United States takes it for granted that the
approach of American merchantmen to neutral ports situated upon the long
line of coast affected by the Order in Council will not be interfered
with when it is known that they do not carry goods which are contraband
of war or goods destined to or proceeding from ports within the
belligerent territory affected.

The Government of the United States assumes with the greater confidence
that his Majesty's Government will thus adjust their practice to the
recognized rules of international law because it is manifest that the
British Government have adopted an extraordinary method of "stopping
cargoes destined for or coming from the enemy's territory," which, owing
to the existence of unusual conditions in modern warfare at sea, it will
be difficult to restrict to the limits which have been heretofore
required by the law of nations. Though the area of operations is
confined to "European waters, including the Mediterranean," so great an
area of the high seas is covered and the cordon of ships is so distant
from the territory affected that neutral vessels must necessarily pass
through the blockading force in order to reach important neutral ports
which Great Britain as a belligerent has not the legal right to blockade
and which, therefore, it is presumed she has no intention of claiming to
blockade.

The Scandinavian and Danish ports, for example, are open to American
trade. They are also free, so far as the actual enforcement of the Order
in Council is concerned, to carry on trade with German Baltic ports,
although it is an essential element of blockade that it bear with equal
severity upon all neutrals.

This Government, therefore, infers that the commanders of his Majesty's
ships of war, engaged in maintaining the so-called blockade, will be
instructed to avoid an enforcement of the proposed measures of
non-intercourse in such a way as to impose restrictions upon neutral
trade more burdensome than those which have been regarded as inevitable,
when the ports of a belligerent are actually blockaded by the ships of
its enemy.

The possibilities of serious interruption of American trade under the
Order in Council are so many, and the methods proposed are so unusual,
and seem liable to constitute so great an impediment and embarrassment
to neutral commerce, that the Government of the United States, if the
Order in Council is strictly enforced, apprehends many interferences
with its le