22 ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. dared, and, shortly after, was changed into a passenger-ship, and plied between this port and Galway, as the “ Indian Empire.” (Letter of Leopold Bierwith, Esq., pub. by N. Y. Chamb. of Com., 1863.) Thus stands the record of American neutrality. History may be fairly challenged to show another instance of such magnanimity, consistency, and fairness. Should we examine thoroughly the record of Great Britain upon this matter of maritime neutrality, it would be found entirely consistent on one point—“Britannia rules the waves.” To express the probable reasons for whatever inconsistencies on other points history might discover, would necessitate harsh allusions to that national greed and arrogance which the traditions of mankind have ascribed to the insular kingdom. And since it is not the purpose of this discussion to revive memories of past misconduct, but instead, to discover the true, legal, and moral ’obligations which bind nations as they may be derived from instances of past good conduct, it will be necessary to cite but two cases—and those the most notable—in which Great Britain has been called upon to declare her understanding of what true neutrality consists in. It will be seen that in one case she demands, and in the other performs, neutrality. The first instance has special relation to rebellion, being the protest of England against the clandestine assistance which France permitted her citizens to give the revolted American colonies, or rather her statement of reasons justifying war upon France for that cause. The written statement of these just grounds of war is found in the celebrated Memoire Justificatif understood to have been prepared for the king by the historian Gibbon. But for the proper names and dates there given, one might suppose that Mr. Gibbon, with prophetic foresight, had prepared this document for presentation by Mr. Adams to the English government of the present day.* * The following extracts are made from the Memoire Justificatif, which may be found printed in full in the British Annual Register for 1779, vol. xxii., p. 404. “An enterprise so vain and so difficult as that of hiding from the eyes of Great Britain and of all Europe the proceedings of a commercial company associated for furnishing the Americans with whatever could nourish and maintain the fire of a revolt, was not attempted. The informed public named the chief of the enterprise, wh >se house was established at Paris: his correspondents at Dunkirk, Nantz, and Bordeaux, were equally known. The immense magazines which they formed, and which they replenished every day, were laden in ships that they built or bought, and they scarcely dissembled their objects or the place of their destination. These vessels commonly took false clearances for the French islands in America, but the commodities which composed their cargoes were sufficient before the time of their
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