bound to some port. And these were followed by her orders of
council, forbidding every nation to go to the port of any other, without
coming first to some port of Great Britain, there paying a tribute to
her, regulated by the cargo, and taking from her a license to proceed to
the port of destination; which operation the vessel was to repeat with
the return cargo on its way home. According to these orders, we could
not send a vessel from St. Mary's to St. Augustine, distant six hour's
sail, on our own coast, without crossing the Atlantic four times, twice
with the outward cargo, and twice with the inward. She found this
too daring and outrageous for a single step, retracted as to certain
articles of commerce, but left it in force as to others which constitute
important branches of our exports. And finally, that her views may no
longer rest on inference, in a recent debate, her minister declared in
open parliament, that the object of the present war is a monopoly of
commerce.

In some of these atrocities, France kept pace with her fully in
speculative wrong, which her impotence only shortened in practical
execution. This was called retaliation by both; each charging the other
with the initiation of the outrage. As if two combatants might retaliate
on an innocent bystander, the blows they received from each other. To
make war on both would have been ridiculous. In order, therefore, to
single out an enemy, we offered to both, that if either would revoke
its hostile decrees, and the other should refuse, we would interdict all
intercourse whatever with that other; which would be war of course, as
being an avowed departure from neutrality. France accepted the offer,
and revoked her decrees as to us. England not only refused, but declared
by a solemn proclamation of her Prince Regent, that she would not revoke
her orders even as to us, until those of France should be annulled as to
the whole world. We thereon declared war, and with abundant additional
cause.

In the mean time, an examination before parliament of the ruinous
effects of these orders on her own manufacturers, exposing them to the
nation and to the world, their Prince issued a palinodial proclamation,
suspending the orders on certain conditions, but claiming to renew them
at pleasure, as a matter of right. Even this might have prevented the
war, if done and known here before its declaration. But the sword being
once drawn, the expense of arming incurred, and hosti