265. ALEXANDER OF RUSSIA, Neutral Rights and.—[further continued] .
Two personages in Europe,
of which your Majesty is one, have it
in their power, at the approaching pacification,
to render eminent service to nations in general,
by incorporating into the act of pacification a
correct definition of the rights of neutrals on
the high seas. Such a definition declared by all
the powers lately or still belligerent, would give
to those rights a precision and notoriety, and
cover them with an authority, which would protect
them in an important degree against future
violation; and should any further sanction
be necessary, that of an exclusion of the violating
nation from commercial intercourse with
all the others, would be preferred to war, as
more analogous to the offence, more easily and
likely to be executed with good faith. The
essential articles of these rights, too, are so
few and simple as to be easily defined.—
To the Emperor of Russia. Washington ed. v, 8.
Ford ed., viii, 440.
(W.
April. 1806)
