiness to revoke, so soon as the decrees of the enemy, which gave occasion to them, should be formally and unconditionally repealed, and the commerce of neutral nations be restored 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 council of November 1807, was induced so to limit their operations, as matėrially to alleviate the restrictions thereby imposed upon neutral commerce. The order in council of April 1809 was substituted in the room of those of November 1807, and the retaliatory 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 dominions of France.

The

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 Bern and Milan were repealed, although the decree effecting such repeal has never been promulgated; although the notification of such pretended repeal distinctly described it to be dependent on conditions in which the enemy knew Great Britain could never ac quiesce; and although abundant evidence has since appeared of their subsequent execution.

But the enemy has at length thrown 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 additional conditions equally extravagant; and he further announces the penalties of those decrees to be in full force against all nations which shall suffer their flag to be, as it is termed in this code, "denationalised."

In addition to the disavowal of the blockade of May 1806, and of the principles on which that blockade was established, and in addition to the repeal of the British orders in council-he demands an admission of the principles, that the goods of an enemy, carried under a neutral flag, shall be treated as neutral; that neutral property under the flag of an enemy shall be treated as hostile; that arms and warlike stores alone (to the exclusion of ship timber and other articles of naval equipment) shall be regarded as contraband of war; and that no ports shall be considered as lawfully block aded, except such as are invested and besieged, in the presumption of their being taken [en prévention

d'être pris], and into which a merchant ship cannot enter without danger.

By these and other demands, the enemy in fact requires, that Great Britain, and all civilized nations, shall renounce, at his arbitrary pleasure, the ordinary and indisputable rights of maritime war; that Great Britain, in particular, shall forgo the advantages of her navai superiority, and allow the commercial property, as well as the produce and manufactures of France, and her confederates, to pass the ocean in security, whilst the subjects of Great Britain are to be in effect proscribed from all commercial intercourse with other nations; and the produce and manufactures of these realms are to be excluded from every country in the world, to which the arms or the influence of the enemy can extend.

Such are the demands to which the British government is summoned to submit, to the abandonment of its most ancient, essential, and undoubted maritime rights. Such is the code by which France hopes, under the cover of a neutral flag, to render her commerce unassailable by sea; whilst she proceeds to invade or to incorporate with her own dominions all states that hesitate to sacrifice their national interests at her command, and, in abdication of their just rights, to adopt a code, by which they are required to exclude, under the mask of municipal regulation, whatever is British, from their dominions.

The pretext for these extravagant demands is, that some of these principles were adopted by voluntary compact in the treaty of Utrecht; as if a treaty once existing between two particular countries, founded on special and reciprocal considerations, binding only on the contracting parties, and which in the last treaty

of

of peace between the same powers had not been revived, were to be regarded as declaratory of the public law of nations.

It is needless for his royal highness to demonstrate the injustice of such pretensions. He might otherwise appeal to the practice of France herself, in this and in former wars ; and to her own established codes of maritime law it is sufficient that these new demands of the enemy form a wide departure from those conditions on which the alleged repeal of the French decrees was accepted by America; and upon which alone, erroneously assuming that repeal to be complete, America has claimed a revocation of the British orders in council.

His royal highness, upon a review of all these circumstances, feels persuaded, that so soon as this formal declaration, by the government of France, of its unabated adherence to the principles and provisions of the Berlin and Milan decrees shall be made known in America, the government of the United States, actuated not less by a sense of justice to Great Britain, than by what is due to its own dignity, will be disposed to recall those measures of hostile exclusion, which, under a misconception of the real views and conduct of the French government, America has exclusively applied to `the commerce and ships of war of Great Britain.

To accelerate a result so advantageous to the true interests of both countries, and so conducive to the re-establishment of perfect friendship between them; and to give a decisive proof of his royal highness's disposition to perform the engagements of his majesty's government, by revoking the orders in council, whenever the French decrees shall be actually and unconditionally re

pealed; his royal highness the prince regent has been this day pleased, in the name and on the behalf of his majesty, and by and with the advice of his majesty's privy council, to order and declare:

That if at any time hereafter the Berlin and Milan decrees shall, by some authentic act of the French government, publicly promulgated, be expressly and unconditionally repealed; then and from thenceforth, the order in council of the 7th day of January 1807, and the order in council of the 26th April 1809, shall, without any further order, be, and the same hereby are declared from thenceforth to be wholly and absolutely revoked; and further that the full benefit of this order shall be extended to any ship or vessel captured subsequent to such au thentic act of repeal of the French decrees, although, antecedent to such repeal, such ship or vessel shall have commenced, and shall be in the prosecution of a voyage, which, under the said orders in council, or one of them, would have subjected her to capture and condemnation; and the claimant of any ship or cargo which shall be captured at any time subsequent to such authentic act of repeal by the French government, shall, without any further order or declaration on the part of his majesty's government on this subject, be at liberty to give in evi dence in the high court of admiralty or any court of vice admiralty, before which such ship or vessel, or its cargo, shall be brought for adju dication, that such repeal by the French government had been by such authentic act promulgated prior to such capture; and upon proof thereof, the voyage shall be deemed and taken to have been as lawful, as if the said orders in council had never been made; saving neverthe

less

less to the captors, such protection and indemnity as they may be equitably entitled to, in the judgment of the said court, by reason of their ignorance or uncertainty as to the repeal of the French decrees, or of the recognition of such repeal by bis majesty's government, at the time of such capture.

His royal highness however deems it proper to declare, that, should the repeal of the French decrees, thus anticipated and provided for, afterwards prove to have been illusory on the part of the enemy, and should the restrictions thereof be still practically enforced or revived by the enemy, Great Britain will be obliged, however reluctantly, after reasonable notice to neutral powers, to have recourse to such measures of retaliation as may then appear to be just and necessary.

Westminster, April 21, 1812.

ADDRESS TO THE PRINCE REGENT,

OF THE RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF
FRIENDS, WITH HIS ROYAL HIGH-
NESS'S ANSWER.

To George Augustus, Prince Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

May it please the Prince, Seeing that in consequence of the lamented affliction of our beloved Sovereign thy father, thou art called to the high office of administering the regal government of this coun try, we, his dutiful subjects, the religious Society of Friends, are desir ous of representing to thee a subject in which we believe the welfare of our country is deeply concerned.

It is now many years since war has been spreading its desolation over great part of the civilized world; and as we believe it to be an evil, from which the spirit of the gospel of Christ would wholly deliver the

1812.

nations of the earth, we humbly petition thee to use the royal prerogative, now placed in thy hands, to take such early measures for the putting a period to this dreadful state of devastation, as we trust the wisdom of thy councils, as they seek for divine direction, will be enabled to discover.

Impressed with a grateful sense of the religious privileges we enjoy under the present government, we submit this highly important cause of suffering humanity, which is peculiarly near to our hearts, to thy most serious consideration; that thus thou may'st become, an honoured instrument in the band of the Almighty, in promoting his gracious designs respecting the inhabitants of the earth

Signed, by order, and on be half of the Yearly Meeting of the said people, held in London, this 29th day of the fifth month, 1812, by

JOHN WILKINSON, Clerk to the Meeting this year.

To which address his Royal Highness was pleased to return the fol lowing most gracious answer:

I am deeply sensible of the calamities which necessarily attend a state of war.

"It would, therefore, be most grateful to my feelings, to observe such a change in the views and conduct of the enemy as would admit of a cessation of hostilities, consistently with a just regard to the im portant interests which have been committed to my charge, and which it is my indispensable duty to maintain.

"I reflect with great satisfaction on the religious privileges secured to you by the wisdom and benevolence of the laws, and you may rest assured of my constant protection." (M)

AMERICA.

AMERICA.

THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES.

I communicate to congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them, on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.

Without going beyond the renewal, in 1803, of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her government presents a series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruizers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it, not in the exercise of a belligerent right, founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neutral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of nations, and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong; and a self-redress is assumed, which, if British subjects were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force for a resort to the responsible sovereign, which falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects in such cases, be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property to be adjudged without a regular investigation before a competent tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial, where the sacred rights of persons were at issue. In place of such trial, these rights are subjected to the will of every petty commander.

The practice, hence, is so far from affecting British subjects alone, that under the pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens, under the safeguard of public laws and of their national flag, have been torn from their country, and from every thing dear to them,-have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign nation, and exposed, under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren.

and

Against this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations that no proof might be wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, and no pretext left for continuance of the practice, the British government was formally assured of the readiness of the United States to enter into arrangements, such as could not be rejected, if the recovery of the British subjects were the real and the sole object. The communication passed without effect.

British cruizers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and peace of our coasts. They hover and harass our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added lawless proceedings in our very harbours, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction. The principles and rules enforced by that nation, when a neutral nation, against armed vessels of belligerents, hovering near her coasts, and disturbing her commerce, are well known. When called on, never.

theless,