As to the principle of retaliation, it is founded on the just and natural right of self defence against our enemy; if France is unable to enforce her Decrees on the ocean, it is not from the want of will, for she enforces them wherever she can do it; her threats are only empty where her power is of no avail.

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In the view you have taken of the conduct of America, in her relations with the two belligerents, and in the conclusion you draw with respect to the impartiality of your country, as exemplified in the non-importation law, ment to say I cannot agree with you. That act is a direct measure against the British trade, enacted at a time when all the legal authorities in the United States appeared ready to contest the statement of a repeal of the French Decrees, on which was founded the President's proclamation of November 2d, and consequently to dispute the justice of the proclamation itself.

You urge, sir, that the British government promised to proceed pari passu with France in the repeal of her Edicts. It is to be wished you could point out to us any step France has taken in repeal of hers. Great-Britain has repeatedly declared that she would repeal when the French did so, and she means to keep to that declaration.

I have stated to you that we could not consider the letter of August 5, declaring the repeal of the French Edicts, providing we revoked our Orders in Council, or America resented our not doing so, as a step of that nature; and the French government knew that we could not; their object was evidently while their system was adhered to, in all its rigor, to endeavor to persuade the American government that they had relaxed from it, and to induce her to proceed in enforcing the submission of Great-Britain to the inordinate demands of France. It is to be lamented that they have but too well succeeded; for the United States government appear to have considered the French Declaration in the sense in which France wished it to be taken, as an absolute repeal of her Decrees, without adverting to the conditional terms which accompanied it.

But you assert that no violations of your neutral rights by France occur on the high seas, and that these were all the violations alluded to in the act of Congress of May, 1810. I readily believe, indeed, that such cases are rare, but

it is owing to the preponderance of the British navy that they are so; when scarce a ship under the French flag cam venture to sea without being taken, it is not extraordinary that they make no captures. If such violatious alone were within the purview of your law, there would seem to have been no necessity for its enactment. The British navy might have been safely trusted for the prevention of this occurrence. But I have always believed and my government has believed, that the American legislators had in view in the provision of their law as it respects France, not only her deeds of violence on the seas, but all the novel and extraordinary pretensions and practices of her government which infringed their neutral rights.

We have had no evidence as yet of any of those pretensions being abandoned. To the ambiguous declaration in Mr. Champagny's note is opposed the unambiguous and personal declaration of Bonaparte himself. You urge that there is nothing incompatible with the revocation of the Decrees in respect to the United States, in his expressions to the deputies from the free cities of Hamburgh, Bremen, and Lubeck, that it is distinctly stated in that speech, that the blockade of the British Islands shall cease when the British blockude shall cease, and that the French blockade shall cease in favor of those nations in whose favor GreatBritain revokes hers or who support their rights against her pretensions.

It is to be inferred from this and the corresponding parts of the declaration alluded to, that unless Great-Britain sacrifices her principles of blockade, which are those authorized by the established laws of nations, France will still maintain her Decrees of Berlin and Milan, which indeed, the speech in question declares to be the fundamental laws of the French empire.

I do not, I confess, conceive how these avowals of the ruler of France, can be said to be compatible with the repeal of his Decrees in respect to the United States. If the United States are prepared to insist on the sacrifices by Great-Britain of the ancient and established rules of maritime war practised by her, then indeed they may avoid the operation of the French Decrees, but otherwise, according to this document, it is very clear that they are still subjected to them.

The Decree of Fountainbleau is confessedly founded on the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, dated the 19th October, 1810, and proves their continued existence. The report of the French minister of December 8, announcing the perseverance of France in her Decrees is still further in confirmation of them, and a re-perusal of the letter of the minister of justice, of the 25th last December, confirms me in the inference I drew from it, for otherwise why should that minister make the prospective restoration of American vessels, taken after the 1st of November, to be a consequence of the non-importation, and not of the French revocation. If the French government had been sincere, they would have ceased infringing on the neutral rights of America, after the 1st November. That they violated them, however, after that period, is notorious.

Your government seem to let it be understood that an ambiguous declaration from Great-Britain, similar to that of the French minister, would have been acceptable to them, But, sir, is it consistent with the dignity of a nation that respects itself, to speak in ambiguous language? The subjects and citizens of either country would in the end be the victims, as many are already, in all probability, who from a misconstruction of the meaning of the French government, have been led into the most imprudent speculations. Such conduct would not be to proceed pari passu with France in revoking our Edicts, but to descend to the use of the perfidious and jugging contrivances of her cabinet, by which she fills her coffers at the expense of independent nations. A similar construction of proceeding pari passu might lead to such Decrees as those of Rambouillet, or of Bayonne, to the system of exclusion or of licences, all measures of France against the American commerce, is nothing short of absolute hostility.

It is urged that no vessel has been condemned by the tribunals of France, on the principles of her Decrees since the the 1st of November. You allow, however, that there have been some detained since that period, and that such part of the cargoes as consisted of goods not the produce of America, was seized, and the other part, together with the vessel itself, only released after the President's proclamation became known in France. These circumstances, surely, only prove the difficulty that France is under in reconciling her

anti-commercial and anti-neutral system, with her desire to express her satisfaction at the measures taken in America against the commerce of Great-Britain. She seizes in virtue of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, but she makes a partial restoration for the purpose of 'deceiving America.

I have now followed you, I believe, sir, through the whole range of your argument, and on reviewing the course of it, I think I may securely say that no satisfactory proof has yet been brought forward of the repeal of the obnoxious Decrees of France, but on the contrary, that it appears they continue in full force, consequently that no grounds exist on which you can, with justice, demand of Great-Britain a revocation of her Orders in Council;-that we have a right to complain of the conduct of the American government, in enforcing the provisions of the act of May, 1810, to the exclusion of the British trade, and afterwards in obtaining a special law for the same purpose, though it was notorious at the time that France still continued her aggressions upon American commerce, and had recently promulgated anew her Decrees, suffering no trade from this country, but through licences publicly sold by her agent, and that all the suppositions you have formed of innovations on the part of Great-Britain, or of her pretensions to trade with her enemies are wholly groundless. I have also stated to you the view his majesty's government has taken of the question of the blockade of May, 1806, and it now only remains that I urge afresh the injustice of the United States' government, persevering in their union with the French system, for the purpose of crushing the commerce of Great-Britain.

From every consideration which equity, good policy, or interest can suggest, there appears to be such a call upon America to give up this system, which favors France, to the injury of Great-Britain, that I cannot, however little satisfactory your communications are, as yet abandon all hopes that even before the Congress meet, a new view may be taken of the subject by the President, which will lead to a more happy result.

I have the honor to be, with very high consideration and respect, sir, your most obedient humble servant,

AUGUSTUS J. FOSTER.

Mr. Monroe to Mr. Foster.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, July 27th, 1811.

SIB-I had the honor to receive your letter of yesterday's date, in time to submit it to the view of the President before he left town.

It was my object to state to you in my letter of the 23d inst. that under existing circumstances, it was impossible for the President to terminate the operation of the non-importation law of the 2d of March last; that France having excepted the proposition made by a previous law equally to G. Britain and to France, and having revoked her Decrees, violating our neutral rights, and Great-Britain having declined to revoke hers, it became the duty of this government to fulfil its engagement, and to declare the non-importation law in force against Great-Britain.

This state of affairs has not been sought by the United States. When the proposition, contained in the law of May 1st, 1810, was offered equally to both powers, there was cause to presume that Great-Britain would have accepted it, in which event the non-importation law would not have operated against her.

It is in the power of the British government at this time to enable the President to set the non-importation law aside, by rendering to the United States an act of justice. If Great-Britain will cease to violate our neutral rights by revoking her Orders in Council, on which event alone the President has the power, I am instructed to inform you that he will, without delay, exercise it by terminating the operation of this law.

It is presumed that the communications which I have had the honor to make to you, of the revocation by France of her Decrees, so far as they violated the neutral rights of the United States, and of her conduct since the revocation, will present to your government a different view of the subject, from that which it had before taken, and produce in its councils a correspondent effect.

I have the honor to be, &c.

JAMES MONROE.

Mr. Monroe to Mr. Foster.

SIR-I have had the honor to receive your letter of the 26th of July, and to submit it to the view of the President.