Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/348

 *wards was shown that when they proclaimed the declaration of war, and the extreme measure of issuing "letters of marque," they were actually in possession of the report of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs of the 12th of March, 1812, promulgating anew the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as fundamental laws of the French empire, under the false pretext that their monstrous principles were found in the treaty of Utrecht, and were therefore binding upon all nations. Indeed the whole intrigue seems to have been a masterpiece of perfidy, and their reasons for war were so untenable that the Americans, in their speeches and diatribes, were compelled to make the most of the English impressment system and the original blockade of 1806, which they denounced as a paper blockade, perhaps conscious that if they had made a treaty with Napoleon, the blockade of the French coasts might have proved a fresh obstacle to their monopolizing the whole trade of the continent, under the colour of a neutral flag.

An impartial perusal of all the documents relating to this rupture makes the inimical disposition of the government of the United States, their complete subserviency to the ruler of France, and their hostile temper against Great Britain conspicuous in every page of their official correspondence with the French government. England might well say that she looked for a different result. From their common