Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

been founded upon particular conventions between his Prussian majesty and the senate of Hamburg, he does not think himself called upon to take part in that discussion; but he feels himself authorised to claim, in favour of the subjects and vessels of the king his master, all the rights to which they have a just pretension in a neutral port belonging to a republic, whose connexions with the states of his majesty are very antient, and generally knownno convention made between the city of Hamburg and his Prussian majesty being capable of invalidating or altering his rights.

In consequence of these considerations he dares hope that his Prussian majesty may still suspend the occupation of Cuxhaven, until the two courts shall have the means of entering into mutual explanations, more particularly since such an occupation, in the actual circumstances, might give room to ill-disposed minds to attribute to his Prussian majesty views not less opposite to the sentiments of justice and moderation which govern all his measures, than to the friendship and the good harmony which subsist between him and his Britannic majesty.

At all events it will not escape the wisdom and humanity of his majesty, that the entrance of a numerous corps of troops into a village, both poor and with a small extent of territory, would probably augment the misery of the inhabitants; and that the city of Hamburg haying always possessed that place, so indispensably necessary to the navigation of the Elbe, all which may trouble that possession, derange ancient customs, and influence the pilots there at present to seek a refuge elsewhere, would strike a sensible blow at the commerce of

[blocks in formation]

The undersigned, extraordinary envoy and minister plenipotentiary of his Britannic majesty, thinks himself obliged again to address himself to his excellency count Haugwitz, relative to the intention of his Prussian majesty in taking military possession of Cuxhaven. When the undersigned had the honour of transmitting to his excellency the verbal note of the 16th, it was not exactly known "that the Prussian vessel brought into that port had been restored." The fact being now certain, as well as the zeal manifested by the senate of Hamburg to fulfil the wishes of the king; the surprise and consternation excited from the moment when the orders for marching a detachment of troops were known, would be raised to their utmost height, if it were ascertained, that, notwithstanding the complete satisfaction given to his Prussian majesty on all the points respecting which he thought proper to complain, he should not appear less attached to his determination of causing Cuxhaven to be occupied by his troops. In fact, it appears at first sight that this occupation would be so calculated to give the most serious alarms to all commercial nations, that, without alluding to the interpretations which calumny might be desirous of giving to the measure, strong hopes are entertained from the justice and moderation of his Prussian majesty, for that reason only, that he will come to the resolution of not carrying it into effect.

The

The undersigned would not, however, think he had executed his duty, should he neglect to represent to his excellency the lively alarms which necessarily result from the uncertainty in which the affair remains. The reiterated assurances which the undersigned has received from his excellency of the friendship and good wishes of his Prussian majesty towards the king of Great Britain, do not allow him to believe that any misunderstand ing can arise between the two courts; but he cannot avoid thinking that the enemies of humanity and of public tranquillity will en deavour to turn to their purposes the alarm which is generally diffused, in order to scatter discord among the powers, which should all unite and maintain the safety and independence of Europe at large.

(Signed) CARYS FORT!

Answer of Count Haugwitz. The undersigned minister of state, and of the cabinet, is authorised by the orders of the king to completely tranquillise the anxieties and apprehensions which my lord Carysfort, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his Bris tannic majesty, expressed to him in his two notes of the 16th and 18th November. The Prussian vessel, the Triton, has, it is true, been restored to its owner; but the mode of release was, in every respect, as irregular as the proceedings which had previously taken place with respect to it; and after an examination of all the circumstances relative to the incident which forms the subject of complaint, there appears throughout the whole a manifest infraction of the principles of the neutrality of the north of Germany It is this superior consideratio

added to the unjust refusal of the magistracy of Hamburg, which dictated to the king the resolution of causing a body of his troops to occupy the port of Cuxhaven, and the bailiwick of Ritzebuttle. This measure was executed the moment it was determined upon, and it is no longer capable of being revoked, the example of what has taken place imposing on his majesty the necessity of effectually watching over the maintenance of that neutrality which he has guarantied to his co-estates. The king cannot imagine that his Britannic majesty, after participating, in his character of elector of Hanover, in the advantages and benefits of this happy neutrality, can conceive the smallest alarm at seeing a Prussian garrison enter into the port which England has fixed on as her point of communication with the north of Germany. Being thus placed under the immediate guarantee of the king, it will be the more effectually put out of the reach of all violation, and the troops of his majesty will have no other duty to perform than that of causing the laws of good order and equity to be respected. The utmost confidence may be placed in the prudent disposition of the reigning duke of Brunswick, who is invested with the command of the line of demarcation.

But, if more particular assurances be requisite upon this subject, the king feels a pleasure in giving them by the present communication to his Britannic majesty, and in declaring to him, in express and positive terms, that the present order of things will in no respect interrupt the freedom of commerce and navigation in the port of Cuxhaven; nor, above all, the continuation of the correspondence with England. On the contrary, the (I 4)

officer

officer commanding the troops of the king garrisoned in the bailiwick of Ritzebuttie, will make it his duty to give it every possible facility.

On the whole, the proceeding which the king has, from necessity, been obliged to follow, does not admit of any equivocal interpretation. It has no other object than the maintenance of the system of which he is the author and defender; and this object shall not be exceeded. His views and conduct have procured him the confidence of all Europe, and they never will be found inconsistent; and though it is not to be anticipated that the other powers will be disposed to misconceive the purity of his views in the present case, yet his majesty reserves to himself the privilege of explaining himself further and in a suitable manner to those who may be intitled to such explanation.

(Signed)

HAUGWITZ.

Nate I-Presented on the 27th Jan., 1801, by the English Ambassador at Berlin, Lord Carysfort, to His Excellency the Prussian State and Cabinet Minister, Count Von Haug

witz.

As the undersigned ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipo, tentiary has been directed by his court to communicate to the Prussian ministry his majesty's note, which, by command of his majesty the king of Great-Britain and IreJand, was presented to the ministers of Denmark and Sweden, he cannot discharge this commission, without likewise expressing his sincere satisfaction in being authorised to declare, how thoroughly his majesty is convinced that Prussia can never have sanctioned the measures which have given rise to the above recited note. Those measures openly disclose an intention to pre

scribe rules to the British empire on a subject of the greatest import. ance; to force those rules upon Great-Britain; and, for that end, before any of the powers who have concurred in it have given the smallest intimation to his majesty to enter into a league, the object of which is, to renew pretensions which Great-Britain at every time has considered hostile to its rights and interests, and so declared whenever an opportunity presentedpretensions which the Russian court has abandoned, not only in fact, but which, by a treaty actually in force, Russia is bound to oppose, and the execution of which treaty his majesty is entitled to insist upon.

When a ship of war belonging to his Danish majesty resisted by force the execution of a right, which the king of Great-Britain and Ireland, by virtue of the clearest and most express stipulations of his treaties with the court of Denmark, had demanded, his majesty on that occasion confined himself to the adoption of such measures as the protection of the trade of his subjects required to be given against that measure of hostility which this conduct on the part of an officer bearing his Danish majesty's com mission seemed to show. An amicable arrangement put an end to this dispute; and the king flattered himself, not only that ali misunderstanding on that subject was removed, but amity between the two courts was anew strengthened and confirmed.

In this situation of affairs his majesty must have learnt with no less astonishment than concern that the court of Copenhagen was employed in negotiations to renew the hostile confederacy against GreatBritain which took place in 1780,

and

and that also great preparations were going on in the ports of Denmark. Under these circumstances the king must have been compelled to call for explanations from the court of Denmark. At this moment he received information that a confederacy was signed at Peters burg; and the answer of the Danish minister left no doubt respecting the object and nature of this convention, as he declared in the most express manner" that these nego tiations had in view the renewal of those relations which had been entered into between the same pow. ers in the years 1780 and 1781," adding, "that his majesty the emperor of Russia had proposed to the northern powers the renewal of their connexion in its original form."

The engagements alluded to had for their object principles of maritime law which never had been recognised by the tribunals of Europe, and the contracting parties mutually engaged to maintain them by force, and to compel by force other nations to adopt them. They are still more repugnant to the express stipulations of the treaties which subsist between the courts of Stockholm and Denmark, and the British empire.

The convention which these engagements were to renew was negotiated at a time when the court of Petersburg had adopted hostile measures against the persons and property of his majesty's subjects, and when nothing but the extraordinary moderation of the king could have authorised other powers not to consider him as at open war with that court.

In such a state of things, nothing certainly could be more inconsistent with the idea of neutrality, and nothing more distinctly indicate a

hostile disposition, than that those engagements were not postponed till it was ascertained whether Russia was not to be considered as a belligerent power. Such forbearance was the more to be expected, and particularly from the court of Copenhagen, as, by an express article of the league of 1780, the Danish ports and havens in Norway were placed at the disposal of Russia for the purpose of facilitating the prosecution of hostilities out of the Baltic.

When therefore the king was informed by one of the contracting parties, that the object of the negotiations which had been begun at Petersburg, without giving the least intimation, and which at last, according to the information received by the king, had terminated in the conclusion of a convention, was no other than to renew the former confederacy to press upon his majesty a new code of law to which he had already refused his assent; and when moreover he had the most certain intelligence, and could no longer doubt that the powers of the Baltic, engaged in this transaction, were pursuing warlike preparations with the utmost activity; when one of those powers had placed itself in a state of actual hos tilities with his majesty; no other alternative remained but either to submit, or to adopt measures which were calculated to put an effectual stop to the hostile operation of a league which, by the declaration of the Danish court itself, was openly directed against his majesty.

Meanwhile his majesty has not omitted on this occasion to display his wonted justice and good-will. Although he felt it necessary, for the maintenance of his rights, to secure some pledge against the hostile attacks which were medi

tated

tated against his rights, yet he has taken the utmost care to guard against loss and injury to individuals.

Firmly convinced that his conduct towards neutral states has been conformable to the recognised principles of laws, whose basis and sanction is to be found, not in passing interests and momentary convenience, but in the general principle of justice; of laws which have been received and observed by the admiralty courts of all the maritime powers of Europe; his majesty does not yet forego the hope that the courts of Stockholm and Copenhagen will not take upon them the responsibility that will fall upon the authors of the war; that particularly they will not expose themselves to that responsibility for the introduction of innovations, the notorious injustice of which has induced those powers by which they were first broached to oppose them, when they found themselves at war; innovations, besides, which are expressly repugnant to those treaties which they have concluded with his majesty.

The step on which his majesty has resolved must have long been foreseen. The British government has never concealed that it considered the league of 1780 as hostile, and had never ceased that attention with which it watches over the rights of the nation. It immediately resisted the attempt to renew the principles which at the above-mentioned period had been agitated; and the undersigned declared to count Haugwitz, at the first conference he had with him on his arrival at Berlin, "that his majesty would never submit to pretensions which were irreconcilable to the true principles of publie law, and which strike at the foundations

of the greatness and maritime pow er of his kingdoms."

Still later, in the beginning of November, the undersigned had the honour to represent to his excellency, as the minister of a power connected with his majesty by the most intimate friendship, what disagreeable consequences must follow from the attempt of the northern powers to press forward those pretensions. He has never ceased to renew this declaration when, by the command of his majesty, he has been the interpreter of that satisfaction given to the king by the repeated assurances of the friendship of his majesty the king of Prussia, and of those constant sentiments of perfect justice of which his majesty has never for a moment entertained a doubt. His excellency count Haugwitz will likewise easily recollect the time when the undersigned, intimately convinced of the friendly intentions of the Prussian government, communicated to him, by the command of his Britanniq majesty, the king's resolution to allow of no measures which had for their object to introduce innovations in the maritime law now in force; but, on the contrary, to defend that system in every event, and to maintain its entire execu tion as it had subsisted in all the courts of Europe prior to the year 1780.

If the court of Denmark had announced in the most unequivocal manner the real objects and contents of the engagements into which it had entered, the declaration of that court, that Prussia was one of the powers concerned in the negotiation, would have been sufficient to satisfy the king, and to prove to him that it could have no hostile views against his government; and even still his majesty is

convinced

« AnteriorContinuar »