Upon these grounds, it cannot be contended to be a right of neutrals to intrude into a commerce which had been uniformly fhut against them, and which is now forced open merely by the preffure of war; for when the enemy, under an entire inability to fupply his colonies and to export their products, affects to open them to neutrals, it is not his will but his neceffity that changes the fyftem: that change is the direct and unavoidable confequence of the compulfion of war; it is a measure, not of French councils, but of British force. "

he

P. 13-16.

This reasoning, our author observes, it would be easy to amplify, but very difficult to improve. He declines such an ambitious attempt; and contents himself with making a short and contemptuous answer to certain statements and apologies which, says, have been made in behalf of the neutrals. He denies that they suffer any loss or inconvenience from the war, in compersation of which, it might be reasonable to let them extend their commerce in certain other directions. He denies that the belligerent could, after the declaration of war, convey his colonial trade into the hands of a neutral, in such a way as to defeat the enemy's right to attack and obstruct it. The moment the sword was drawn, he contends, this trade ceased to be in the full possession or absolute disposal of the belligerent. It became a prize set up within the lists of war, and the seizure or defence of it the chief aim of the combatants. It could not be fairly or effectually withdrawn, therefore, by the intervention of a neutral, any more than a property could be effectually transferred to an accomplice, after it had been fairly brought into a court of law, to abide the claims of two public litigants. Finally, he denies that the temporary indulgences and advantages which neutrals have always been allowed in time of war, afford any precedent for their assumption of the whole colonial trade of a belligerent; both on account of the enormous extent and fatal consequences of the latter pretension, and because the sole motive of the belligerent in inviting them to this trade, is to defeat the operation of legal hostilities, and not from any general view of commercial policy, or regard to the interest of the neutral nations themselves. This transference of the colonial trade is, therefore, properly speaking, a stratagem of war, or hostile manœuvre on the part of the enemy, and cannot be carried into execution by any other nation without forfeiting the true character of neutrality. We shall have occasion, perhaps, to recur to some of these considerations by and by. We sketch them slightly at present, merely to preserve the continuity of our analysis.

The last of our author's speculations relates to the prudence or expediency of applying, at this moment, the just and effectual remedy which he has so warmly recommended in the abstract. The objection he sees clearly enough; and states in plain language.

We

We shall exasperate all the neutral powers by such a proceeding, and may provoke some of them to actual hostility.

The author contends, against those apprehensions, that if the principle of our conduct be undeniably just and equitable, it will command the assent of the neutrals themselves as soon as it is properly understood; that America, in particular, may safely be presumed extremely unwilling to join her arms with those of France, against the only country which now upholds, in the old world, the general interests of freedom; that the injury which the neutral commerce could sustain, by engaging in the war, would be incomparably greater than any loss they could suffer from the limitation of their colonial trade; and that, in point of fact, this trade is by no means very advantageous to the great body of the neutral nations; a very large part of it being carried on by temporary settlers from the hostile country, and the whole being of that precarious and occasional description, in which it cannot be for the benefit of a new country that much of its capital should be invested.

For these reasons, he thinks that war with the neutrals is not likely to follow from the instant and resolute assertion of our belligerent rights; but even if it should follow, he is of opinion that the evils of such a warfare would be smaller than those which we now suffer from their abandonment and evasion. He laughs at the idea of excluding our manufactures from places where there is a natural and effectual demand for them, by any official prohibitions or enactments; and sees, in the prudent exercise of the prerogative of granting licenses for direct trade with the enemy, a ready way of getting over the most immediate obstacles to their diffusion. For these reasons, as well as from the impossibility of successfully combating, in any other way, a power with whom, he says, we cannot make peace with security, he is of opinion that we are imperiously called on to repress the encroachment of neutrals, and to assert our natural right to harass and distress the colonies of our enemy.

Such is the sum and substance of this author's patriotic reasonings. With all our partialities to his side of the argument, there is much in every part of his volume to which we find it impossible to give an unqualified assent.

The main question here, it is obvious, is the question of right. For, though the author has spent a great deal of time in proving that we have a substantial interest in asserting such a right, this is a point which, we humbly conceive, might have been taken for granted, without risk of contradiction. That it would be for our immediate benefit, and the great annoyance of the enemy, to capture all vessels engaged in trade with him, or even having the

produce

produce of his territories aboard, cannot easily admit of doubt. We have an obvious interest to destroy his whole trade both domestic and colonial, and to take to ourselves every thing that ever was in his possession. The only question is, if we have a right to do this.

But though the interest we have in the suppression of the trade in question is in itself sufficiently obvious, we cannot avoid saying 'that the author's representation of it appears to us to be exaggerated in a very unreasonable manner; and it was not without some degree of indignation that we found him affecting to consider it as amounting to that extreme and urgent necessity which makes a right out of an emergency, and entitles us to sacrifice the claims of our neighbours to our own immediate preservation. The commercial disadvantage which our own colonial trade may suffer from the competition of that carried on by the neutrals, is but a branch of the general and inherent disadvantage which all trade must suffer, which is the object of direct hostility, when placed in competition with that which is exempted from its hazards. The rate of insurance will necessarily be higher upon the ships of a belligerent than on those of a neutral; and the want of hands for the navy, as well as the dread of impressment, will render it more difficult to man a merchant vessel in time of war than in time of peace. It is a little extravagant, however, to hold up these universal consequences of hostility as circumstances of such urgent danger, as to give us a right to suppress the neutral trade which is encouraged by their occurrence, or in any degree to help out such a right, if it were otherwise questionable or defective. The other disastrous consequences upon which this author insists, are still less entitled to consideration. The seduction of our seamen into the American merchant service, has no particular reference to their trade with our enemy's colonies. It is an inconvenience to which we shall always be liable, while their service is more profitable than ours; and when we can offer better terms than theirs, we shall retaliate, it is presumed, by engaging as many their seamen as we shall have occasion for. The idea of exalting the French naval power, by the total destruction and abandonment of her maritime trade, is a great deal too absurd to require any serious confutation.

of

But though it is impossible to listen to these exaggerated views of the motives, which must make us wish to abridge the enemies' trade with neutrals, it is certain, we have already admitted, that we have a strong and real interest in its limitation. It would be very desirable for us to interdict our enemies from all amicable intercourse with other nations, and to be permitted to seize upon every thing that was imported into, or exported out of their ter

ritories.

ritories. With regard to a great part of their trade with neutrals, it is established, however, and admitted upon all hands, that we can exercise no such interference. We cannot annihilate the foreign trade of the rest of the world, in order to diminish the comforts, or cut off the resources of the nation with which we happen to be at war. The question is, if we can do this with the colonial trade, which we certainly cannot do with the trade carried on with the mother country, and home territory of our enemy ?-if we can justify the rule of the war 1756 upon these general principles of equity and universal expediency, which form the basis of international law?

In proceeding to the consideration of this important question, we will not dissemble that we feel ourselves in some measure under the influence of certain impressions as to the justice and policy of capturing merchant ships in general, which we have no doubt that the author of this pamphlet and his admirers will consider as abundantly romantic. In the enlightened policy of modern times, war is not the concern of individuals, but of governments: it is only a more coarse sort of diplomacy in which the interests of contending nations are entrusted to public functionaries and accredited agents, who measure their strength and dexterity in liberal competition, and carry on their operations according to laws and conventions, as perfectly understood as those which regulate the ceremonial of courts. It is no longer thought lawful to annoy an enemy indiscriminately, by every means in our power; nor is it enough, to justify an act of violence or cruelty, that it has a manifest tendency to weaken or intimidate the nation with which we are at war. We have ceased to poison, arms or provisions; to refuse quarter; to massacre women and children; or to sack and burn defenceless towns and villages. Those who take no part in actual hostilities, in short, are now understood to be exempted from its terrors, and are not legal objects of attack, except in cases where the actual combatants are forced to interfere with them by the unavoidable necessities of their own situation. The private property of pacific and industrious individuals seems to be protected by the spirit of these regulations: and, except in the single case of maritime capture, it is spared accordingly, by the general usage of all modern nations. No army now plunders unarmed individuals ashore, except for the purpose of providing for its own subsistence; and the laws of war are thought to be violated by the seizure of private property for the sake of gain, even within the limits of the hostile territory.

It is not easy, at first sight, to discover why this humane and enlightened policy should still be excluded from the scenes of

maritime

1

maritime hostility; or why the plunder of industrious merchants, which is thought disgraceful on land, should still be accounted honourable at sea. If the abstinence of land forces has been enjoined to them upon principles of mere humanity and justice, it is impossible to justify or to account for this distinction: but though men are always apt enough to take credit for these honourable motives, we suspect that they form but rarely the springs of their public proceedings. Plunder at land, we apprehend, has been prohibited, chiefly, because it endangers the discipline of the army to which it is permitted, and incumbers their movements; and because it is for the most part impracticable to carry away any considerable proportion of the property which is lost to the original owners. Neither of these motives operate at sea: and the general use of maritime insurance, by throwing the losses of individual merchants upon persons who make a trade of contracting for them, tends, both in appearance and reality, to diminish the inhumanity of the procedure, and to convert it into a measure of general and national hostility.

In spite of this palliation, however, we cannot help thinking, that the practice of maritime capture is irreconcileable with the generous and enlightened notions of public hostility which were brought to maturity in the course of the last century, and that it is a stain upon that lenient and refined system of policy by which the history of modern Europe is distinguished from that of the rest of the world. That it is for the general interest of mankind that war should give as little obstruction as possible to the movements of that great machinery by which their comforts are supplied, and their improvement promoted, is a proposition that is not likely to be contested. That it must be for the interest of the belligerents themselves, thus mutually to narrow the front which they oppose to loss and suffering, can as little admit of dispute, while they are considered as upon a par in all the circumstances of their situation. In settling these maxims of general expediency, which form what is called the law of nations, all nations are considered, however, under this aspect of perfect equality; and although, in particular cases, the error of this assumption often makes the law infinitely more favourable to one than another, this, disadvantage, in the practical result, has never been thought sufficient to relieve either of the parties from the controul of the general regulation. In this case, however, it really appears to us that the establishment and the mainten ance of the general rule would be less obstructed by those actual inequalities in the situation of the opposite belligerents, than in any other that can be imagined. The very nature of the power to be renounced, seems nearly to insure, in all cases, an equal benefit