851. BLOCKADES, Seizure of Ships.—[continued].
You express your apprehension
that some of the belligerent powers
may stop our vessels going with grain to the
ports of their enemies, and ask instructions
which may meet the question in various
points of view, intending, however, in the
meantime to contend for the amplest freedom
of neutral nations. Your intention in this
is perfectly proper, and coincides with the
ideas of our own government in the particular
case you put, as in general cases. Such a
stoppage to an unblockaded port would be
so unequivocal an infringement of the neutral
rights, that we cannot conceive it will be
attempted.—
To Thomas Pinckney. Washington ed. iii, 551.
Ford ed., vi, 242.
(Pa.,
May. 1793)
