From Mr. King.
"Seven or eight of our vessels, laden with valuable cargoes, have been lately captured, and are still detained for adjudication; these vessels were met in their voyages to and from the Dutch ports, declared to be blockaded. Several notes have passed between Lord Grenville and me upon this subject, with the view, on my part, of establishing a more limited and reasonable interpretation of the law of blockade, than is attempted to be enforced by the English Government. Nearly one hundred Danish, Russian, and other neutral ships have, within a few months, been, in like manner, intercepted, going to and returning from the United Provinces. Many of them, as well as some of ours, arrived in the Texel in the course of the last winter; the severity of which obliged the English fleet to return to their ports, leaving a few frigates only to make short cruises off the Texel, as the season would allow.
"My object has been to prove that, in this situation of the investing fleet, there can be no effective blockade, which, in my opinion, cannot be said to exist without a competent force, stationed and present at or near the entrance of the blockaded port."
Extract of a letter from Mr. King to Lord Grenville, dated
London, May 23, 1799.
"It seems scarcely necessary to observe, that the presence of a competent force is essential to constitute a blockade; and although it is usual for the belligerent to give notice to neutral nations when he institutes a blockade, it is not customary to give any notice of its discontinuance; and that consequently the presence of the blockading force is the natural criterion by which the neutral is enabled to ascertain the existence of the blockade, in like manner as the actual investment of a besieged place is the only evidence by which we decide whether the siege is continued or raised. A siege may be commenced, raised, recommenced and raised again, but its existence at any precise time must always depend upon the fact of the presence of an investing army. This interpretation of the law of blockade is of peculiar importance to nations situated at a great distance from each other, and between whom a considerable length of time is necessary to send and receive information."
Extract of a letter from Mr. Marshall, Secretary of State, to Mr. King, dated
September 20, 1800.
"The right to confiscate vessels bound to a blockaded port, has been unreasonably extended to cases not coming within the rule, as heretofore adopted.
"On this principle, it might well be questioned, whether this rule can be applied to a place not completely invested by land as well as by sea. If we examine the reasoning on which it is founded, the right to intercept and confiscate supplies, designed for a blockaded town, it will be difficult to resist the conviction that its extension to towns, invested by sea only, is an unjustifiable encroachment on the right of neutrals. But it is not of this departure from principle—a departure which has received some sanction from practice—that we mean to complain. It is, that ports, not effectually blockaded by a force capable of completely investing them, have yet been declared in a state of blockade, and vessels attempting to enter therein have been seized, and, on that account, confiscated."