were not to be encouraged. And so far was the French decree from being a dead letter, that new provisions were, from time to time, sup. plied for making up its deficiencies. The different coasts had been lined with troops, and other means of improvement from time to time recurred to.

Among the arguments which had been urged against the orders in council, it had been said, that they were the cause of the distress suffered by our manufacturers: that France had shut the door against our commerce, and that we had bolted it. But this distress existed antecedently to the orders in council. It originated in the French decree. It was impossible to say to what extent the arbitrary power of France might compel the countries under her dominion to consent to their own ruin. If France could exclude our goods from the continent, they would have been excluded had our orders never appeared. If they should be excluded, we must look to the rest of the world: of the trade with which we had, by those very orders, secured a monopoly.

With regard to the effect which the orders in council might have on our relations with America, loss to America was loss to Great Britain. The prosperity of America was the prosperity of Great Britain, and he was as anxious to preserve peace with America, consistently with the rights and interests of this country, as any man. As he hoped that peace might be preserved, so he believed that it would be preserved; for it was impossible that any candid and enlightened American should consider the principle of the orders in council as a cause of war.

It was impossible that the Americans could look at the orders in council without perceiving in them many instances of caution not to injure America.

Dr. Lawrence contended, that though Buonaparté might have been guilty of injustice, that would not be a justification of the house in imitating his acts. Such an enemy ought to be resisted not by acts of violence, but by determined courage. It behoved the legislature, before the orders could have any effect on foreign nations, to ascertain whether they were right. The orders of council could not be considered as measures of retaliation, because the French decree of the 21st November 1806, had never been acted upon so as to require such a retaliation.

With this doctrine the master of the rolls (Sir William Grant) agreed in part. But, when the enemy departed from justice, we were justified in retaliating in substance, and not bound to adhere to the form. It was matter of astonishment to him, to hear any one who had uttered a syllable in support of the order of 1807, object to the orders under consideration. The very preamble to the former order was a confutation of Lord H. Petty's arguments, and those of his learned friend, Lawrence. That preamble stated thegrossinjusticeof the French decree to be the foundation of the order. The orders in council only declared the ports of France and her allies, to be in a state of blockade, and their produce contraband of war; and France had done the same by this country. He considered the French certificates of origin as a prohibition of neu trals from carrying British goods,

and

and contended that this was a breach of the law of nations; and that neutrals, by thus admitting that France had to legislate for them, made themselves instruments of France against us. If France could continue to enjoy all the advantages of commerce through neutral trade, whilst we were suffering every injury that can result from her decrees, she would have no motive for peace; and this country would soon be reduced to the alternative of either submitting to peace upon any terms, or of continuing the war to an endless period. But he thought Europe might be made to feel that a maritime power is much less dependant upon Europe than the continent is upon the maritime power. He would not suffer his country to perish, merely because the measures which were necessary for its preservation might press upon neutral commerce, which Buonaparte had before violated.— There was no contract without a reciprocal obligation; and, if neutrals did not oblige the other party to adhere to the law of nations, they could not complain of us for not adhering to it. Upon these grounds he saw no reason to question the propriety of those orders of council, which would impeach the order of January 1807, issued by an administration, which certainly claimed to possess a great proportion of the wisdom, consideration, and learning of the nation.

Mr. Windham admitted that the master of the rolls was right in the position, that if neutrals acquiesced in restrictions imposed by a belligerent, the other belligerent would be warranted in considering such neutrals as a party to those restrictions. Even then,

however, it would become a ques tion on the score of policy, how far neutrals so acting, should be iden tified with the enemy, or treated hostilely. A good deal was to be said on this head, particularly respecting America. Mr. Windham proceeded to make several animadversions on what he conceived had been expressed by the master of the rolls. But here it would be nugatory to enter at all into these, as that honourable gentleman had declared, that he had not uttered a syllable that could justify the right honourable gentleman in imputing to him the doctrines which he was said to have laid down; and that no such ideas had ever entered his mind. Mr. Windham concluded with declaring, that the measure before the house required much reconsideration; and the question of the legality or illegality of the or ders in council, should be decided upon before they entered on a discussion in a committee, of the measures by which it was proposed that they should be followed up.

Sir Arthur Pigott said, that the right of retaliation was an incidental right, growing out of an injury previously received. If that injury,

the injury of blockade, had not been actually suffered, it was impossible that we could, according to any law, either of nations or of reason, or even according to the obvious meaning of the word, retaliate, by blockading the enemy's ports. And if not done as a measure of retaliation, the act was committed in violation of all law whatever. But it was said, that a similar measure had been adopted by the late administration. That, if it had been so, would not have been any justification. But the contrary,

in fact, was seen by the explanation given by lord Howick, to Mr. Rist, the Danish minister. "It is not our intention that our orders should affect the general trade of neutrals; but only to prevent the coasting trade of France and her dependencies from being carried on by neutrals, as that species of trade was such as properly belonged to France herself, and to which neutrals were to be considered as lending themselves unfairly."

The question, that the orders in council be referred to a committee of ways and means being put, was carried without a division. The chancellor of the exchequer then stated, that it was his intention to propose to the house, on a future day, that a certain amount of duty be laid on almost every article of commerce to be exported from this country, except the produce of Great Britain, and her colonies. For the present, he stated merely his general object. A resolution expressive of general approbation, was then passed pro forma.

The question of both the legality and the policy of the orders in council was brought into discussion in the house of peers, on the 15th of February, by lord Auckland: who, in calling their lordships attention to this subject, wished them to bear in mind five points. He must suppose, in the first place, that ministers, previously to their issuing these orders, had satisfied themselves with respect to their le gality, both as relating to the law of nations, and statute law; secondly, that there was a justifiable ground for issuing these orders; thirdly, that it was expedient to apply that ground; fourthly, that the manner and time of issuing them were pre.

cisely those which were proper : the fifth point was of a more trifling nature; but one on which their lordships might have a great deal of trouble; he meant the intelligibility of the orders. The injustice and illegality of the orders, his lordship maintained on nearly the same grounds that were taken by opposition in the house of commons. He concluded by moving, that the house should resolve itself into a committee, to consider of the orders of council. The same arguments, also, though placed in a variety of lights, were made use of by the lords who followed lord Auckland on the same side of the question.

Lord Erskine admitted, that the violent decree of the French government, gave us a right to retaliate; but to retaliate on the enemy, not on neutrals. We had no more right, he maintained, to alter the law of nations, on our own authority for our own convenience, than a judge here had to alter the law of the land without the authority of parliament. But after all, what was the value of this decree which Buonaparté, intoxicated with his victories, had issued? What was the use to talk of blockading Britain, when he had scarcely a ship on the ocean to enforce his orders? He might as well have talked of blockading the moon.

LordKing contended, that France® had not put her decrees in execution, and that we had no proof that neutrals would submit to them.As to the argument that we had a right to hurt our enemy, though a neutral might be injured consequently, he denied that we ought to do a great injury to a neutral, in order to hurt our enemy a little, With regard to the policy of the

measure

measure, Buonaparté could never have put his decrees in execution, if we had not assisted him by stop ping our own goods while finding their way to the continental markets. Commerce was much more necessary to us than to France; and therefore it was folly in us to act upon these orders, which only secured the attainment of the objects of France.

Lord Grenville said, if a neutral power granted certain advantages to the enemy, then we had an undoubted right to insist on being admitted to the same advantages; or, if a neutral power acquiesced from weakness, in the demands of the enemy, all that we could in justice require, was, that in consequence of this demand, the enemy should not be placed in a better situation in regard to her, than we were. But we had no right, because the enemy violated the rights of one neutral, to violate the rights of all neutrals; for if this principle were once admitted, it would lead to an extension of hostilities over the whole civilized world. The foundation of the orders in council was stated in the preamble to be, that neutral states had not obtained the revocation of the French decree; a circumstance which he considered as of no importance whatever; for if it was not executed, it was the same thing as if it had never been published. It could not be asserted that America had acquiesced in this decree. Having then mentioned several facts in proof of this, he said, that if any thing, after all the circumstances which he had enumerated, was necessary to evince the determination of America not to submit to an in. vasion of her rights on the part of

France, the embargo lately laid on her shipping, not after receiving the British orders in council, but after the receipt of advices from France, would be amply sufficient for that purpose. The old arguments which were used in favour of the dispensing power of raising ship money, &c. were, like the present measure, justified on the plea of necessity. He had always thought, however, that our ancestors had set these questions, and all of a similar nature, to rest, at the time of the Revolution. Lord G. contended, that in many instances the orders were unintelligible. He would undertake to prove, that in four clauses of the same paragraph, they contained four direct contradictions. Lord G. proceeded to shew the extreme impolicy of the orders. They tended to effect a fundamental change in the whole commercial relations of the country, both with belligerent and commercial powers. They tended to subject this country to a loss in the same proportion that they distressed the enemy. This principle of forcing trade into our markets, would have disgraced the darkest ages of monopoly. The orders were calculated to defeat their own object. No ship would submit to the ignominy of touching and paying tribute at a British port, merely for the purpose of exposing itself to capture and confiscation by the French.

Lord Auckland was replied to, and the orders in council defended by the earl of Bathurst. The order. of the 7th of January, 1807, he observed, did distinctly assert the right of his majesty to adopt farther measures of retaliation, if France did not, in the mean time, recede from the violent pretensions on

which the decree of the 21st November 1806, was founded. France had not receded: but on the contrary, the head of the French government had ordered a more rigorous execution of the decree; and, therefore, the British order of November 11, 1807, and the subsequent orders, became necessary. It was found expedient to regulate that trade, which could not be prohibited. With this view the orders in council were issued; which were, in fact, a compromise between belligerent rights and commercial interests. In making the enemy, however, feel his own acts of violence, every possible attention had been paid to the commercial interests of the country. Lord Auckland had expressed his wonder, that neutrals were allowed to trade with the enemy's colonies, whereas an opposite policy would have tended to relieve our own West India planters and merchants, from that pressure which affected them, in consequence of the superabundance of the produce beyond the demand.

To this remark lord Bathurst, replied, that this, in fact, was intended as a boon to the Americans,and must be to them of great value; because, when intelligence arrived in America, of the intention of the French government rigorously to execute the decree, and the embargo was in consequence resorted to, the general impression there was, that we would resort to measures of retaliation, which would amount to a prohibition of their trade with those colonies. It was intended that all American domestic produce should be allowed to pass through this country without the payment of any duty, except the article of cotton. As it VOL. L.

was found that the surplus produce of our own colonies, beyond our own consumption, was not above a third of what was wanted for the supply of the continent, it was thought expedient to admit of the trade with the enemy's colonies: with the intention, however, that the produce of such colonies should, in the circuitous trade through this country, be subjected to a duty, sufficiently high, to prevent its having advantages over our own colonial produce; and also for embarrassing the commerce of the enemy.

The legality and justice of the orders in council, was also maintained by the lord chancellor and lord Hawkesbury. From the preamble to the French decree of November 21, the chancellor contended, that Buonaparté must have meant not only to exclude British produce and manufactures from his ports, but also to prevent all trade whatever in British commodities. Whoever traded with Great Britain, was to be considered as an enemy to France: which was a flagrant violation of the rights of neutrals and the law of nations.

Lord Hawkesbury predicted, from the orders of council, a great many commercial advantages. With regard to the point of legality, he insisted chiefly on the old argumentum ad hominem taken from the order of council, Jan. 7.

The earl of Lauderdale wished the orders to be considered, not on their comparative, but their own positive merits. He believed that they had been infinitely mischievous. They injured neutrals much more than the enemy: and were, in his opinion, tantamount to a declaration of war against America. [G]

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