University of Virginia Library

ART. 10.

The abuse of Blockades has been so extravagant and has
produced so much vexation and injury to the fair commerce
of the United States, that, as on one hand it is of great importance
to find a remedy; so, on the other, it is the more
necessary, that the remedy should be such as not itself, to
admit of abuse. The considerations which reconciled you
to the tenor of the Article, as at least a constructive approach
to a solid provision for the case, are allowed the weight which
they justly merit; whilst the course which your discussions
took, are a proof of the exertions which were used to give
the Article a more satisfactory form.

The failure however of the British Commissioners to substantiate
a favorable construction of the Article, by a proper
explanatory letter addressed to you, with their reasons for
refusing to insert in the Treaty a definition of blockade,
justify apprehensions that the vague terms, which alone were
permitted to compose the Article, would be more likely to be
turned against our object, by Courts and Cruizers, and perhaps
by a less liberal Cabinet, than to receive in practice the
more favorable construction which candor anticipated.

The British doctrine of blockades exemplified by practice,
is different from that of all other nations, as well as from
the reason and nature of that operation of War. The mode
of notifying a blockade by proclamations and diplomatic
communications, of what too is to be done, is more particularly
the evil which is to be corrected. Against these nominal
blockades, the Article does not sufficiently close the door.
The preamble itself, which refers to distance of situation, as
a frequent cause of not knowing that a blockade exists, tho'
in one view giving the United States the advantage of a
favorable presumption, in another view, carries an admission
unfavorable to our principle, which rests not on the distance
of situation, but on the nature of the case, and which consequently
rejects, in all cases the legal sufficiency of notifications

in the British mode. The preamble is liable to the remark
also that it separates our cause from the common one of
neutral nations in a less distant situation, and that the principle
of it, may even be pleaded against us in the case of blockades
in the West Indies. These considerations would have been
outweighed by the advantage of establishing a satisfactory
rule on the subject, in favor of our trade; but without such a
provision in the article, it is thought less advisable to retain
it, than to trust to the law of blockades as laid down by all
writers of authority, as supported by all treaties which define
it, and more especially as recognized and communicated to
the United States by the British Government thro' its Minister
here in last; not to mention the influence, which the
course of events, and the sentiments of the Maritime Nations
in friendship with Great Britain may have in producing
a reform on this subject.

The last paragraph tho' subjecting persons in Civil as well
as military service of an enemy, to capture, in our vessels,
may prove a valuable safeguard to ordinary passengers and
Mariners, against the wrongs which they now frequently
experience, and which affect the vessels as well as themselves.