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 asked the House of Commons whether they would tamely suffer the country to be borne down by the hostility of the northern powers, or "would submissively allow those powers to abuse and kick it out of its rights?" He declared that the four northern nations had leagued together to produce a code of maritime laws in defiance of the established law of nations, at the same time strenuously denying that "free bottoms make free goods," an opinion in which he was supported by Mr. Fox.

England accordingly insisted upon seizing enemy's merchandise wherever it could be found, maintaining the principle that contraband of war included naval and military stores, indeed everything which could give succour to an enemy; and, though she admitted that ports ought to be considered in a state of blockade only when it was unsafe to enter them, she repudiated utterly the pretended right claimed by the neutral powers, that no vessel under convoy could be searched. "If," exclaimed Mr. Pitt, "we subscribe to the doctrines laid down by the neutral powers, a small armed sloop would suffice to convoy the trade of the whole world. England would lose her own trade, and could not take any steps against the trade of her enemies. She could no longer prevent Spain from receiving the precious metals of the New World, nor preclude France from obtaining the naval munitions of war supplied by the North. Rather than thus sacrifice our naval greatness at the shrine of Russia, it were better to envelop ourselves in our own flag, and proudly find our grave in the deep, than admit the validity