uld remain excluded from neutral continental ports
unless Great Britain not only withdrew the Orders in Council, but
relinquished prescriptive rights upon which, in war, depended her
position in the world.

In declining to repeal, Great Britain referred to her past record in
proof of consistency. In the first communication of the Orders in
Council, February 23, 1808,[326] Erskine had written, "I am commanded
by his Majesty especially to represent to the Government of the United
States the earnest desire of his Majesty to see the commerce _of the
world_ restored once more to that freedom which is necessary for its
prosperity, and his readiness to abandon the system which has been
forced upon him, _whenever the enemy shall retract the principles_
which have rendered it necessary." The British envoy in these
sentences reproduced _verbatim_ the instructions he had received,[327]
and the words italicized bar expressly the subsequent contention of
the United States, that revocation by one party as to one nation,
irrespective of the rest _of the world_, and that in practice only,
not in principle, entitled the nation so favored to revocation by the
other party. They exclude therefore, by all the formality of written
words at a momentous instant, the singular assertion of the American
Government, in 1811, that Great Britain had pledged herself to proceed
"_pari passu_"[328] with France in the revocation of their respective
acts. As far as can be ascertained, the origin of this confident
assumption is to be found in letters of February 18 and 19, 1808,[329]
from Madison, then Secretary of State, to Armstrong and Pinkney. In
these he says that Erskine, in communicating the Orders,[330]
expressed his Majesty's regrets, and "assurances that his Majesty
would readily follow the example, in case the Berlin Decree should be
rescinded, or would proceed _pari passu_ with France in relaxing the
rigor of their measures." By whichever of the colloquists the
expression was used, the contrast between this report of an interview
and the official letter quoted sufficiently shows the snare latent in
conversations, and the superior necessity of relying upon written
communications, to which informal talk only smooths the way. On the
very day of Madison's writing to Armstrong, February 18, the Advocate
General, who may be presumed to have understood the purposes of the
Government, was repudiating such a construction in the House of
Commons. "Even