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616 HISTORY OF MARYLAND.
invented, and applied in this habitual trafic ; and suggested and promulgated, for the first
time, by sentences of condemnation ; by which, unavoidable ignorance has been considered as criminal, and an honorable confidence in the justice of a friendly nation, pursued
with penalty and forfeiture.
" Your memorialists are in no situation to state the precise nature of the rules to
which their most important interests have been sacrificed ; and it is not the least of their
complaints against them, that they are undefined and undefinable ; equivocal in their
form, and the fit instruments of oppression, by reason of their ambiguity.
" When we see a powerful State, in possession of a commerce, of which the world
affords no examples, endeavoring to interpolate into the laws of nations casuistical
niceties and wayward distinctions, which forbid a citizen of another independent commercial country to export from that country wThat unquestionably belongs to him, only
because he imported it himself, and yet allow him to sell a right of exporting it to
another; which prohibit an end, because it arises out of one intention, but permit it when
it arises out of two; which, dividing an act into stages, search into the mind for a correspondent division of it in the contemplation of its author, and determined its innocence or
criminality accordingly; which, not denying that the property acquired in an authorized
traffic by neutral nations from belligerants, may become incorporated into the national
stock, and, under the shelter of its neutral character, thus superinduced, and still preserved, be afterwards transported to every quarter of the globe, reject the only epoch,
which can distinctly mark the incorporation, and point out none other in its place;
which, proposing to fix wTith accuracy and precision, the line of demarcation, beyond
which neutrals are tresspassers upon the wide domain of belligerant rights involve everything in darkness and confusion ; there can be but one opinion as to the purpose which
all this is to accomplish.
" Your memorialist's object, in the strongest terms, against this new criterion of
legality, because of its inevitable tendency to injustice; because of peculiar capacity to
embarrass with seizure and ruin with confiscation, the whole of our trade with Europe in
the surplus of our colonial importation.
" For the loss and damage which capture brings along with it, British courts of prize
grant no adequate indemnity. Redress to any extent is difficult; to a competent extent
impossible. And even the costs which an iniquitous seizure compels a neutral merchant to
incur, in the defence of his violated rights, before their own tribunals, are seldom .decreed,
and never paid.
" The reasons upon which Great Britain assumes to herself a right to interdict the
independent nations of the earth, a commercial intercourse with the colonies of her
enemies (out of the relaxation of which pretended right has arisen the distinction in her
courts between the American trade from the colonies to the United States, and from the
same colonies to Europe), will, we are confidently persuaded, be repelled Avith firmness
and effect by our government.
" She forbids us from transporting in our vessels, as in peace we could, the property
of her enemies; enforces against us a rigorous list of contraband; dams up the great
channels of our ordinary trade; abridges, trammels, and obstructs what she permits us to
prosecute; and then refers us to our accustomed traffic in time of peace for the criterion
of our commercial rights, in order to justify the consummation of that ruin, with which
our lawful commerce is menaced by her maxims and her conduct.
" The pernicious qualities of this doctrine are enhanced and aggravated, as from its
nature might be expected, by the fact that Great Britain gives no notice of the time when,
or the circumstances in which, she means to apply and enforce it. Her orders of the 6th
of November, 1793, by which the seas were swept of our vessels and effects, were, for the
first time, announced by the ships of war and privateers, by which they were carried into
execution.
Object Description
| Title | History of Maryland - 2 |
| Creator | Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas) |
| Publisher | J. B. Piet |
| Place of Publication | Baltimore |
| Date | 1879 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
Description
| Title | 00000659 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | 616 HISTORY OF MARYLAND. invented, and applied in this habitual trafic ; and suggested and promulgated, for the first time, by sentences of condemnation ; by which, unavoidable ignorance has been considered as criminal, and an honorable confidence in the justice of a friendly nation, pursued with penalty and forfeiture. " Your memorialists are in no situation to state the precise nature of the rules to which their most important interests have been sacrificed ; and it is not the least of their complaints against them, that they are undefined and undefinable ; equivocal in their form, and the fit instruments of oppression, by reason of their ambiguity. " When we see a powerful State, in possession of a commerce, of which the world affords no examples, endeavoring to interpolate into the laws of nations casuistical niceties and wayward distinctions, which forbid a citizen of another independent commercial country to export from that country wThat unquestionably belongs to him, only because he imported it himself, and yet allow him to sell a right of exporting it to another; which prohibit an end, because it arises out of one intention, but permit it when it arises out of two; which, dividing an act into stages, search into the mind for a correspondent division of it in the contemplation of its author, and determined its innocence or criminality accordingly; which, not denying that the property acquired in an authorized traffic by neutral nations from belligerants, may become incorporated into the national stock, and, under the shelter of its neutral character, thus superinduced, and still preserved, be afterwards transported to every quarter of the globe, reject the only epoch, which can distinctly mark the incorporation, and point out none other in its place; which, proposing to fix wTith accuracy and precision, the line of demarcation, beyond which neutrals are tresspassers upon the wide domain of belligerant rights involve everything in darkness and confusion ; there can be but one opinion as to the purpose which all this is to accomplish. " Your memorialist's object, in the strongest terms, against this new criterion of legality, because of its inevitable tendency to injustice; because of peculiar capacity to embarrass with seizure and ruin with confiscation, the whole of our trade with Europe in the surplus of our colonial importation. " For the loss and damage which capture brings along with it, British courts of prize grant no adequate indemnity. Redress to any extent is difficult; to a competent extent impossible. And even the costs which an iniquitous seizure compels a neutral merchant to incur, in the defence of his violated rights, before their own tribunals, are seldom .decreed, and never paid. " The reasons upon which Great Britain assumes to herself a right to interdict the independent nations of the earth, a commercial intercourse with the colonies of her enemies (out of the relaxation of which pretended right has arisen the distinction in her courts between the American trade from the colonies to the United States, and from the same colonies to Europe), will, we are confidently persuaded, be repelled Avith firmness and effect by our government. " She forbids us from transporting in our vessels, as in peace we could, the property of her enemies; enforces against us a rigorous list of contraband; dams up the great channels of our ordinary trade; abridges, trammels, and obstructs what she permits us to prosecute; and then refers us to our accustomed traffic in time of peace for the criterion of our commercial rights, in order to justify the consummation of that ruin, with which our lawful commerce is menaced by her maxims and her conduct. " The pernicious qualities of this doctrine are enhanced and aggravated, as from its nature might be expected, by the fact that Great Britain gives no notice of the time when, or the circumstances in which, she means to apply and enforce it. Her orders of the 6th of November, 1793, by which the seas were swept of our vessels and effects, were, for the first time, announced by the ships of war and privateers, by which they were carried into execution. |
