Even our
seventeenth article with France, which might be disagreeable, as from
its nature it is unequal, is adopted exactly by Great Britain in her
fortieth article with the same power, and would have laid her, in a like
case, under the same unequal obligations against us. We wish then, that
it could be arranged with Great Britain, that our treaties with France
and Holland, and that of France and Great Britain (which agree in what
respects neutral nations), should form the line of conduct for us all,
in the present war, in the cases for which they provide. Where they are
silent, the general principles of the law of nations must give the rule,
as the principles of that law have been liberalized in latter times by
the refinement of manners and morals, and evidenced by the declarations,
stipulations, and practice of every civilized nation. In our treaty
with Prussia, indeed, we have gone ahead of other nations, in doing
away restraints on the commerce of peaceful nations, by declaring that
nothing shall be contraband. For in truth, in the present improved state
of the arts, when every country has such ample means of procuring arms
within and without itself, the regulations of contraband answer no other
end than to draw other nations into the war. However, as other nations
have not given sanction to this improvement, we claim it, at present,
with Prussia alone.
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