iple. But the general insistence of his
Government upon obtaining from Great Britain acknowledgment of right
was so strong that he could not accept Fox's suggestion. The British
Minister, forced along the lines of his predecessors by the logic of
the situation, then took higher ground. "He proceeded to insist that,"
to break the continuity of the voyage, "our vessels which should be
engaged in that commerce must enter our ports, their cargoes be
landed, and the duties paid."[126] This was the full extent of Pitt's
requirements, as of the rulings of the British Admiralty Court; and
made the regulation of transactions in an American port depend upon
the decisions of British authorities. Monroe unhesitatingly rejected
the condition, and their interview ended, leaving the subject where it
had been. The British Cabinet then took matters into its own hands,
and without further communication with Monroe adopted a practical
solution, which removed the particular contention from the field of
controversy by abandoning the existing measures, but without any
expression as to the question of right or principle, which by this
tacit omission was reserved. Unfortunately for the wishes of both
parties, this recourse to opportunism, for such it was, however
ameliorative of immediate friction, resulted in a further series of
quarrels; for the new step of the British Government was considered by
the American to controvert international principles as much cherished
by it as the right to the colonial trade.

Monroe's interview was on April 25. On May 17 he received a letter
from Fox, dated May 16, notifying him that, in consequence of certain
new and extraordinary means resorted to by the enemy for distressing
British commerce, a retaliatory commercial blockade was ordered of the
coast of the continent, from the river Elbe to Brest. This blockade,
however, was to be absolute, against all commerce, only between the
Seine and Ostend. Outside of those limits, on the coast of France west
of the Seine, and those of France, Holland, and Germany east of
Ostend, the rights of capture attaching to blockades would be forborne
in favor of neutral vessels, bound in, which had not been laden at a
port hostile to Great Britain; or which, going out, were not destined
to such hostile port.[127] No discrimination was made against the
character of the cargo, except as forbidden by generally recognized
laws of war. This omission tacitly allowed the colonial tr