cates anterior to the last instructions attributed to the consuls of his majesty, and which it is pretended were given for colonial produce, that evidently came from England, have been challenged as false (argues de faux) in as much as the English publickly fabricate papers of this sort at London.

This, sir; is all that it is possible for me to say to you at present respecting certificates of origin. prese

I cannot doubt but that the government of the United States will see in these regulations of my court an intention, distinctly pronounced,of favouring the commercial relations between France and the United States in all the objects of traffick which shall evidently proceed from their agriculture or manufactures.

You will readily perceive, sir, that in giving this latitude to the mutually advantageous relations of the two friendly people, the emperor cannot depart from the system of exclusion against English commerce without losing the advantages which his majesty and the allied powers must necessarily expect from it.

I have the honour to be, with high consideration, &c. TURREAU.

Hon. Robert Smith, Secretary of State.

The Secretary of State to General Turreau. Department of State, Nov. 28, 1810.

SIR, I have had the honour of receiving your letter of yesterday, stating that the French consuls in the United States are at this time authorized to deliver certificates of origin only to such American vessels as are bound to some port of France, and as are laden with the produce of the United States.

It will afford satisfaction to our merchants to know, and therefore I have to request you to inform me, whether in American vessels having such certificates of origin, they can export to France every kind of produce of the United States, and especially cotton and tobacco.

In addition to the intelligence communicated in your letter in relation to the certificates of origin, I have the honour of asking from you information upon the following questions:

1st. Have not the French consuls been in the practice, under the authority of the French government, of delivering in the ports of the United States certificates of origin for American vessels, bound to the ports of France, and of her allies, and laden with either colonial produce, or the produce of the United States?

2d. Have the French consuls in the United States lately received from the French government instructions not to deliver such certificates of origin for American vessels, and at what time did they receive such instructions?

3d. At what time did the French consuls cease to issue certificates of origin to American vessels, in pursuance of instructions from their government, in cases of destination to ports of the allies of France ?

These facts being connected with questions interesting to our merchants in foreign tribunals, your goodness will pardon the resort to your aid in ascertaining them.

I have the honour to be, &c.

General Turreau, &c. &c. &c.

R. SMITH.

TRANSLATION.

General Turreau to Mr. Smith. Washington, December 12, 1810.

SIR, If I have not replied sooner to the letter which you did me the honour to write to me on the 28th of last month, it is because I have sought information from the consul general of his majesty, whether he had not received directly instructions more recent than those which I had transmitted to him, and also to enable me to give a positive answer to the questions contained in the letter referred to above.

I reply, sir, to the first of your questions-that M. M. the consuls of his majesty to the United States have always delivered certificates of origin to American vessels for the ports of France: they did it in execution. of a decree of his majesty of the 1st of Messidor, of the year eleven.

M. M. the French consuls have also delivered them to vessels destined for neutral or allied ports, whenever they

have been required of them. This measure was sanctioned and authorized by a circular despatch of his excellency the minister of foreign relations, under date of the 20th of April, 1808. This despatch prescribes the formalities to be gone through for the certificates delivered in such cases.

I proceed now, sir, to reply to the second of your questions.

By a despatch of his excellency the duke of Cadore, of the 30th of August last, received by the "Hornet" the 13th of last month, and of which information was given the same day to the consuls and vice consuls of his majesty, they are expressly prohibited from delivering certifi cates of origin for merchandise of any kind or under any pretext whatever, if the vessels are not destined for France.

This reply to your second question, sir, furnishes you with a solution of the third. The consuls and vice consuls of his majesty will have ceased to deliver certificates of origin to vessels for any other place than France, immediately on the receipt of this circular, which will reach them a few days sooner or later, according to the greater or less distance of the places of their residence.

Concerning cotton and tobacco, their importation into France is, at this moment, specially prohibited; but I have reasons to believe (and I pray you, meanwhile, to observe, sir, that they do not rest upon any facts) that some modifications will be given to this absolute exclusion. These modifications will not depend upon the chance of events; but will be the result of other measures, firm and pursued with perseverance, which the two governments will continue to adopt to withdraw from the monopoly and from the vexations of the common enemy a commerce, loyal (loyal) and necessary to France as well as to the United States.

Accept, sir, the renewed assurance of my high consideration.

TURREAU.

The Secretary of State to General Turreau.

of State, Dec. 18, 1810.

Department

SIR, I have had the honour of receiving your letter of the 12th instant, in reply to my inquiries in relation to certificates of origin, as well as to the admission into France of the products of the agriculture of the United States.

From your letter it appears, that the importation into France of cotton and tobacco, the produce of the United States, is, at this time, specially and absolutely prohibited.

From the decree of the 15th July, it moreover appears, that there can be no importation into France, but upon terms and conditions utterly inadmissible, and that, therefore, there can be no importation at all of the following articles, the produce of the United States, namely: fish oil, dye wood, salt fish, cod fish, hides and peltry.

As these enumerated articles constitute the great mass of the exports from the United States to France, the mind is naturally awakened to a survey of the actual condition of the commercial relations between the two countries, and to the consideration that no practical good, worthy of notice, has resulted to the United States from the revocation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, combined, as it unexpectedly has been, with a change in the commercial system of France, so momentous to the United States.

The act of Congress of May last had for its object, not merely the recognition of a speculative legitimate principle, but the enjoyment of a substantial benefit. The overture, therein presented, obviously embraced the idea of commercial advantage. It included the reasonable belief, that an abrogation of the Berlin and Milan decrees would leave the ports of France as free for the introduction of the produce of the United States, as they were previously to the promulgation of those decrees.

The restrictions of the Berlin and Milan decrees had the effect of restraining the American merchants from sending their vessels to France. The interdictions in the system that has been substituted, against the admssion of American products, will have the effect of imposing upon them an equal restraint. If, then, for the revoked decrees, municipal laws, producing the same commercial effect,

have been substituted, the mode only, and not the measure, has undergone an alteration. And however true it may be, that the change is lawful in form, it is, nevertheless, as true, that it is essentially unfriendly, and that it does not at all comport with the ideas inspired by your letter of the 27th ult. in which you were pleased to declare the "distinctly pronounced intention of his imperial majesty of favouring the commercial relations between France and the United States in all the objects of traffick, which shall evidently proceed from their agriculture or manufactures."

If France, by her own acts, has blocked up her ports against the introduction of the products of the United States, what motive has this government, in a discussion with a third power, to insist on the privilege of going to France? Whence the inducement to urge the annulment of a blockade of France, when, if annulled, no American cargoes could obtain a market in any of her ports? In such a state of things, a blockade of the coast of France would be to the United States as unimportant, as would be a blockade of the coast of the Caspian sea.

The British edicts may be viewed as having a double relation; first, to the wrong done to the United States; second, to the wrong done to France. And it is in the latte relation only, that France has a right to speak. But what wrong, it may be asked, can France suffer from British orders which co-operate with her own regulations?

However sensible the United States may be to the violation of their neutral rights under those edicts, yet, if France herself has by her own acts rendered it a theoretical instead of a practical violation, it is for this government to decide on the degree in which sacrifices of any sort may be required by considerations which peculiarly and exclusively relate to the United States. Certain it is, that the inducements to such sacrifices are weakened, as far as France can weaken them, by having converted the right to be maintained, into a naked one, whilst the sacrifices to be made would be substantial and extensive.

A hope, however, is indulged, that your instructions from your government will soon enable you to give some satisfactory explanations of the measures to which reference has been made, and that their operation in virtue of modi