Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/94

84 is not adopted with a view to injure the neutrals, but to injure the enemy." Perhaps Perceval felt that this argument might lead too far, and that on such a doctrine England might appropriate the world on every declaration of war; for in the next paragraph he pleaded the particular war in which England was actually engaged as his warranty:


 * "When an enemy arises who declares to all the world that he will trample upon the law of nations, and hold at nought all the privileges of neutral nations when they do not suit his belligerent interests; and when by the great extent of his power he is enabled in great measure to act up to his declaration,—it is evident that if those Powers with which he is at war should continue to hold themselves bound to rules and obligations of which he will not acknowledge the force, they cannot carry on the contest on equal terms. And the neutral who would control their hostility by those rules and laws which their enemy refuses to recognize, and which such neutral does not compel that enemy to observe, ceases to be a neutral by ceasing to observe that impartiality which is the very life and soul of neutrality."

This allegation differed from the first. Perceval began by maintaining that England possessed a right, if she chose, to suppress the existence of America or of any other neutral, provided the suppression were consequential on an intent to injure France. He next argued that the existence of America might be equally suppressed because she had not yet succeeded in compelling France to observe neutral