CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Relations with Foreign Nations.—The Public Questions.—Ministers
abroad.—Usages of Intercourse between Nations.—Our
Action.—Mistake of European Nations; they follow the Example of
England and France.—Different Conditions of the
Belligerents.—Injury to the Confederacy by the Policy of European
Powers relative to the Blockade.—Explanation.—The Paris
Conference.—Principles adopted.—Acceded to by the Confederacy
with a Single Exception.—Thcse Agreements remained
inoperative.—Extent of the Pretended Blockade.—Remonstrances
against its Recognition.—Sinking Vessels to Block up Harbors.—Every
Proscription of Maritime Law violated by the United States
Government.—Protest.—Addition made to the Law by Great
Britain.—Policy pursued favorable to our
Enemies.—Instances.—Mediation proposed by France to Great
Britain, and Russian Letter of French Minister.—Reply of Great
Britain.—Reply of Russia.—Letter to French Minister at
Washington.—Various Offensive Actions of the British
Government.—Encouraging to the United States.—Hollow Profession
of Neutrality.
The public
questions arising out of our foreign relations were too important to
be overlooked. At the end of the first year of the war the
Confederate States had been recognized by
the leading governments of Europe as a belligerent power. This
continued unchanged to the close. Mr. Mason became our representative
in London, Mr. Slidell in Paris, Mr. Rost in Spain, and Mr. Mann in
Belgium. They performed with energy and skill the positions, but
were unsuccessful in obtaining our recognition as an independent
power.
The
usages of intercourse between nations require that official
communication be made to friendly powers of all organic changes in
the constitution of states. To those who are familiar with the
principles upon which the States known as the United States were
originally constituted, as well as those upon which the Union was
formed, the organic changes made by the secession and confederation
of the Southern States are very apparent. But to others an
explanation may be necessary. Each of the States was originally
declared to be sovereign and independent. In this condition, at
a former period, all of those then existing were severally recognized
by name by the only one of the powers which had denied their right to
independence. This gave to each a recognized national sovereignty.
Subsequently they formed a compact of voluntary union, whereby a new
organization was constituted, which was made the representative
of the individual States in all general intercourse with other
nations. So long as the compact continued in force, this agent
represented merely the sovereignty of the States. But, when a portion
of the States withdrew from the compact and formed a new one under
the name of the Confederate States, they had made such organic
changes in their Constitution as to require official notice in
compliance with the usages of nations.
For
this purpose the Provisional Government took early measures for
sending to Europe Commissioners charged with the duty of visiting the
capitals of the different powers and making arrangements for the
opening of more formal diplomatic intercourse. Prior, however,
to the arrival abroad of these Commissioners, the Government of the
United States had addressed communications to the different Cabinets
of Europe, in which it assumed the attitude of being sovereign over
the Confederate States, and alleged that these independent States
were in rebellion against the remaining States of the Union, and threatened
Europe with manifestations of its displeasure if it should treat the
Confederate States as having an independent existence. It soon became
known that these pretensions were not considered abroad to be as
absurd as they were known to be at home; nor had Europe yet learned
what reliance was to be placed in the official statements of the
Cabinet at Washington. The delegation of power granted by the States
to the General Government to represent them in foreign intercourse
had led European nations into the grave error of supposing that their
separate sovereignty and independence bad been merged into one common
sovereignty, and had ceased to have a distinct existence. Under the
influence of this error, which all appeals to reason and historical
fact were vainly used to dispel, our Commissioners were met by the
declaration that foreign Governments could not assume to judge
between the conflicting representations of the two parties as to the
true nature of their previous relations. The Governments of Great
Britain and France accordingly signified their determination to
confine themselves to recognizing the self-evident fact of the
existence of a war, and to maintain a strict neutrality during its
progress. Some of the other powers of Europe pursued the same course
of policy, and it became apparent that by some understanding,
express or tacit, Europe had decided to leave the initiative in all
action touching the contest on this continent to the two powers just
named, who were recognized to have the largest interests
involved, both by reason of proximity to and of the extent of
intimacy of their commercial relations with the States engaged in
war.
It was manifest that the course of
action adopted by Europe, while based on an apparent refusal to
determine the question or to side with either party, was, in point of
fact, an actual decision against our rights and in favor of the
groundless pretensions of the United States. It was a refusal to
treat us as an independent government. If we were independent States,
the refusal to entertain with us the same international intercourse
which was maintained with our enemy was unjust, and was injurious
in its effects, whatever might have been the motive which prompted
it. Neither was it in accordance with the high moral obligations of
that international code, whose chief sanction is the
conscience of sovereigns and the public opinion of mankind, that
those eminent powers should have declined the performance of a
duty peculiarly incumbent on them, from any apprehension of the
consequences to themselves. One immediate and necessary result of
their declining the responsibility of a decision, which must have
been adverse to the extravagant pretensions of the United
States, was the prolongation of hostilities to which our enemies were
thereby encouraged, and which resulted in scenes of carnage and
devastation on this continent and of misery and suffering on the
other such as have scarcely a parallel in history. Had those powers
promptly admitted our right to be treated as all other independent
nations, none can doubt that the moral effect of such action would
have been to dispel the pretension under which the United States
persisted in their efforts to accomplish our subjugation.
There, were
other matters in which less than justice was rendered to the
Confederacy by "neutral" Europe, and undue advantage
conferred on the aggressors in a wicked war. At the inception of
hostilities, the inhabitants of the Confederate States were almost
exclusively agriculturists; those of the United States were also to
a large extent mechanics, merchants, and navigators. We had no
commercial marine, while their merchant-vessels covered the
ocean. We were without a navy, while they had powerful fleets built
by the money we had in full share contributed. The power which they
possessed for inflicting injury on our coasts and harbors was thus
counterbalanced in some measure by the exposure of their
commerce to attack by private armed vessels. It was known to Europe
that within a very few years past the United States had peremptorily
refused to accede to proposals for the abolition of privateering, on
the ground, as alleged by them, that nations owning powerful fleets
would thereby obtain undue advantage over those possessing inferior
naval force. Yet no sooner was war flagrant between the Confederacy
and the United States than the maritime powers of Europe issued
orders prohibiting either party from bringing prizes into their
ports. This prohibition, directed with apparent impartiality against
both belligerents, was in reality effective against the ConfederateStates
only, for they alone could find a hostile commerce on the
ocean. Merely nominal against the United States, the prohibition
operated with intense severity on the Confederacy by depriving it of
the only means of maintaining its struggle on the ocean against the
crushing superiority of naval force possessed by its enemies.
The value and efficiency of the weapon which was thus wrested from
our grasp by the combined action of "neutral"
European powers, in favor of a power which professes openly its
intention of ravaging their commerce by privateers in any future war,
is strikingly illustrated by the terror inspired among commercial
classes of the United States by a single cruiser of the Confederacy.
One small steamer, commanded by officers and manned by a crew who
were debarred by the closure of neutral ports from the
opportunity of causing captured vessels to be condemned in their
favor as prizes, sufficed to double the rates of marine insurance in
Northern ports, and consign to forced inaction numbers of Northern
vessels, in addition to the direct damage inflicted by captures
at sea.
But
it was especially in relation to the so-called blockade that the
policy of European powers was so shaped as to cause the greatest
injury to the Confederacy, and to confer signal advantages on
the United States. A few words in explanation may here be necessary.
Prior
to the year 1856 the principles regulating this subject were to be
gathered from the writings of eminent publicists, the decisions of
admiralty courts, international treaties, and the usages of nations.
The uncertainty and doubt which prevailed in reference to the true
rules of maritime law, in time of war, resulting from the discordant
and often conflicting principles announced from such varied and
independent sources, had become a grievous evil to mankind.
Whether a blockade was allowable against a port not invested by land
as well as by sea, whether a blockade was valid by sea if the
investing fleet was merely sufficient to render ingress to the
blockaded port evidently dangerous, or whether it was further
required for its legality that it should be sufficient " really
to prevent access," and numerous other similar questions, had
remained doubtful and undecided.
Animated
by the highly honorable desire to put an end "to differences of
opinion between neutrals and belligerents, which may occasion serious
difficulties and even conflicts " (such was the official
language), the five great powers of Europe, together with Sardinia
and Turkey, adopted in 1856 the following declaration of
principles:
- "Privateering is and remains abolished.
- "The neutral flag covers enemy's goods, with the exception of contraband of war.
- "Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy's flag.
- "Blockades, in order to be binding must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy."
Not
only did this solemn declaration announce to the world the principles
to which the signing powers agreed to conform in future wars, but it
contained a clause to which these powers gave immediate effect, and
which provided that the states, not parties to the Congress of Paris,
should be invited to accede to the declaration. Under this invitation
every independent state in Europe yielded its assent—at least, no
instance is known to me of a refusal; and the United States, while
declining to assent to the proposition which prohibited privateering,
declared that the three remaining principles were in entire
accordance with their own views of international law.
No
instance is known in history of the adoption of rules of public law
under circumstances of like solemnity, with like unanimity, and
pledging the faith of nations with a sanctity so peculiar.
When,
therefore, this Confederacy was formed, and when neutral powers,
while deferring action on its demand for admission into the
family of nations, recognized it as a belligerent power, Great
Britain and France made informal proposals, about the same time, that
their own rights as neutrals should be guaranteed by our acceding, as
belligerents, to the declaration of principles made by the Congress
of Paris. The request was addressed to our sense of justice, and
therefore met immediate and favorable response in the resolutions of
the Provisional Congress
of the 13th of August, 1861, by which all the principles
announced by the Congress of Paris were adopted as the guide of our
conduct during the war, with the sole exception of that relative to
privateering. As the right to make use of privateers was one in
which neutral nations had, as to the then existing war, no interest;
as it was a right which the United States had refused to abandon, and
which they remained at liberty to employ against us; as it was
a right of which we were already in actual enjoyment, and which we
could not be expected to renounce flagrante bello against
an adversary possessing an overwhelming superiority of naval
forces—it was reserved with entire confidence that neutral nations
could not fail to perceive that just reason existed for the
reservation. Nor was this confidence misplaced; for the
official documents published by the British Government contained the
expression of the satisfaction of that Government with the conduct.of
officials who conducted successfully the delicate transaction
confided to their charge.
These
solemn declarations of principle, this implied agreement between the
Confederacy and the two powers just named, were suffered to remain
inoperative against the menaces and outrages on neutral rights
committed by the United States with unceasing and progressing
arrogance during the whole period of the war. Neutral Europe remained
passive when the United States, with a naval force insufficient to
blockade effectively the coast of a single State, proclaimed a paper
blockade of thousands of miles of coast, extending from the Capes of
the Chesapeake to those of Florida, and encircling the Gulf of Mexico
from Key West to the mouth of the Rio Grande. Compared with this
monstrous pretension of the United States, the blockades known in
history under the names of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and the
British Orders in Council, in the years 1806 and 1807, sink into
insignificance. Those blockades were justified by the powers
that declared them, on the sole ground that they were retaliatory;
yet they have since been condemned by the publicists of those very
powers as violations of international law. It will be remembered that
those blockades evoked angry remonstrances from neutral powers, among
which the United States were the most conspicuous, and were in their
consequences the chief cause of
the war between Great Britain and the United States in 1812; also,
that they formed one of the principal motives that led to the
declaration of the Congress of Paris in 1856, in the fond hope of
imposing an enduring check on the very abuse of maritime power
which was renewed by the United States in 1861 and 1862, under
circumstances and with features of aggravated wrong without precedent
in history.
Repeated
and formal remonstrances were made by the Confederate Government
to neutral powers against the recognition of that blockade. It was
shown by evidence not capable of contradiction, and which was
furnished in part by the officials of neutral nations, that the few
ports of the Confederacy, before which any naval forces at all were
stationed, were invested so inefficiently that hundreds of entries
were effected into them after the declaration of the blockade; that
our enemies admitted the inefficiency of their blockade in the most
forcible manner, by repeated official complaints of the sale to us of
goods contraband of war—a sale which could not possibly have
affected their interests if their pretended blockade had been
sufficient "really to prevent access to our coasts "; that
they alleged their inability to render their paper blockade
effective as the excuse for the odious barbarity of destroying the
entrance to one of the harbors by sinking vessels loaded with stone
in the channel; that our commerce with foreign nations was
interrupted, not by the effective investment of our ports, but by
watching the ports of the West Indies; not only by the seizure of
ships in the attempt to enter the Confederate ports, but by the
capture on the high-seas of neutral vessels by the cruisers of our
enemies, whenever supposed to be bound to any point on our
extensive coast, without inquiry whether a single blockading vessel
was to be found at such point; that blockading vessels had left the
ports at which they were stationed for distant expeditions, were
absent for many days, and returned without notice either of the
cessation or renewal of the blockade; in a word, that every
prescription of maritime law and every right of neutral nations
to trade with a belligerent under the sanction of principles
heretofore universally respected were systematically and
persistently violated by the United States. Neutral Europe received
our remonstrances,
and submitted in almost unbroken silence to all the wrongs that the
United States chose to inflict on its commerce. The Cabinet of
Great Britain, however, did not confine itself to such implied
acquiescence in these breaches of international law which
resulted from simple inaction, but, in a published dispatch of
the Minister for Foreign Affairs, assumed to make a change in the
principle enunciated by the Congress of Paris, to which the faith of
the British Government was considered to be pledged. The change
was so important and so prejudicial to the interests of the
Confederacy that, after a vain attempt to obtain satisfactory
explanations from that Government, I directed a solemn protest
to be made.
In
a published dispatch from her Majesty's Foreign Office to her
Minister at Washington, under date of February 11th, 1862, occurred
the following passage:
"Her Majesty's Government, however, are of opinion that, assuming
that the blockade was duly notified, and also that a number of
ships is stationed and remains at the entrance of a port sufficient
really to prevent access to it, or
to create an evident danger of entering it or leaving it, and
that these ships do not voluntarily permit ingress or egress,
the fact that various ships may have successfully escaped through it
(as in the particular instance here referred to), will not of itself
prevent the blockade from being an effectual one by
international law."
The
words which I have italicized were an addition made by the British
Government of its own authority to a principle, the exact terms of
which were settled with deliberation by the common consent of
civilized nations, and by implied convention with our Government, as
already explained, and their effect was clearly to reopen to the
prejudice of the Confederacy one of the very disputed questions on
the law of blockade which the Congress of Paris proposed to
settle. The importance of this change was readily illustrated by
taking one of our ports as an example. There was "evident
danger," in entering the port of Wilmington, from the
presence of a blockading force, and by this test the blockade was
effective. "Access is not really prevented" by the
blockading fleet to the same port; for steamers were connually
arriving and departing, so that, tried by this test, the blockade was
ineffective and invalid. Thus, while every energy of our country was
evoked in the struggle for maintaining its existence, the neutral
nations of Europe pursued a policy which, nominally impartial, was
practically most favorable to our enemies and most detrimental
to us.
The
exercise of the neutral right of refusing entry into their ports to
prizes taken by both belligerents was especially hurtful to the
Confederacy. It was sternly adhered to and enforced.
The
assertion of the neutral right of commerce with a belligerent,
whose ports are not blockaded by fleets sufficient really to prevent
access to them, would have been eminently beneficial to the
Confederate States, and only thus hurtful to the United States. It
was complaisantly abandoned.
The
duty of neutral states to receive with cordiality and recognize with
respect any new confederation that independent states may think
proper to form, was too clear to admit of denial, but its
postponement was equally beneficial to the United States and
detrimental to the Confederacy. It was postponed.
In
this statement of our relations with the nations of Europe, it
has been my purpose to point out distinctly that the Confederacy had
no complaint to make that those nations declared their
neutrality. It could neither expect nor desire more. The complaint
was, that the declared neutrality was delusive, not real; that
recognized neutral rights were alternately asserted and waived in
such manner as to bear with great severity onus, while conferring
signal advantages on our enemy.
Perhaps
it may not be out of place here to notice a correspondence
between the Cabinets of France, Great Britain, and Russia, relative
to a mediation between the Confederacy and the United States. On
October 30, 1S62, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Drouyn de
l'Huys, addressed a note to the ambassadors of France at London
and St. Petersburg. In this dispatch he stated that the Emperor had
followed with painful interest the struggle which had then been going
on for more than a year on this continent. He observed that the
proofs of energy, perseverance, and courage, on both sides, had been
given at the expense of innumerable calamities and immense bloodshed;
to the accompaniments of civil conflict was to be added the
apprehension of servile war, which would be the climax of so many
irreparable misfortunes.
If
these calamities affected America only, these sufferings of a
friendly nation would be enough to excite the anxiety and sympathy of
the Emperor; but Europe also had suffered in one of the principal
branches of her industry, and her artisans had been subjected to most
cruel trials. France and the maritime powers had, during the
struggle, maintained the strictest neutrality, but the
sentiments by which they were animated, far from imposing on them
anything like indifference, seem, on the contrary, to require that
they should assist the two belligerent parties in an endeavor to
escape from a position which appeared to have no issue. The forces of
the two sides had hitherto fought with balanced success, and the
latest accounts did not show any prospect of a speedy termination of
the war.
These
circumstances, taken together, seemed to favor the adoption of
measures which might bring about a truce. The Emperor of the French,
therefore, was of the opinion that there was now an opportunity of
offering to the belligerents the good offices of the maritime powers.
He, therefore, proposed to her Majesty, as well as to the Emperor of
Russia, that the three courts should endeavor, both at Washington and
in communication with the Confederate States, to bring about a
suspension of arms for six months, during which time every act
of hostility, direct or indirect, should cease, at sea as well as on
land. This armistice might, if necessary, be renewed for a further
period.
This
proposal, he proceeded to say, would not imply, on the part of the
three powers, any judgment on the origin of the war, or any pressure
on the negotiations for peace, which it was hoped would take place
during the armistice. The three powers would only interfere to smooth
the obstacles, and only within the limits which the two interested
parties would prescribe. The French Government was of the
opinion that, even in the event of a failure of immediate success,
those overtures might have proved useful in leading the minds of men
heated by passion to consider the advantages of conciliation and
peace.
The
reply of Great Britain, through Lord John Russell, on November 13,
1862, is really contained in this extract:
"After
weighing all the information which has been received from America,
her Majesty's Government are led to the conclusion that there is
no ground at the present moment to hope that the Federal Government
would accept the proposal suggested, and a refusal from Washington at
the present time would prevent any speedy renewal of the offer."
The
Russian Government, in reply, said:
"According
to the information we have hitherto received, we are inclined to
believe that a combined step between France, England, and Russia, no
matter how conciliatory, and how cautiously made, if it were
taken with an official and collective character, would run the
risk of causing precisely the very opposite of the object of
pacification, which is the aim of the wishes of the three courts."
The
unfavorable reception of the proposal was communicated by the
French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the representative of
France at Washington. In this communication he said:
"Convinced as we were that an understanding between the three powers
in the sense presented by us would answer as much the interests of
the American people as our own; that even that understanding was, in
the existing circumstances, a duty of humanity, you will easily
form an idea of our regret at seeing the initiative we have taken
after mature reflection remain without results. Being also desirous
of informing Mr. Dayton, the United States Minister, of our project,
I confidently communicated it to him, and even read in his presence
the dispatch sent to London and St. Petersburg. I could not but be
surprised that the Minister of the United States should oppose
his objections to the project I communicated to him, and to hear
him express personally some doubts as to the reception which would be
given by the Cabinet at Washington to the joint offers of the
good offices of France, Russia, and Great Britain."
It
has already been stated that, by common understanding, the initiative
in all action touching the contest on this continent had
been left by foreign powers to the two great maritime nations of
Western Europe, and that the Governments of these two nations had
agreed to take no measures without previous concert. The result of
these arrangements, therefore, placed it in the power of either
France or England to obstruct at pleasure the recognition to
which the Confederacy was justly entitled, or even to prolong
the continuance of hostilities on this side of the Atlantic, if the
policy of either could be promoted by the postponement of peace.
Each,. too, thus became possessed of great influence in so
shaping the general exercise of neutral rights in Europe as to render
them subservient to the purpose of aiding one of the belligerents, to
the detriment of the other. Perhaps it may not be out of place to
present a few examples by which to show the true nature of the
neutrality professed in this war.
In
May, 1861, the Government of her Britannic Majesty assured our
enemies that "the sympathies of this country [Great Britain]
were rather with the North than with the South."
On
June 1, 1861, the British Government interdicted the use of its ports
"to armed ships and privateers, both of the United States and
the so-called Confederate States," with their prizes. The
Secretary of State -of
the United States fully appreciated the character and motive of
this interdiction, when he observed to Lord Lyons, who communicated
it, that "this measure and that of the same character which
had been adopted by France would probably prove a death-blow to
Southern privateering "—a means, it will be remembered, which the United
States had refused to abandon for themselves.
On
the 12th of June, 1861, the United States Minister in London informed
her Majesty's Minister for Foreign Affairs that the fact of his
having held interviews with the Commissioners of our Government
had given "great dissatisfaction, and that a protraction of this
would be viewed by the United States as hostile in spirit, and to
require some corresponding action accordingly." In response
to this intimation her Majesty's Minister gave assurance that
"he had no expectation of seeing them any more."
Further
extracts will show the marked encouragement to the
United States to persevere in its paper blockade, and unmistakable
intimations that her Majesty's Government would not contest its
validity.
On
May 21, 1861, Earl Russell pointed out to the United States Minister
in London that "the blockade might, no doubt, be made effective,
considering the small number of harbors on the Southern coast, even
though the extent of three thousand miles were comprehended in the
terms of that blockade."
On
January 14, 1862, her Majesty's Minister in Washington
communicated to his Government that, in extenuation of the barbarous
attempt to destroy the port of Charleston by sinking a stone
fleet in the harbor, Mr. Seward had explained that "the
Government of the United States had, last spring, with a navy very
little prepared for so extensive an operation, undertaken to
blockade upward of three thousand miles of coast. The Secretary of
the Navy had reported that he could stop up the large holes' by means
of his ships, but that he could not stop -up
the 'small 'ones' It has been found necessary, therefore, to
close some of the numerous small inlets by sinking vessels in
the channel."
On
May 6, 1862, so far from claiming the right of British subjects as
neutrals to trade with us as belligerents, and to disregard the
blockade on the ground of this explicit confession by our enemy of
his inability to render it -effective, her Majesty's Minister for
Foreign Affairs claimed credit with. the United States for friendly
action in respecting it. His lordship stated that—
"The
United States Government, on the allegation of a. rebellion
pervading from nine to eleven States of the Union, have now, for more
than twelve months, endeavored to maintain a blockade of three
thousand miles of coast. This blockade, kept up irregularly,
but, when enforced, enforced severely, has seriously injured the
trade and manufactures of the United Kingdom.
"Thousands are now obliged to resort to the poor-rates for subsistence
owing to this blockade. Yet her Majesty's Government have never
sought to take advantage of the obvious imperfections of this
blockade, in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss
and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously
observed the duties of Great Britain toward a friendly state."
It
is not necessary to pursue this subject further. Suffice it to 'say
that the British Government, when called upon to redeem its pledge
made at Paris in 1856, and renewed to the Confederacy in 1861,
replied that it could not regard the blockade of Southern ports
as having been otherwise than "practically effective in
February, 1862," and that "the manner in which it has since
been enforced gives to neutral governments no excuse for asserting
that the blockade had not been effectively maintained."
The
partiality of her Majesty's Government in favor of our enemies was
further evinced in the marked difference of its conduct on the
subject of the purchase of supplies by the two belligerents.
This difference was conspicuous from the very commencement of
the war. As early as May 1, 1S61, the British Minister in Washington
was informed by the Secretary of State of the United States that he
had sent agents to England, and that others would go to France, to
purchase arms; and this fact was communicated to the British Foreign
Office, which interposed no objection. Yet, in October of the
same year, Earl Russell entertained the complaint of the United
States Minister in London, that the Confederate States were importing
contraband of war from the Island of Nassau, directed inquiry
into the matter, and obtained a report from the authorities of the
island denying the allegations, which report was inclosed to Mr.
Adams, and received by him as satisfactory evidence to dissipate
"the suspicion thrown upon the authorities by that
unwarrantable act." So, too, when the Confederate
Government purchased in Great Britain, as a neutral country (with
strict observance both of the law of nations and the municipal law of
Great Britain), vessels which were subsequently armed and
commissioned as vessels of war after they had been far removed
from English waters, the British Government, in violation of its own
laws, and in deference to the importunate demands of the United
States, made an ineffectual attempt to seize one vessel, and did
actually seize and detain another which touched at the Island of
Nassau, on her way to a Confederate port, and subjected
her to an unfounded prosecution, at the very time when cargoes of
munitions of war were openly shipped from British ports to New York,
to be used in warfare against us. Further instances need not be
adduced to show how detrimental to us, and advantageous to our enemy,
was the manner in which the leading European power observed its
hollow profession of neutrality toward the belligerents.
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