ed, and their property in an extraordinary manner, upon various pretexts, sequestrated or sold. Their persons are likewise put under arrest, and a number of British sailors have been forcibly taken out of their ships, and been sent under guard, and in the midst of winter, into the interior of the country.

In consequence of these new acts of violence, lord Grenville, secretary of state for foreign affairs, received his majesty's order to address a second note to count Rostopschin, in which his majesty stated his having appointed a commissary to superintend the safety and the wants of his unfortunate subjects; a circumstancewhich is usual even among the powers that are actually at war. Lord Grenville, in that paper, likewise formally insisted on the execution of the treaty of 1793. But, though he made the strong and just remonstrances which such circumstances demanded, yet his majesty's constant disposition again to restore the former connexion and good understanding between the two crowns has been in vain.

His Britannic majesty anticipates the sentiments which the king of Prussia will entertain, when he is informed of the unheard of and unjustifiable manner in which his Britannic majesty's remonstrances were heard by the courtof St. Petersburgh. The note of count Rostopschin to lord Grenville, of the 20th of December, O. S. a copy of which the undersigned is ordered to communicate to count Haugwitz, will enable his Prussian majesty to judge whether the undersigned is called upon to make any observations upon it.

The undersigned has received

orders to make known to the court of Berlin, that this conduct, on the part of the emperor of Russia, has put an end to all correspondence between the courts of London and St. Petersburgh; and the connexion between the extraordinary violence committed upon the persons and property of his majesty's subjects, and with the conclusion of a hostile confederacy, which the emperor of Russia has formed for the express and avowed purpose of introducing those innovations into the maritime code, which his Britannic majesty has ever opposed, has at length produced a state of open war between Great Britain and Ireland and Russia.

It will not be useless to remark, that the emperor of Russia, at the present crisis, cannot be considered as a neutral power, because he was at war with Great Britain before he himself was at peace with France.

The undersigned shall have done justice to the charge with which he is intrusted, when he declares, in the name of the king his master, that his majesty, on weighing the present circumstances of Europe, is willing to forbear demanding from the court of Prussia that succour which was stipulated by treaty, though he considers the casus fœderis as completely coming within those circumstances in which they stand; and that his Britannic majesty cannot doubt that he will receive from his ally all the proofs of friendship which the events of this new war would have required.

The undersigned has the honour
to be, &c.
`(Signed)

Berlin, Feb. 1, 1801.

Carysfort.

Note

Note transmitted, on the 12th of February, by the Frussian Minister Count Haugwitz, to Lord Carysfort, the English Ambassador at Berlin.

TH

HE undersigned state and cabinet minister, has laid before his Prussian majesty the two notes which lord Carysfort, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary from his majesty the king of Great Britain and Ireland, has done him the honour to transmit to him on the 27th of January, and 1st of February last.

The undersigned having it in commission to return an explicit and circumstantial answer, is under the necessity of informing lord Carysfort, that his majesty cannot see, without the utmost grief and concern, the violent and hasty measures to which the court of London has proceeded against the northern naval powers. Error alone can have given occasion to these measures, as the assertions in the note of the 27th sufficiently show. In that it is said, that the maritimne alliance" has for its object to annul the treaties formerly concluded with England, and to prescribe laws to her, with respect to the principles of them; that the neutrality is only a pretext to impose these laws on her by force, and to establish a hostile alliance against her."

Nothing, however, is farther from the above mentioned negotiation, than the principles here supposed. It is founded in justice and moderation, and the communication of a copy of the convention to such of the belligerent powers as had the justice and patience to wait for the same, will prove this beyond the possibility of a denial,

When in the beginning of January, the minister of his Britannic majesty officially proposed to the undersigned the question, "whether the northern courts had actually concluded the confederation which had been reported; and whether Prussia had acceeded to it?"—the king conceived that the respect which sovereigns owe to each other, and the liberty possessed by every independent state to consult its own interests, without rendering an account to any other power, authorized him to withhold any communications relative to himself and his allies; and contented himself with answering, that as he had seen, without interfering, the connexions which England had entered into without consulting him, he considered himself entitled to the same confidence; and that if the king of Britain thought it his duty to support the rights and interests of his kingdom, his Prussian majesty considered it as not less his duty to employ every means in the defence of the rights and interests of his subjects.

This answer might have sufficed a few weeks since; but, in the situation in which affairs now are, the king thinks himself called upon to make an explicit declaration to the court of London, relative to the spirit of the treaty, which has pros bably been attacked because it was not known, and which is far from having the offensive views of which the contracting powers have been arbitrarily accused. They have expressly agreed, that their mea sures shall be neither hostile nor tend to the detriment of any country, but only have for their object the security of the trade and navigation of their subjects. They have been attentive to adapt their new con

nexions

nexions to present circumstances. The strict justice of his majesty the emperor of Russia has, even in the detail, proposed modifications, which alone might be sufficient to indicate the spirit of the whole. It has since been determined, that the treaty shall not be prejudicial to those which had before been concluded with any of the belligerent powers. It was also resolved, that this determination should be candidly communicated to those powers, to prove the purity of the motives and views of the contracting parties. But England would not allow time for this; had she waited this confidential communication, she might have avoided those intemperate measures which threaten to spread the flames of war still wider.

Besides, it only depended on England, previously to draw satisfactory information fromthe correspondence with Denmark, if, instead of taking hold of two isolated passages, which lord Carysfort, in his first note, extracted from count Bernstorff's note of the 31st of December, the court of London bad listened to the solemn declaration which it contained: "That it could never have been supposed for a moment that Denmark hadformed projects against England, or plans that could not subsist together with the maintenance of harmony between the two crowns, and that the court of Co. penhagen congratulated itself on finding an opportunity for contradicting, in the most positive manner, such unfounded reports." This plain and precise declaration agrees with the language which the undersigned had used more than once to lord Carysfort, when speaking on that subject; and it can scarcely be conceived how the English court,

after that declaration had been received, could conclude, from the note of the minister of Denmark, "That the engagements of the contracting powers had for their object the introduction of principles of naval rights, which had never been acknowledged by the tribunals of Europe, and which were of a hostile tendency against England." The conclusion is totally false, and is not authorized even more by the contents of the answer of the Danish court, than the other unmerited reproach made to it, “ of having renewed an alliance of a hostile tendency against England, and of being actively employed in armamentswith that view." Never were measures more evidently defensive, than the measures of the court of Copenhagen, and their spirit will be misconceived still less, when it is considered what menacing demonstration that court had experienced from the British government, on occasion of the affair with the Freya frigate, before the above measures were resorted to. England's arbitrary conduct on this occasion is naturally explained by the pretensions which it had made for some time past, and which it has repeatedly renewed in the notes of lord Carysfort, at the expense of every commercial and naval power. The British government has, in the present more than in any former war, usurped the sovereignty of the seas; and by arbitrarily framing a naval code, which it would be difficult to unite with the true principles of the law of nations, it exercises, over the other friendly and neutral powers, an usurped jurisdiction, the legality of which it maintains, and which it considers as an imprescriptible right, sanctioned by all the tribunals

of

of Europe. The sovereigns have never conceded to England the privilege of calling their subjects before its tribunals, and of subjecting them to its laws, but in cases where the abuse of power bas got the better of equity, and which, alas! are but too frequent. The neutral powers have always had the precaution of addressing to it the most energetic reclamations and protests, but experience has ever proved their remonstrances fruitless; and it is not surprising, that, after so many repeated acts of oppression, they have resolved to find a remedy against it, and for that purpose to establish a wellarranged convention, which fixes their rights, and which places them on a proper level even with the powers at war.

The naval alliance, in the manner that it has just been consolidated, was intended to lead to this salutary end, and the king hesitates not to declare to his Britannic, majesty, that he has again found in it his own principles, that he is fully convinced of its necessity and utility, and that he has formally acceded to the convention, which has been concluded, on the 16th of December, last year, between the courts of Russia, Dennark, and Sweden. His majesty is, therefore, among the number of the Contracting parties, and has bound himself, in that quality, not only to take a direct share in all the events which interest the cause of the neutral powers, but also, in virtue of his engagements, to maintain that connexion by such powerful measures as the impulse of circumstances may require. The note of lord Carysfort mentions a subject, to which his majesty believes himself neither obliged to answer, nor even to have a right of entertaining an VOL. XLIII.

opinion with respect to it. There exist discussions between the courts of Petersburgh and London, which have by no means any thing to do with the business which the latter has interwoven with it. But in the same measure in which the conduct of Prussia has hitherto been directed by the most blameless impartiality, the king's conduct will henceforth be directed by his regard for engagements, which in themselves are a proof of it. To stipulations which contain nothing hostile, and which the safety of his subjects required, he owes all the means which Providence has laid in his power. Uapleasant as the extremes may be to which England has proceeded, yet his majesty doubts not the possibility of a speedy return to conciliating and peaceable dispositions, and he relies on the sentiments of equity, which, on former occasions, he has had the advantage of meeting with in his Britannic majesty.

It is only by revoking, and by entirely taking of the embargo, that affairs can be brought to their former situation; and it is for England to judge whether it ought to come to that resolution, in order to offer means to the neutral powers for proceeding to those communications which they intended to make.

But while those measures exist, which have been resorted to from hatred against a common principle, and against an alliance which can no longer be shaken, the hostile resolution, which must be the consequence, will be the necessary result of the treaty; and the undersigned is ordered to declare to the minister of his Britannic majesty, that the king, while he expresses his concern at events of which he has not been the cause, will sacredly fulfil the engagements

R

gagements prescribed to him by treaties. The undersigned, thus executing his orders, has the honour of assuring lord Carysfort of his high

esteem.

(Signed) Haugwitz.

12th February, 1801.

penhagen. It knows neither its origin nor foundation, or at least but very imperfectly, and its engagements with Petersburgh have no relation whatever to it. The nature of these engagements has been solemnly declared to be only defensive; and it is inconceivable how general

THE

Minister.

London, February 23, 1801. HE undersigned, having informed the king his master of the official communication of lord Grenville, dated the 15th January last, has received orders to declare, that his majesty is deeply affected at seeing the good understanding which has hitherto subsisted between Denmark and Britain, suddenly interrupted by the adoption of a measure as arbitrary as injurious on the part of Great Britain; and that he is not less afflicted and alarmed at seeing that measure justified by assertions and suppositions as unjust as ill founded. He remarks, with surprise, that, by confounding the cause of the measures, taken in Russia, against the interests of Great Britain, with the object of the convention relative to neutral navigation, the British government evidently mixes two affairs which have not the least connexion with each other. It is a subject of perfect notoriety, that the incident of the occupation of Malta by the troops of his Britannic majesty, has alone been the occasion of the embargo on the British ships in the ports of Russia, and that the ministers of the neutral courts at Petersburgh acted according to their full powers and instructions anterior to that event. The dispute relating to it is absolutely foreign to the court of Co

sitive obligation, and modified according to the stipulations of treaties, could be justly considered as attacks on the rights or dignity of any statewhatever. While the powers who profess them, require only their acknowledgment, the conflict of principles reciprocally maintained, cannot be provoked but by those means which, operating as a denial of facts, place them in direct and inevitable opposition. The undersigned, by order of the king his master, calls the serious attention of the British government to these reflections, and to these just and incontrovertible truths; they are analogous to the loyal sentiments of a sovereign, the ancient and faithfu ally of Great Britain, who is not only incapable of offering, on his part, any injuries, real or voluntary, but who has well founded titles to a return of forbearance and justice. The prompt cessation of proceedings hostile to the interests of Denmark, is a circumstance to which his majesty still looks forward with the confidence he has ever wished to entertain with regard to his Britannic majesty; and it is in his name, and conformably to the instructions expressed on his part, that the undersigned insists on the embargo placed on the Danish vessels in the ports of Great Britain being immediately taken off. By a constant series of moderation on the part of the king, the measures to which the outra

geous