The writings of James Madison, comprising his public papers and his private correspondence, including numerous letters and documents now for the first time printed. |
 |
TO JOHN ARMSTRONG. |
 | The writings of James Madison, |  |
TO JOHN ARMSTRONG.
Your letters and communications by Dr. Bullus were duly
delivered on the day of. The same conveyance
brought a copy of the sentence pronounced by the French
prize Court in the case of the Horizon, giving a judicial effect
to the Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, as expounded in the answer of
Mr. Champagny to your letter of the.
Whilst the French Government did not avow or enforce a
meaning of the Decree of Nov. 1806, in relation to the United
States, extending its purview beyond the municipal limits,
it could not in strictness be regarded as an infraction either of
our neutral or conventional rights; and consequently did not
authorize more than a demand of seasonable explanations of
its doutbful import, or friendly expostulations with respect
to the rigor and suddenness of its innovations.
The case is now essentially changed. A construction of the
Decree is avowed and executed which violates as well the
positive stipulations of the Convention of Sep. 30, 1800, as
the incontestable principles of public law. And the President
charges you to superadd, to whatever representations you
may have previously made, a formal remonstrance in such
terms as may be best calculated either to obtain a recall of
the illegal measure, so far as it relates to the United States, or
to have the effect of leaving in full force all the rights accruing
to them from a failure to do so.
That the execution of local laws against foreign Nations on
the high seas is a violation of the rights of the former and the
freedom of the latter, will probably not be questioned. A
contrary principle would in fact imply the same exclusive
dominion over the entire ocean as is enjoyed within the
limits of the local sovereignty, and a degradation of every
other Nation from its common rights and equal rank.
If it be contended that the Decree, as a retaliation on the
other belligerent, at the expense of neutral nations; is justified
operating thro' neutrals, you will be able to deny
such acquiescence, and to urge moreover that, on every supposition,
the retaliating measure could not be justly enforced
in relation to neutrals without allowing them at least a reasonable
time for chusing between due measures against the prior
wrong and an acquiescence in both. The copy of the representations
to the British Government thro' its Minister here,
on the subject of its orders of Jany. 1807, will at once disprove
an acquiescence on the part of the United States, and explain
the grounds on which the late extension of the French Decree
of Novr. 1806 is an object of just remonstrance.
The conduct of the French Government in giving this extended
operation to its decree, and indeed in issuing one with
such an apparent or doubtful import against the rights of the
sea, is the more extraordinary inasmuch as the inability to
enforce it on that element exhibited the measure in the light
of an empty menace, at the same time that it afforded pretexts
to her enemy for several retaliations for which ample
means are found in her naval superiority.
The accumulated dangers to which the illegal proceedings
of the belligerent nations have subjected the commerce and
navigation of the United States, have at length induced Congress
to resort to an Embargo on our own vessels, as a measure
best fitted for the crisis, being an effectual security for our
mercantile property and mariners now at home and daily
arriving, and at the same time neither a measure, nor just cause
of war. Copies of this Act were soon after its passage, transmitted
to Mr. Pinkney, with an authority to assure the British
Government that it was to be viewed in this light; and that
it was not meant to be the slightest impediment to amicable
negotiations with foreign Governments. He was requested to
avail himself of an opportunity of communicating to you
and Mr. Erving this view of the subject, and I hope that you
will have been thence enabled to present it to the French
Government. Not relying however on that indirect opportunity,
from the President, that you make it the subject
of such explanations as will guard against any misconception
of the policy which led to it. It is strictly a measure of precaution
required by the dangers incident to external commerce,
and being indiscriminate in its terms and operation
toward all nations, can give no just offence to any. The
duration of the Act is not fixed by itself, and will consequently
depend on a continuance or cessation of its causes in a degree
sufficient in the judgment of the Legislature to induce or
forbid its repeal. It may be hoped that the inconveniences
felt from it by the belligerent nations may lead to a change
of the conduct which imposed the inconveniences of it on
ourselves. France herself will be a sufferer, and some of her
allies far more so. It will be very agreeable to find in that
consideration, and still more in her sense of justice, a sufficient
motive to an early manifestation of the respect due to our
commercial rights. The example would be worthy of the
professions which she makes to the world on this subject.
February 18th. Since the above was written, I have been
under a degree of indisposition which has suspended the proposed
continuation of it, and which now will oblige me to be
very brief; the more so, as the vessel has been some days detained,
which was engaged for the special purpose of conveying
public dispatches and private letters to Europe.
The delay has enabled me to inform you that Mr. Erskine
a few days ago communicated by instructions from his government
its late Decrees of Novr. 11, and those forming a sequel
to them. The communication was accompanied with assurances
that much regret was felt by his Brittanic Majesty
at the necessity which the conduct of his enemy had created
for measures so embarrassing to neutral commerce, and that
His Majesty would readily follow an example of relinquishing
such a course, or even of making relaxations pari passu with
his enemy.
Whether these intimations have any reference to the distinction
municipally on shore, and such as operating on the high seas,
violate the rights of neutrals, or to a distinction between the
former restriction and the late extension of the Decree with
respect to the United States, Mr. Erskine did not seem authorized
to say. The probability is that neither of these distinctions
entered into the views of the British Cabinet. But it is
certainly neither less the duty nor the true policy of the Emperor
of the French so to vary his decree as to make it consistent
with the rights of neutrals and the freedom of the
seas, and particularly with his positive stipulations to the
United States. This may be the more reasonably expected
as nothing can be more clear, as has been already observed,
than that the effect of the Decree, as far as it can be carried
into effect, would not be sensibly diminished, by abolishing
its operation beyond the limits of the territorial Sovereignty.
In remonstrating against the injustice and illegality of the
French Decree, I am aware that you may be reminded of
antecedent injuries to France and her allies thro' British violations
of neutral commerce. The fact cannot be denied, and
may be urged with great force, in our remonstrances against
the orders to which Great Britain has given a retaliating
character; since the French Decree might on the same ground,
be pronounced a retaliation on the preceding conduct of Great
Britain. But ought the legitimate commerce of neutrals to
be thus the victim and the sport of belligerents contesting
with each other the priority of their destructive innovations;
and without leaving, either of them, to neutrals, even the
opportunity or the time for disproving that culpable acquiescence
which is made the pretext by both for the
wrongs done to them? And I must repeat that apart from
all questions of this nature the French Decree, or at least
the illegal extensions of it to the United States remain
chargeable with all the impolicy which has been pointed
out.
I find by accounts from Hamburgh, Bremen, Holland, and
Leghorn, that the trade and property of our Citizens have
been much vexed by regulations subaltern to those of the
Original Decree of Novr. 21st, 1806. How far the complaints
are founded on proceedings violating our public rights, or
on such as are unfriendly and inequitable towards our Citizens
who have placed their property within those jurisdictions, you
will be able to decide better than we can do at this distance;
and the President refers to your own judgment the kind of
representation to the French Government which those and
other analagous cases may require.
Mr. Rose charged with a special mission to the United
States for adjusting and making the satisfaction required for
the outrage on the Chesapeake Frigate, has been about a
month here. He opened his mission with a demand, preliminary
to the negotiation, which was inadmissible. Much
time and pains have been spent in informal experiments to
overcome that difficulty at the threshold, and others known
to lie within the negotiation itself. These experiments are
giving way to formal and direct discussions, which do not
under the instructions by which he professes to be restricted,
promise any definitive and satisfactory result.
It was my purpose to have given greater extent to this
communication, and particularly to have touched some other
points in your last letters. But I find my health scarcely
equal to the task already performed; and I am unwilling to
prolong the detention of the vessel which has been ready for
some time to depart with the numerous letters from our merchants
to their correspondents, for carrying which she was in
great measure employed. As she will return to L'Orient from
Falmouth, where she will wait 8 or 10 days only, in order to
bring back Lieut. Lewis the bearer of this, I hope you will
dispatch him in due time, and that he will bring from you
communications equally ample and agreeable.
The inclosed copy of a letter from the Secretary of War to
me, together with the papers spoken of in it, will enable you
15th Sept. last, a copy of which you sent me.
| The writings of James Madison, | |