ENGLISH NEUTRALITY. During the past twelve months, numerous and notorious acts, in breach of those obligations of neutrality which are due from a friendly nation to another engaged in war, have been perpetrated against us by the British government and people. The action of our government touching these grave matters, has been forbearing, although firm, and in all respects admirable, in contrast with the action and language of England herself in former times, under circumstances differing from the present only in the respect that, from the character of this war, our claim to the observance of strict neutrality is stronger than hers has, or could ever have been. The public journals of England announce that, far from any cessation of this evil industry, the arming and equipping of vessels to cruise against our commerce is going on with increased energy, and with such lack of disguise, that we are forced to consider the councils of that country as wanting in capacity or good faith. But little knowledge of international history is requisite to decide upon which horn of the dilemma to locate the probability. Under such a state'of facts, it is time that the people at large were led to consider, in the light of history and law, the exact character and limitation of their rights in such cases. That code which, under the general name of the Law of Nations, is admitted to control the conduct of states toward each other, ought to be, and, as defined by the publicists, is founded upon the most elevated considerations of morals, justice, equity, and convenience. In this dignified system, under which nations act in view of all the world, it is the substance, rather than the form of things, which is regarded; and those small technicalities which, in municipal systems, often impede the course of justice, are rightly disregarded. The relation of neutrality which arises under the law of nations is declared by Phillimore, the latest and best English writer
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