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were taking a part on the side of the rebels. Surely England herself has not regarded persons thus engaged as deserving the appellation which Her Majesty's Government bestows on these citizens of the United States.

It is quite notorious that, for the greater part of the last two centuries, subjects of the British Crown have been permitted to engage in foreign wars, both national and civil, and in the latter in every stage, of their progress; and yet it has not been imagined that England has at any time allowed her subjects to turn pirates. Indeed, in our own times, not only have individual subjects of that Crown gone abroad to engage in civil wars, but we have seen whole regiments openly recruited, imbodied, armed, and disciplined, in England, with the avowed purpose of aiding a rebellion against a nation with which England was at peace; although it is true that, subsequently, an Act of Parliament was passed to prevent transactions so nearly approaching to public war, without license from the Crown.

It may be said that there is a difference between the case of a civil war arising from a disputed succession, or a protracted revolt of a colony against the mother country, and the case of the fresh outbreak or commencement of a rebellion. The Undersigned does not deny that such distinction may, for certain purposes, be deemed well founded. He admits that a Government, called upon to consider its own rights, interests, and duties, when civil wars break out in other countries, may decide on all the circumstances of the particular case upon its own existing stipulations, on probable results, on what its own security requires, and on many other considerations. It may be already bound to assist one party, or it may become bound, if it so chooses, to assist the other, and to meet the consequences of such assistance.

But whether the revolt be recent or long continued they who join those concerned in it, whatever may be their offence against their own country, or however they may be treated, if taken with arms in their hands in the territory of the Government against which the standard of revolt is raised, cannot be denominated pirates, without departing from all ordinary use of language in the definition of offences. A cause which has so foul an origin as piracy cannot, in its progress, or by its success, obtain a claim to any degree of respectability or tolerance among nations; and civil wars, therefore, are not understood to have such a commencement.

It is well known to Mr. Fox, that authorities of the highest eminence in England, living and dead, have maintained that the general law of nations does not forbid the citizens or subjects of one Government from. taking part in the civil commotions of another. There is some reason, indeed, to think that such may be the opinion of Her Majesty's Government at the present moment.

The Undersigned has made these remarks from the conviction that it is important to regard established distinctions, and to view the acts and offences of individuals in the exactly proper light. But it is not to be inferred that there is, on the part of this Government, any purpose of extenuating, in the slightest degree, the crimes of those persons, citizens. of the United States, who have joined in military expeditions against the British Government in Canada. On the contrary, the President directs the Undersigned to say that it is his fixed resolution that all such disturbers of the national peace, and violators of the laws of their country, shall be brought to exemplary punishment. Nor will the fact that they are instigated and led on to these excesses by British subjects, refugees from the provinces, be deemed any excuse or palliation; although it is well worthy of being remembered, that the prime movers of these disturbances on the borders are subjects of the Queen, who come within the territories of the United States, seeking to enlist the sympathies of their citizens, by all the motives which they are able to address to them, on account of grievances, real or imaginary. There is no reason to believe that the design of any hostile movement from the United States against Canada has commenced with citizens of the United States. The true origin of such purposes and such enterprizes is on the other side of the line,

But the President's resolution to prevent these transgressions of the laws is not, on that account, the less strong. It is taken, not only in conformity to his duty, under the provisions of existing laws, but in full consonance with the established principles and practice of this Government.

The Government of the United States has not, from the first, fallen into the doubts, elsewhere entertained, of the true extent of the duties of neutrality. It has held that, however it may have been in less enlightened ages, the just interpretation of the modern law of nations is, that neutral: States are bound to be strictly neutral; and that it is a manifest and gross impropriety for individuals to engage in the civil conflicts of other States, and thus to be at war while their Government is at peace. War and peace are high national relations, which can properly be established or changed only by nations themselves.

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The United States have thought, also, that the salutary doctrine of non-intervention by one nation with the affairs of others is liable to be essentially impaired, if while Government refrains from interference, interference is still allowed to its subjects, individually or in masses. may happen, indeed, that persons choose to leave their country, emigrate to other regions, and settle themselves on uncultivated lands in territories belonging to other States. This cannot be prevented by Governments which allow the emigration of their subjects and citizens; and such persons, having voluntarily abandoned their own country, have no longer claim to its protection, nor is it longer responsible for their acts. Such cases, therefore, if they occur, show no abandonment of the duty of neutrality.

The Government of the United States has not considered it as sufficient to confine the duties of neutrality and non-interference to the case of Governments whose territories lie adjacent to each other. The application of the principle may be more necessary in such cases, but the principle itself they regard as being the same, if those territories be divided by half the globe. The rule is founded in the impropriety and danger of allowing individuals to make war on their own authority, or, by mingling themselves in the belligerent operations of other nations, to run the hazard of counteracting the policy or embroiling the relations of their own Government. And the United States have been the first among civilized: nations to enforce the observance of this just rule of neutrality and peace, by special and adequate legal enactments. In the infancy of this Government, on the breaking out of the European wars which had their origin in the French Revolution, Congress passed laws, with severe penalties, for preventing the citizens of the United States from taking part in those hostilities.

By these laws it prescribed to the citizens of the United States what it understood to be their duty as neutrals, by the law of nations, and the duty also which they owed to the interest and honour of their own country.

At a subsequent period, when the American colonies of an European Power took up arms against their Sovereign, Congress, not diverted from the established system of the Government by any temporary considerations, not swerved from its sense of justice and of duty by any sympathies which it might naturally feel for one of the parties, did not hesitate also to pass acts applicable to the case of colonial insurrection and civil war. And these provisions of law have been continued, revised, amended, and are in full force at the present moment. Nor have they been a dead letter, as it is well known that exemplary punishments have been inflicted on those who have transgressed them. It is known, indeed, that heavy penalties have fallen on individuals (citizens of the United States) engaged in this very disturbance in Canada with which the destruction of the "Caroline" was connected. And it is in Mr. Fox's knowledge also,' that the Act of Congress of 10th March, 1838, was passed for the precise: purpose of more effectually restraining military enterprises from the United States into the British provinces, by authorizing the use of the most sure and decisive preventive means. The Undersigned may add, that it stands on the admission of very high British authority, that during

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the recent Canadian troubles, although bodies of adventurers appeared on the border, making it necessary for the people of Canada to keep themselves in a state prepared for self-defence, yet that these adventurers were acting by no means in accordance with the feeling of the great mass of the American people or of the Government of the United States.

This Government, therefore, not only holds itself above reproach in everything respecting the preservation of neutrality, the observance of the principle of non-intervention, and the strictest conformity, in these respects, to the rules of international law, but it doubts not that the world will do it the justice to acknowledge that it has set an example not unfit to be followed by others; and that, by its steady legislation on this most important subject, it has done something to promote peace and good neighbourhood among nations, and to advance the civilization of mankind.

The Undersigned trusts that, when Her Britannic Majesty's Government shall present the grounds, at length, on which they justify the local authorities of Canada in attacking and destroying the "Caroline," they will consider that the laws of the United States are such as the Undersigned has now represented them, and that the Government of the United States has always manifested a sincere disposition to see those laws effectually and impartially administered. If there have been cases in which individuals, justly obnoxious to punishment, have escaped, this is no more than happens in regard to other laws.

Under these circumstances, and under those immediately connected with the transaction itself, it will be for Her Majesty's Government to show upon what state of facts, and what rules of national law, the destruction of the "Caroline" is to be defended. It will be for that Government to show a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation. It will be for it to show also that the local authorities of Canada, even supposing the necessity of the moment authorized them to enter the territories of the United States at all, did nothing unreasonable or excessive, since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defence, must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it. It must be shown that admonition or remonstrance to the persons on board the "Caroline" was impracticable, or would have been unavailing. It must be shown that daylight could not be waited for; that there could be no attempt at discrimination between the innocent and the guilty; that it would not have been enough to seize and detain the vessel; but that there was a necessity, present and inevitable, for attacking her in the darkness of the night, while moored to the shore, and while unarmed men were asleep on board, killing some and wounding others, and then drawing her into the current above the cataract, setting her on fire, and careless to know whether there might not be in her the innocent with the guilty, or the living with the dead, committing her to a fate which fills the imagination with horror. A necessity for all this, the Government of the United States cannot believe to have existed.

All will see that if such things be allowed to occur, they must lead to bloody and exasperated war. And when an individual comes into the United States from Canada, and to the very place on which this drama was performed, and there chooses to make public and vain-glorious boast of the part he acted in it, it is hardly wonderful that great excitement should be created, and some degree of commotion arise.

This republic does not wish to disturb the tranquillity of the world; its object is peace, its policy peace. It seeks no aggrandizement by foreign conquest, because it knows that no foreign acquisitions could augment its power and importance so rapidly as they are already advaneing by its own natural growth, under the propitious circumstances of its situation. But it cannot admit that its Government has not both the will and the power to preserve its own neutrality, and to enforce the observance of its own laws upon its own citizens. It is jealous of its rights, and among others, and most especially, of the right of the absolute immunity of its territory against aggression from abroad; and these rights it is the duty and determination of this Government fully and at all times to maintain, while it will at the same time as scrupulously refrain from infringing on the rights of others.

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The President instructs the Undersigned to say, in conclusion, that he confidently trusts that this, and all other questions of difference between the two Governments, will be treated by both in the full exercise of such a spirit of candour, justice, and mutual respect, as shall give assurance of the long continuance of peace between the two countries.

Inclosure 2 in No. 1.

Extract from the Message of the President to Congress at the
commencement of its present session.

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I REGRET that it is not in my power to make known to you an equally satisfactory conclusion in the case of the "Caroline" steamer, with the circumstances connected with the destruction of which, in December, 1837, by an armed force fitted out in the province of Upper Canada, you are already made acquainted. No such atonement as was due for the public wrong done to the United States by this invasion of her territory, so wholly irreconcileable with her rights as an independent Power, has yet been made. In the view taken by this Government, the inquiry whether the vessel was in the employment of those who were prosecuting an unauthorized war against that province, or was engaged by the owner in the business of transporting passengers to and from Navy Island, in hopes of private gain, which was most probably the case, in no degree alters the real question at issue between the two Governments. This Government can never concede to any foreign Government the power, except in a case of the most urgent and extreme necessity, of invading its territory, either to arrest the persons or destroy the property of those who may have violated the municipal laws of such foreign Government, or have disregarded their obligations arising under the law of nations. The territory of the United States must be regarded as sacredly secure against all such invasions, until they shall voluntarily acknowledge inability to acquit themselves of their duties to others; and, in announcing this sentiment, I do but affirm a principle which no nation 'on earth would be more ready to vindicate, at all hazards, than the people and Government of Great Britain. If, upon a full investigation of all the facts, it shall appear that the owner of the "Caroline" was governed by a hostile intent, or had made common cause with those who were in the occupancy of Navy Island, then, so far as he is concerned, there can be no claim to indemnity for the destruction of his boat, which this Government would feel itself bound to prosecute, since he would have acted not only in derogation of the rights of Great Britain, but in clear violation of the laws of the United States. But that is a question which, however settled, in no manner involves the higher consideration of the violation of territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction. To recognize it as an admissible practice, that each Government, in its turn, upon any sudden and unauthorized outbreak, which on a frontier the extent of which renders it impossible for either to have an efficient force on every mile of it, and which outbreak, therefore, neither may be able to suppress in a day, may take vengeance into its own hands, and without even a remonstrance, and in the absence of any pressing or overruling necessity, may invade the territory of the other, would inevitably lead to results equally to be deplored by both. When border collisions come to receive the sanction or to be made on the authority of either Government, general war must be the inevitable result. While it is the ardent desire of the United States to cultivate the relations of peace with all nations, and to fulfil all the duties of good neighbourhood towards those who possess territories adjoining their own, that very desire would lead them to deny the right of any foreign Power to invade their boundary with an armed 'force. The correspondence between the two Governments on this subject will, at a future day of your session, be submitted to your consideration;

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and, in the mean time, I cannot but indulge the hope that the British Government will see the propriety of renouncing, as a rule of future action, the precedent which has been set in the affair at Schlosser.

Sir,

No. 2.

Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster..

Washington, July 28, 1842.

IN the course of our conferences on the several subjects of difference which it was the object of my mission to endeavour to settle, the unfortunate case of the "Caroline," with its attendant consequences, could not escape our attention; for although it is not of a description to be susceptible of any settlement by a convention or treaty, yet being connected with the highest considerations of national honour and dignity, it has given rise at times to deep excitement, so as more than once to endanger the maintenance of peace.

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The note you did me the honour of addressing me the 27th instant, reminds me that however disposed your Government might be to be satisfied with the explanations which it has been my duty to offer, the natural anxiety of the public mind requires that these explanations should be more durably recorded in our correspondence, and you send me a copy of your note to Mr. Fox, Her Britannic Majesty's Minister here, and an extract from the speech of the President of the United States to Congress at the opening of the present session, as a ready mode of presenting the view entertained on this subject by the Government of the United States. It is so far satisfactory to perceive that we are perfectly agreed as to the general principles of international law applicable to this unfortunate case. Respect for the inviolable character of the territory of independent nations is the most essential foundation of civilization. It is useless to strengthen a principle so generally acknowledged by any appeal to authorities on international law, and you may be assured, Sir, that Her Majesty's Government set the highest possible value on this principle, and are sensible of their duty to support it by their conduct and example for the maintenance of peace and order in the world. If a sense of moral responsibility were not a sufficient surety for their observance of this duty towards all nations, it will be readily believed that the most common dictates of interest and policy would lead to it in the case of a long conterminous boundary of some thousand miles with a country of such great and growing power as the United States of America, inhabited by a kindred race, gifted with all its activity and all its susceptibility on points of national honour.

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Every consideration therefore leads us to set as highly as your Government can possibly do, this paramount obligation of reciprocal respect for the independent territory of each. But, however strong this duty may be, it is admitted by all writers, by all jurists, by the occasional practice of all nations, not excepting your own, that a strong overpowering necessity may arise when this great principle may and must be suspended. It must be so, for the shortest possible period during the continuance of an admitted overruling necessity, and strictly confined within the narrowest limits imposed by that necessity. Selfdefence is the first law of our nature, and it must be recognized by every code which professes to regulate the condition and relations of man. Upon this modification, if I may so call it, of the great general principle, we seem also to be agreed; and on this part of the subject I have done little more than repeat the sentiments, though in less forcible language, admitted and maintained by you in the letter to which you refer me.

Agreeing, therefore, on the general principle and on the possible exception to which it is liable, the only question between us is, whether this occurrence came within the limits fairly to be assigned to such exceptions: whether, to use your words, there was "that necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means" which preceded the destruction of the" Caroline" while moored to the shore of the United

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