University of Virginia Library

TO CHARLES PINCKNEY.[147]

In the instructions, accompanying your Commission, it
was not forgotten, that the trespasses of Spain on our commerce
had laid the foundation for strong complaints and reclamations
on the part of the United States; and it was accordingly
made your duty to press them in a proper manner on the Spanish

Government. As this violation of our neutral rights prevailed
most during the misunderstanding between the United
States and the French Republic, and was generally marked
under, or confounded with the Commission and flag of the
latter it was hoped that with the termination of that misunderstanding,
would have terminated also the abuses which
Spain had permitted her subjects to connect with it. By
the documents hereto annexed consisting of a letter from
the President of the Insurance Company of North America,
a memorial from the Chamber of Commerce of Philadelphia,
a letter from Thomas Fitzsimons Esq. and several private
letters from the Captains and Supercargoes of the captured
vessels, you will find that instead of fulfilling this reasonable
hope, the predatory cruizers from the port of Algeciras have
assumed a recent activity peculiarly alarming to our merchants.
American property to a very heavy amount has
already been a prey to the Spanish Gun boats from that
asylum, and it is justly apprehended from the extent of our
commerce flowing thro' the same channel, that a still greater
portion of it will be exposed to the same fate. This apprehension
is the greater, as the general disarming of our merchantmen,
produced by the reconciliation with France, removes
the check heretofore given to the predatory boats by the
means of resisting their enterprizes.

The pretext for the seizure of our vessels seems at present
to be, that Gibraltar has been proclaimed in a state of Blockade,
and that the vessels are bound to that port. Should the
proceeding be avowed by the Spanish Government, and defended
on that ground, you will be able to reply.

1st That the proclamation was made as far back as the
15th of Feby 1800, and has not since been renewed; that it
was immediately protested against by the American and other
neutral Ministers at Madrid, as not warranted by the real
state of Gibraltar, and that no violations of neutral commerce
having followed the proclamation, it was reasonably concluded
to have been rather a menace against the enemies of Spain,

than a measure to be carried into execution against her friends.

2nd That the State of Gibraltar is not and never can be
admitted by the United States to be that of a real blockade.
In this doctrine they are supported by the law of Nations as
laid down in the most approved Commentators, by every
Treaty which has undertaken to define a blockade, particularly[148]
those of latest date among the maritime nations
of Europe, and by the sanction of Spain herself, as a party to
the armed neutrality in the year 1781. The spirit of Articles
XV and XVI of the Treaty between the United States and
Spain, may also be appealed to as favoring a liberal construction
of the rights of the parties in such cases. In fact this
idea of an investment, a seige or a blockade, as collected from
the authorities referred to, necessarily results from the force
of those terms; and though it has been sometimes grossly
violated or evaded by powerful nations in pursuit of favorite
objects, it has invariably kept its place in the code of public
law, and cannot be shown to have been expressly renounced
in a single stipulation between particular nations.

3d That the situation of the naval force at Algeciras in
relation to Gibraltar has not the shadow of likeness to a blockade
as truly and legally defined. This force can neither be
said to invest, besiege or blockade the Garrison, nor to guard
the entrance into the port. On the contrary the gun boats
infesting our commerce have their stations in another harbour
separated from that of Gibraltar by a considerable Bay; and
are so far from beleaguering their enemy at that place, and
rendering the entrance into it dangerous to others, that they
are, and ever since the proclamation of a blockade, have been,
for the most part kept at a distance by a superior naval
force which makes it dangerous to themselves to approach
the spot.

4th That the principle on which the blockade of Gibraltar
is asserted, is the more inadmissible, as it may be extended to

every other place in passing to which vessels must sail within
the view and reach of the armed boats belonging to Algeciras.
If because a neutral vessel bound to Gibraltar can be annoyed
and put in danger by way-laying cruizers, which neither occupy
the entrance into the harbour nor dare approach it, and
by reason of that danger is liable to capture, every part of the
Mediterranean coasts and islands, to which neutral vessels
must pass thro' the same danger, may with equal reason be
proclaimed in a state of blockade, and the neutral vessels
bound thereto made equally liable to capture; or if the
armed vessels from Algeciras alone, should be insufficient to
create this danger in passing into the Mediterranean, other
Spanish vessels co-operating from other stations, might
produce the effect, and thereby not only blockade any particular
port, or the ports of any particular nation, but blockade
at once a whole sea, surrounded by many nations. Like
blockades might be proclaimed by any particular nation enabled
by its naval superiority to destribute its ships at the
mouth of the same, or any similar sea, or across channels or
arms of the sea, so as to make it dangerous for the commerce
of other nations to pass to its destination. These monstrous
consequences condemn the principle from which they flow,
and ought to unite against it every nation, Spain among the
rest, which has an interest in the rights of the sea. Of this
Spain herself appears to have been sensible in the year 1780,
when she yielded to Russia ample satisfaction for seizures of
her vessels made under the pretext of a general blockade of the
Mediterranean, and followed it with her accession to the
definition of a blockade contained in the armed neutrality.

5th That the United States have the stronger ground for
remonstrating against the annoyance of her vessels on their
way to Gibraltar, inasmuch as with very few exceptions, their
object is not to trade there for the accommodation of the
Garrison, but merely to seek advice or convoy for their own
accommodation in the ulterior objects of their voyage. In
disturbing their course to Gibraltar, therefore, no real detriment

results to the enemy of Spain, whilst a heavy one is
committed on her friends. To this consideration it may be
added that the real object of a blockade is, to subject the
enemy to privations, which may co-operate with external
force compelling them to surrender; an object which cannot
be alleged in a case, where it is well known that Great Britain
can and does at all times by her command of the sea, secure to
the Garrison of Gibraltar every supply which it wants.

6th It is observable that the Blockade of Gibraltar is
rested by the proclamation on two considerations, one that it
is necessary to prevent illicit traffic, by means of neutral
vessels, between Spanish subjects and the Garrison there;
the other that it is a just reprisal on Great Britain for the
proceedings of her naval armaments against Cadiz and St.
Lucar. The first can surely have no weight with neutrals,
but on a supposition never to be allowed, that the resort to
Gibraltar under actual circumstances, is an indulgence from
Spain not a right of their own; the other consideration without
examining the analogy between the cases referred to and that
of Gibraltar, is equally without weight with the United States,
against whom no right can accrue to Spain from its complaints
against Great Britain; unless it could be shown that the
United States were in an unlawful collusion with the latter,
a charge which they well know that Spain is too just and
candid to insinuate. It cannot even be said that the United
States have acquiesced in the depredations committed by
Great Britain under whatever pretexts on their lawful commerce.
Had this indeed been the case, the acquiescence
ought to be regarded as a sacrifice made by prudence to a love
of peace, of which all nations furnish occasional examples,
and as involving a question between the United States and
Great Britain, of which no other nation could take advantage
against the former. But it may be truly affirmed, that no
such acquiescence has taken place. The United States have
sought redress for injuries from Great Britain as well as from
other nations. They have sought it by the means which appeared

to themselves, the only rightful judges, to be best suited
to their object; and it is equally certain that, redress has in
some measure been obtained, and that the pursuit of complete
redress is by no means abandoned.

7th Were it admitted that the circumstances of Gibraltar in
February 1800, the date of the Spanish proclamation, amounted
to a real blockade, and that the proclamation was therefore
obligatory on neutrals; and were it also admitted that the
present circumstances of that place amount to a real blockade
(neither of which can be admitted) still the conduct of the
Algeciras cruziers is altogether illegal and unwarrantable. It
is illegal and unwarrantable, because, the force of the proclamation
must have expired whenever the blockade was actually
raised, as must have been unquestionably the case, since the
date of the proclamation, particularly and notoriously when
the port of Algeciras itself was lately entered and attacked by a
British fleet, and because on a renewal of the Blockade, either
a new proclamation ought to have issued, or the vessels making
for Gibraltar, ought to have been pre-monished of their
danger and permitted to change their course as they might
think proper. Among the abuses committed under pretext
of War, none seem to have been carried to greater extravagance
or to threaten greater mischief to neutral commerce,
than the attempts to substitute fictitious blockades by
proclamation, for real blockades formed according to the law
of nations; and consequently none against which it is more
necessary for neutral nations to remonstrate effectually before
the innovations acquire maturity and authority, from repetitions
on one side and silent acquiescence on the other.

In these observations, which it may be proper for you to
make to the Spanish Government, in case justice should not
have been yielded by it to the interpositions which will no
doubt have been previously tried by Colo. Humphreys or yourself,
or by both. Letters from the former of the 21 and 29 of
August shew that several cases of seizure had been made known
to him, and that he had it in view to carry them before the

Spanish Government. Considering the amicable disposition
manifested in general by that Government towards the United
States, and the mutual interest it has in maintaining perfect
harmony with them, the President indulges the strongest hopes
that the earliest opportunity will have been seized for repairing
the wrongs which have been committed, and for preventing
a repetition of them. Should this hope prove falacious, it
will be your duty to press these objects, by fair and frank
representations, aided by the communications now made to
you, and by an appeal to the express instructions from the
President included in them; mingling always with your requisitions
assurances of the cordial sentiments cherished by the
United States towards Spain and their entire confidence in
her disposition to evince that justice and respect for our rights
which is not less congenial with her own high character than
it is necessary for our satisfaction.