I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration, Sir, your most obedient and humble servant, (Signed) Wm. Pinkney, Esq. SIR, Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith. WELLESLEY. London, September 7th, 1810. It has been supposed here that the notification of a blockade of the canal of Corfu,' on the 18th of last month, was intended to close the Adriatic, and the English newspapers, as you will have perceived, so represent it. In my letter to you of the 20th ultimo, communicating a copy of that notification, I have adopted this construction, which now appeas to be erroneous. The canal,' to which the notification is now understood to apply, is the narrow passage to the eastward of Corfu. I have the honour to be, &c. &c. (Signed) MY LORD, Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley. WM. PINKNEY. Great Cumberland Place, September 15th, 1810. In my note of the 1st instant I had the honour to inform your Lordship, that it had been stated to me in a letter from Gottenburgh, that in consequence of some misconception, of the effect of the order for establishing a blockade of Elsinore in May last, American vessels had recently been prevented from passing to the Sound by the English naval force in that quarter, and I have requested that if this statement was correct, such explanations might be transmitted to the British commander as might at least confine the blockade in question to the port against which it had been professedly instituted. As I have not received any answer to that note, and consequently do not know whether any order has been given to remove the interruption which it mentions, I feel it to be necessary to lay before your lordship the inclosed original protest of the master of the American ship Alert,' which appears to establish the existence of that interruption in a form as exceptionable as it could possibly assume. Whatever may be the ground upon which Sir James Saumarez has thought fit to issue his orders to close the passage of the Sound to American vessels returning in the prosecution of a lawful trade to the United States, or proceeding in a contrary direction, your Lordship will, I am persuaded, think with me that my government has a fair claim to be made acquainted, either through me or through such other channel as your Lordship may deem more proper, with the intentions of the British government on the subject. Before I conclude this letter, I must call your Lordship's attention to the particular circumstances of the case which has mainly produced it, and to the redress which those circumstances plainly require. The Alert has been seized and sent to England by the Africa' for salvage. The peril from which she was saved, if she was saved from any peril, was created by the injustice of the capturing vessel in turning her from the regular course of her homeward voyage. That the commander of the Africa,' or those under whom he acted, should be responsible to the utmost for the loss occasioned by that injustice, seems to be perfectly reasonable; but it is difficult to imagine in what way be he can expect to derive from it a right to inflame the loss for his own advantage. I trust that the attempt will be repressed in a suitable manner, and that, in place of salvage to be paid by the injured neutral, compensation will in some mode or other be awarded to him for the dainages he has been made to sustain. The impression on board the Alert,' of four American seamen by the Africa,' cannot be passed unnoticed. This abuse could not fail to be interesting under any circumstances; but on this occasion (supposing the inclosed narrative to be true,) it is not only characterized by an utter disregard of the rights of the American government, and by the oppression of its citizens, but is practised under a show of friendly protection, and aggravated by every practical wrong which could well be associated with it. I have the honour to be, &c. MY LORD, (Signed) Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley. WM. PINKNEY. Great Cumberland Place, September 21, 1810. On the 30th of April last, I had the houour to address a note to your Lordship, in which, upon the inducements which is stated, I took the liberty to inquire, whether there was any objection, on the part of his majesty's government, to a revocatlon, or to a declaration that they were no longer in force, of the British blockades of France of a date anterior to the Berlin decree. In a second note of the 23d of June, I had the honour to recal your Lordship's attention to that inquiry, and to add, that my government expected from me a communication upon it. And on the 8th of August, it was again brought to your Lordship's recollection in the same mode. It was moreover mentioned in several conversations after the delivery of my first note, which had, in fact, been preceded by verbal explanations on my part, as well as by an abortive correspondence in writing, to which some of those explanations were preparatory. If I had been so fortunate as to obtain for my hitherto unanswered inquiry, the notice which I had flattered myself it might receive, and to which I certainly thought it was recommended by the plainest considerations of policy and justice, it would not, perhaps, have been necessary for me to trouble your Lordship with this letter, the purpose of which is, in very few words, to remind his majesty's government, in pursuance of my instructions, of the sentiments and expectations of the government of the United States, respecting such blockades as that which my inquiry principally regarded. These sentiments and expectations are so well explained in two letters from Mr. Secretary Madison, of the 27th October, 1803, to Mr. Thornton, and of the 3d of June, 1806, to Mr. Merry, that very little more is required, in the execution of my instructions on this occasion, than that I should refer your Lordship to the copies of those letters which are herewith transmitted. Your Lordship will perceive, that the strong and conclusive objections, in law and reason, to be found in those papers, (especially in the first, which was occasioned by a communication from the British consul at NewYork, of a notice from Commodore Hood, of July, 1803, that the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe were, and for some time had been blockaded) apply to several blockades which Great Britain has lately pretendedsto establish; but in a particular manner to that of May, 1806, (from the Elbe Elbe to Brest inclusive ;) to that inthe spring of 1808, of the whole island of Zealand, and to that in March, 1809, of the isles of Mauritius and Bourbon. The government of the United States can discover no just foundation for these and other similar attempts to blockade entire coasts, by notifica tions with which the fact has no correspondence. It views them as unwarrantable prohibitions of intercourse rather than regular blockades; and as resembling, in all their essential qualities, the extraordinary decrees and orders, which, for the last four years, have nearly obliterated every trace of the public law of the world, and discouraged, by menaces of hostile interruption, and pursued with seizure and confiscation, the fairest and most innocent trade of neutral merchants. It may now be hoped that those decrees and orders are about to disappear for ever; and I think I may presume, as my governinent expects, that no blockade like that of May, 1806, will survive them. Your Lordship has informed me, in a recent note, that it is his majesty's earnest desire to see the commerce of the world restored to that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity.' And I cannot suppose that this freedom is understood to be consistent with vast constructive blockades, which may be so expanded at pleasure as, without the aid of any new device, to oppress and annihilate every trade but that which England thinks fit to licence. It is not, I am sure, to such freedom that your Lordship can be thought to allude. I am the more inclined to be confident on this point, because I have now before me a well-known official exposition, conceived in terms the most exact, of the British doctrine of blockade as it stood in 1804, contained in the reply of Mr. Merry, his majesty's minister in America, to the very able remonstrance above-mentioned, from Mr. Madison to Mr. Thornton. In that reply, (of the 12th of April, 1804,) it is formally announced to the government of the United States, by his majesty's command, signified to Mr. Merry, by the principal secretary of state for foreign affairs,' that for redressing the grievance complained of by the American government, orders had been sent to Commodore Hood (and the necessary direc tions given to the Vice-Admiralty courts in the West Indies and America) not to consider any blockade of the islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe as existing, unless in respect of particular ports which might be actually invested; and then not to capture vessels bound to such ports, unless they should previously have been warned not to enter them.' It is natural to conclude that, though the grievance,' which this frank communication condemns, has been since so often repeated, as almost to make us lose sight of the rule in the multitude of its violations, your Lordship could not speak of the restoration of the just freedom of commerce as an event desired by Great Britain, without some reference to the neglected doctrine of this paper, and without some idea of reviving it. With regard to the blockade of May, 1806, I regret that I have failed to obtain an admission, apparently warranted by facts and invited by circumstances, that it is not in force. Your Lordship's answers to my letters of the 15th of February, and 7th of March last, appear to justify the opinion, that this blockade sunk in the orders in council of 1807, with which it was perfectly congenial. It can scarcely be said that, since the promulgation of those orders, there has been even a show of maintaining it, as an actual blockade, by a stationary force, adequate or inadequate, distributed with that view along the immense line of coast which it affected to embrace. And, if it had not been constantly so maintained, nor even attempted to be maintained, as an actual blockade, but has yielded its functions since 1807, to orders in council, Council, neither being, nor professing to be, actual blockades, it may, I imagine, be very safely asserted that it exists no longer. But as this conclusion has not been adopted, but has rather been resisted by your Lordship, it is my duty, in transmitting the inclosed copy of an act of congress of the United States, passed on the 1st of May, 1810, entitled 'An act concerning the commercial intercourse between the United States and Great Britain, and France, and their dependencies, and for other purposes,' to state to your Lordship that an annulment of the blockade of May, 1806, is considered by the President to be as indispensable, in the view of that act, as the revocation of the British orders in council. I have the honour to be, with high consideration, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient humble servant, (Signed) The most Noble the Marquis Wellesley, &c. &c. &c. SIR, Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith. WM. PINKNEY. London, September 28, 1810. I have already sent you a copy of Lord Wellesley's reply to that part of my letter of 15th instant, which particularly respected the case of the Alert. The amount of the reply was, that government could not interfere, and that the case must be left to the court of Admiralty. I now transmit his answer to that part of my letter, which regarded the effect of the blockade of Elsinore, as it was interpreted by Sir James Saumarez, on the passage of the Sound; from which it appears that it is not yet intended to close that passage. No notice has been taken of the residue of my letter, concerning the four American seamen taken from the Alert. As I have transmitted you a copy of Lord Wellesley's reply to my application for the release of the Mary, from which it was to be inferred that she would be immediately released, I ought now to mention that so far from being released, she is to be forthwith proceeded against as a prize! These things require a large stock of patience. SIR (Signed) I have the honour to be, &c. Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith. WM. PINKNEY. London, October 3, 1810. Lord Wellesley's communication, concerning the passage of the Sound, was supposed by a merchant here, to whom I showed it, to be ambiguous, by reason of the expressions bound up the Sound,' &c. The ambiguity has, however, been removed, (if indeed there was any) by a note which I have just received from the Foreign-office in answer to one from me. It says, that No vessels will be subject to the restrictions of the blockade of Elsinore, but such as may be going to that port, in whatever direction they may be passing the Sound;' it says further, that the equivoque in the original communication was certainly not intentional,' SIR, (Signed) I have the honour to he, &c. &c. Mr. Smith to Mr. Pinkney. WM. PINKNEY. Department of State, October 19th, 1810. a letter Your despatch of the 24th of August, inclosing a newspaper statement of a letter from the Duke of Cadore to General Armstrong, notifying a revo cation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, has been received. It ought not to be doubted that this step of the French government will be followed by a repeal on the part of the British government, of its orders in council. And if a termination of the crisis between Great Britain and the United States be really intended, the repeal ought to include the system of paper. blockades, which differ in name only from the relationary system com prised in the orders in council. From the complexion of the British prints, not to mention other considerations, the paper blockades may, however, not be abandoned. There is hence a prospect that the United States may be brought to issue with Great Britain, on the legality of such blockades. In such case, as it cannot be expected that the United States, founded as they are in law and in right, can acquiesce in the validity of the British practice, it lies with the British government to remove the difficulty. In addition to the considerations heretofore stated to you in former letters, you may bring to the view of the British government the retrospective operation of those diplomatic notifications of blockades, which consider a notice to the minister as a notice to his government, and to the merchants, who are at a distance of three thousand miles. It will recur to your recollection, that the present ministry in the debates of parliament, in opposition to the authors of the orders of January, 1807, denied that they were warranted by the law of nations. The analogy between these orders and the blockade of May, 1806, in so far as both relate to a trade between enemies' ports, furnishes an appeal to the consistency of those now in office, and an answer to attempts by them to vindicate the legality of that blockade. It is remarkable also, that this blockade is founded on the new and extraordinary means resorted to by the enemy, for the purpose of distressing the commerce of British subjects.' What are those means? In what respect do they violate our neutral rights? Are they still in operation? It is believed that true answers to these questions will enforce the obligations of your demands on the subject. You may also refer the British government to the characteristic definition of a blockaded port, as set forth in their treaty with Russia of June 1801, the preamble of which declares, that one of its objects was to settle an invariable determination of their principles upon the rights of neutrality.' Should the British government unexpectedly resort to the pretext of an acquiescence on the part of the United States in their practice, it may be remarked, that prior to, as well as during, the present administration, this government has invariably protested against such pretensions; and in addition to other instances heretofore communicated to you, I herewith transmit to you an extract of a letter to the Department of State of July 15th, 1799, from Mr. King, our minister at London, and also such part of Mr. Marshall's letter to him of the 20th September, 1800, as relates to the subject of blockades. And it may moreover be urged, that the principle now contended for by the United States was maintained against others, as well as Great Britain, as appears from the accompanying copy of the letter to our minister at Madrid, in the year 1801. To this principle, the United States also adhered when a belligerent, as in the case of the blockade of Tripoli, as will be seen by the annexed letter from the Navy department. You will press on the justice, friendship, and policy of Great Britain, such a course of proceeding as will obviate the dilemma resulting to the United States, from a refusal to put an end to the paper blockades, as well as the orders in council. The necessity of revoking the blockade of Copenhagen, as notified to you in May, 1808, will not escape your attention. Its continuance may embarrass us with Denmark, if not with France. Your |