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 mo ment 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 con vention, 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 powers 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 en gagements were to renew was ne gotiated 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 bave 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 hostilities 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 public law, and which strike at the foundations

of the greatness and maritime power 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 Britannic majesty, the king's resolution ta allow of no measures which had for their object to introduce innovations in the maritime law now in force; but, on the contrary, to de, fend that system in every event, and to maintain its entire execution 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 govern ment; and even still his majesty is convinced

1

convinced that he may implicitly 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 be tween his majesty the king of Great-Britain and Prussia no treaty of commerce exists, and all intere course 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 moparch 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

jesty a new proof of his confidence and particular respect; and he is firmly cenvinced 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 which the latter deems inconsistent with the honour and security of his

crown.

(Signed) CARYSPORT. 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 ex traordinary 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 excellency.

A solemn treaty between the two powers had given the respective subjects of each a complete security 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 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 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 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 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 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) 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 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 mea sures 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 re spect 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 interfering the con- . nexions 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 modification: