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convinced that he may implicitly jesty a new proof of his confidence

rely on the friendship of his Prussian majesty. It is true that, in relation to Great-Britain and Ireland, there can be no similarity between the northern powers and Prussia. Those powers are connected with his majesty by the stipulations of mutual treaties, which are less favourable to their interests, and which more or less modify and soften the rigour of the general law; whereas between his majesty the king of Great-Britain and Prussia no treaty of commerce exists, and all intercourse between them is regulated by the general principles of the law of nations, and established usages.

If, however, his majesty were to consider his own sentiments, and the incessant wish he has shown to preserve the friendship of a mon⚫ arch with whom he is connected by so many ties, he could not at all anticipate the possibility of a difference which might not easily and speedily be terminated by an amicable discussion. The repeated assurances of such sentiments on the part of his Prussian majesty, which the undersigned has been empowered to transmit to his court, confirm this agreeable anticipation; and the known principles which have constantly directed his majesty the king of Prussia, do not tend to countenance the supposition that the latter has entered into the confederacy, or can enter into the confederacy, to support by force principles in common with other powers, whose hostile views against his Britannic majesty have been openly proved.

The king, at the same time, while he has given it in charge to the undersigned to make these explanations, could have no other object than to give his Prussian ma

and particular respect; and he is firmly convinced that his majesty the king of Prussia will approve of his steady resolution to defend the rights and interests of his crown.

Nevertheless, whatever sentiments the Prussian government may entertain in regard to the new principles themselves, yet it is too just, and knows too well what sovereigns owe to their people, and to one another, to favour for a moment the design to employ force in order to induce his Britannic majesty to acknowledge a code which the latter deems inconsistent with the honour and security of his crown.

(Signed) CARYSFORT. Berlin, Jan. 27, 1801.

Note II. presented on the 1st of Feb.

1801, to His Excellency the State and Cabinet Minister, Count Haugwitz.

The undersigned ambassador extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of his Britannic majesty has the honour to address himself to count Haugwitz, by command of his court, in order to communicate to him the following particulars:

The spirit of patience and of moderation which prevails in the note of lord Grenville to count Kostopsin, will not escape the notice of his excelleney.

A solemn treaty between the two powers had given the respective subjects of each a complete se curity for the prosecution of their trade; and even in case of a rupture it had been agreed that not only no embargo should be laid, but that the subjects on both sides should have a whole year to carry

away

away their effects, and to arrange their affairs in the country..

Notwithstanding these sacred stipulations, the ships of British subjects in the Russian ports are detained, and their property, in an extraordinary manner, upon variQus 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 Kostopsin, in which his majesty stated his having appointed a commissary to superintend the safety and the wants of his unfortunate subjects; a circumstance which is usual even among the powers that are actually 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.

at war.

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 court of Saint Petersburg. The note of count Kostopsin 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. Petersburg; and the connexion between the extraordinary violence committed upon the person and property of his majesty's subjects, and 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 be tween 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.

N

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 fæderis as completely coming within those circumstances in which they stand; and that his Britannic majesty cannot doubt that Ire 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) CARYSFORT, Berlin, Feb. 1, 1801.

Note

Note transmitted on the 12th of February, by the Prussian Minister Count Haugwitz, to Lord Carysfort, the English Ambassador at Berlin. The undersigned, state and cabinet minister, has laid before his Prussian majesty the two notes which lord Carysfort, envoy extra ordinary 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 maritime 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" Whe

ther the northern courts had actually concluded the confederation which had been reported; and whether Prussia had acceded 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, authorised him to withhold any communications relative to himself and his allies, and contented himself with answering, that as he had seen without interforing the connexions which England had entered into without consulting him, he considered himself as entitled to the same confidence; and that if the king of Great-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 probably been attacked because it was not known, and which is far from having the offensive views of which the contracting parties have been arbitrarily accused.-They have expressly agreed that their measures 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 connexions 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 treaties which had been before concluded with any of the belligerent powers. It was also resolved that this determination should be candidly communicated to these powers, to prove the purity of the motives and views of the contracting parties. But England would not allow them time for this. Had she waited this confidential communication, she might have avoided those intemperate measures which threaten to spread still wider the flames of war. She might likewise have received satisfaction from the correspondence with Denmark, if, instead of dwelling on two detached passages copied into the first note of lord Carysfort, from the note of count Bernstorff of the 31st of December, the court of London had attended to the solemn declaration that "it could never be for a moment imagined that Denmark entertained any hostile projects against Great-Britain, or such as were inconsistent with the maintenance of a good understanding between the two powers; and that the court of Denmark congratulated itself on having obtained an opportunity to contradict such unfounded reports in the most positive manner."

This open and explicit declaration accorded with the assurances which the undersigned had more than once given to lord Carysfort on the same subject; and it is difficult to conceive, how the English court, could conclude, as it afterwards appeared that it did, from the note of the Danish minister, "that the convention of the contracting powers went to establish new principles of maritime law,

which had never been acknowledged by the tribunals of Europe, and the object of which was hostile to England."

The conclusion is totally false, and as little authorised by the answer of the Danish court as the undeserved accusation, that it pro posed" to excite a hostile confe deracy against Great-Britain, and with that view was employed in active preparations."

Never were measures more incontestably merely defensive than those of the court of Copenhagen; and the spirit of them will be less mistaken, when it is recollected what menacing demonstrations that court experienced on the part of the British government, in consequence of the affair of the frigate Freya, before it adopted those measures.

The arbitrary conduct of England on this occasion is naturally explained by the lofty pretensions she has so long advanced, and which have been several times renewed in the notes of lord Carysfort, at the expence of all the maritime and commercial powers. The British government has, in the present more than in any former war, assumed to itself the sovereignty of the sea, and has arbitrarily formed a maritime code, which it is extremely difficult to reconcile with the true principles of the law of nations: it exercises over friendly and neutral powers a usurped jurisdiction, which it maintains to be just, and endeavours to represent as an indefeasible law sanctioned by all the tribunals of Europe.

Never have the sovereigns of England permitted their subjects to be made amenable to this law, in the numerous cases when the abuse of power has transgressed the limits of justice. The neutral powers

have made the strongest remonstrances and protestations; but experience has shown that these are generally without effect. It is not therefore surprising, that after so many and repeated injuries they should have had recourse to a measure which may prevent them in future, and with that view have entered into a well concerted alliance, which may define their rights, and place them in a proper relation to the belligerent pow

ers.

The maritime alliance, as it has been consolidated, will lead to this salutary object, and the king makes no difficulty to declare to his Britannic majesty, that he has found in it his own principles, that he is intimately convinced of its necessity and utility, and that he has formally acceded to the convention which was concluded between the courts of Russia, Denmark, aud Sweden, on the 16th of December last: his majesty is therefore among the number of the contracting powers, and as such is obliged not only to take a direct part in all events which may interest the affairs of the neutral states, but is bound to support that convention by such vigorous measures as the course of circumstances may require.

The note of lord Carysfort refers to a subject relative to which his majesty conceives he is not obliged to answer, nor even has aright to form an opinion. Disputes exist between the courts of London and Petersburg, which in no manner have connexion with that to which the above-mentioned minister has endeavoured to unite them. But as much as the conduct of Prussia has been hitherto guided by the

most unexceptionable impartiality, it will be equally guided by a respect for the alliances which are a proof of it. Stipulations which contain in themselves nothing hostile, and which the security of his subjects prescribed to him, bind him to have recourse to all the means which providence has placed in his power.

As unpleasant as the extremities are to which England has proceeded, the king entertains no doubt of the possibility of a speedy return to conciliatory and pacific dispositions; and in this respect confides in the sentiments of justice which he has so often had the happiness to experience on other occasions from his Britannic majesty.

Only by the recall and entire taking of of the embargo can things be restored to their former state; and England must judge whether she will consent to afford the neutral powers this means of proceeding to the overtures which they are ready to make.-But as long as those measures shall continue, which were adopted from hatred to a common principle, and against an alliance no longer to be feared, the hostile determination which must be the consequence will be the necessary result of the treaty; and the undersigned has it in command to declare to the minister of his Britannic majesty, that the king, while he testifies his concern at the circumstances that have occurred, and which he has never occasioned, will fulfil, in the most sacred manner, the obligations imposed on him by treaties.

The undersigned, while he executes this command, has the honour to assure lord Carysfort of his high esteem. (Signed)

Berlin, Feb. 12.

HAUGWITZ.

Note

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