Note from the Danish to the British Minifter.

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London, February 23, 1801. THE underfigned, having informed the King his matter, of the official communication of Lord Grenville, dated the 15th January last, has received orders to declare, that his Majefty is deeply. affected at feeing the good understanding which has hitherto fubfifted between Denmark and Britain, fuddenly interrupted by the adoption of a measure as arbitrary as injurious on the part of Great Britain; and that he is not lefs afflicted and alarmed at feeing that measure juftified by affertions and fuppofitions as unjust as illfounded. He remarks, with furprife, that, by confounding the cause of the measures taken in Ruffia against the interefts of Great Britain, with the object of the convention relative to neutral navigation, the British government evidently mixes two affairs which have not the leaft connexion with each other. It is a fubject of perfect notoriety, that the incident of the occupation of Malta by the troops of his Britannic Majefty, has alone been the occafion of the embargo on the Britifh fhips in the ports of Rufia, and that the minifters of the neutral courts at Petersburgh acted according to their full powers and inftructions anterior to that event. The difpute relating to it is abfolutely foreign to the court of Copenhagen. It knows neither its origin nor foundation, or at least but very imperfectly, and its engagements with Peter fburgh have no relation whatever to it. The nature of thefe engagements has been folemnly declared to be only defenfive; and it is inconceivable how general principles, conformable to every pofitive obligation, and modified according to the ftipulations of treaties, could be juftly confidered as attacks on the rights or dignity of any state whatever. While the powers who profefs them require only their acknowledgment, the conflict of principles reciprocally maintained, cannot be provoked but by thofe means which, operating as a denial of facts, place them in direct and inevitable oppofition. The underfigned, by order of the King his master, calls the serious attention of the British government to these reflections, and to thefe juft and incontrovertible truths; they are analogous to the loyal fentiments of a fovereign, the ancient and faithful ally of Great Britain, who is not only incapable of offering, on his part, any injuries real or voluntary, but who has well-founded titles to a return of forbearance and juftice. The prompt ceffation of proceedings hoftile to the interefts of Denmark, is a circumftance to which his Majefty fill looks forward with the confidence he has ever wished to entertain with regard to his Britannic Majefty; and it is in his name, and conformably to the inftructions expreffed on his part, that the underfigned infifts on the embargo placed on the Danish veffels in the ports of Great Britain, being immediately taken off. By a conftant feries of moderation on the part of the King, the meafures to which the outrageous proceedings of the British government authoVOL. XI. Hh

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rized him to have had recourse, have been fufpended, his Majefty deeming it an act of glory to give, by this means, a decifive proof of the falfehood of the fufpicions advanced against him, and of the doubts thrown on his intentions. But if, contrary to all expectation, the British government perfifts in its violent refolutions, he will fee himself, with regret, reduced to the urgent neceffity of exerting thofe means which his dignity and the interefts of his fubjects will imperiously prescribe.

(Signed)

WEDEL JARLSBERG.

Anfwer.

Downing Street, Feb. 25, 1801.

LORD Hawkesbury prefents his compliments to Count Wedel Jarlsberg, and has the honour to inform him, that he shall lofe no time in communicating to the Danish government his Majefty's fentiments on the contents of Count Wedel Jarlsberg's note of the 23d inftant. Lord Hawkesbury requests that Count Wedel Jarlfberg will accept the affurances of his high confideration.

Note from the Swedish to the British Minifter.

London, March 4, 1801.

THE underfigned has conftantly repofed an unlimited confi dence in the fentiments and moderation of his Britannic Majefty. He has confequently only endeavoured, in the preliminary note of Lord Hawkesbury, dated the 25th of laft month, in anfwer to his official note of the 23d, to difcover the expreffion of an affurance of thefe fentiments which should be tranfmitted to Copenhagen; and he is perfuaded that the effect of them on the part of his Britannic Majefty will be manifefted, by calling, in the most efficacious and fatisfactory manner, the attention of the government to the reprefentations of his Danish Majefty, tranfmitted through the organs and offices of the underfigned. But as the adoption of conciliatory measures is conftantly found fufpended, and as, on the contrary, thofe of violence and injuftice are daily accumulating, the underfigned cannot acquiefce, in filence, in the continuation of this ftate of things, which only tends to bar the way to amicable explanations, and to compromife the deareft interefts of each nation. He baftens, in confequence, to renew with earnestness, the demand made in the name of his court, that the embargo placed on the Danifh veffels fhould be immediately taken off. And, in expectation of a fatisfactory anfwer, he has the honour to affure his Excellency Lord Hawkesbury of his refpectful confideration. WEDEL JARLSBERG.

(Signed)

Anfwer

Anfwer of the British Minifter.

Downing Street, March 6, 1801.

THE underfigned, his Majefty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of the note of Count Wedel Jarlberg, his Danish Majefty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minifter Plenipotentiary,, of the 4th inftant, and to inform him that he has tranfmitted to his Majesty's Chargé d'Affairs at Copenhagen, an answer to his former note of the 23d of February, which will be delivered to the Danish government, and which will fully explaiu his Majesty's fentiments on the differences fubfifting between the two countries. The underligned requests Count Wedel Jarlsberg to accept the affurance of his high confideration. HAWKESBURY.

Count Wedel Jarlsberg, &c.

(Signed)

Note tranfmitted on 4th March, by Baron Von Ehrenfward, the Imperial Swedish Minifier Plenipotentiary at London, to Lord Hawkefbury, the English Secretary of State.

THE undersigned, Minister Plenipotentiary of his Swedish Ma

jefty, has the honour to tranfmit to his Excellency Lord Hawkesbury, first Secretary of State of his Britannic Majesty, a printed copy of the naval convention concluded on the 16th Dec. 1800, between his Swedish Majesty and his Majefty the Emperor of all the Ruffias, as well as a printed copy of the naval regulations which the King has recently ordered to be drawn up.

The undersigned, who, at the command of his court, has the honour to make this communication to the minifter of his Britannic Majefty, has it likewife in commiffion exprefsly to declare, that their Majefties, by the faid naval convention, have reciprocally determined and fettled thofe rights which, as neutral powers, they believe themfelves entitled to, and by the naval regulations have afcertained thofe duties, for the performance and obfervance of which, on the part of their fubjects, they, as neutral powers, make themselves anfwerable. The object of their Majesties is to confirm and strengthen their rights of neutrality, and to promote the repose of their respective states, by the naval convention they have entered into; and nothing is farther from their intention than by such a step to provoke hoftilities. The respect which is due to the rights of nations and to treaties, the consciousness that their own interefts are infeparably united with the interefts and the love of juftice and peace, are the only motives by which their Majefties have been actuated: they have, therefore, learnt, with the greatest astonishment, that the first news of the conclufion of

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this convention in England, has been the oceafion of so violent a measure as that of laying an embargo on the Swedish fhips.

So far from defiring to introduce any innovations with respect to the maritime ftate of Europe, by the affertion of their rights of neutrality, their Majefties are fenfible that it gives no power whatever where those rights were not acknowledged by former treaties. England has seen thofe treaties; England has feen those treaties executed; they were officially communicated to her, and fhe did not protest against them. In like manner it was, with regard to the convention of 1780 and 1781; and the miniftry, who now proceed with fo much violence, know that the partial renewal of that convention between Sweden and Denmark in 1794, and the armament that followed, operated, during a period of three years, without ever being confidered as grounds for hoftilities; yet a fimilar convention is now deemed an hoftile confederacy against England. A line of conduct fo contradictory, proceeds not from the circumftance of the principles and claims of neutral rights having been now enforced; but it seems to have its foundation in that maritime fyftem which England has established in the course of the prefent war. It appears alfo, that that government, which Europe, from its pacific fentiments, has fo often endeavoured to convince of the injuftice of its pretenfions, has now determined to commence a war for the fubjection of the fea, after it has rendered itself fo renowned in the war undertaken for the freedom of Europe.

If the British minifter will refer to the conduct of England against Sweden, and the neutral powers in general, during this war, he will find the real caufe why his Swedith Majefty has been induced to believe that the formal alliance of feveral powers, acting upon the fame principles, would more effectually tend to convince the court of London of the validity of thofe principles, than by any one power renewing thofe reclamations which have hitherto been made in vain; at the fame time his Majefty never fuppofed that fuch an alliance would be confidered as an act of hoftility. The British minifter complains that the court of London was not before instructed of the intention of the refpe&ive courts to renew the convention of 1780; but in the fame note he states, that England had entered into engagements this war with its allies refpecting neutrals; thus the avowal of the British minifter is an anfwer to his own charge.

If his Majesty was not fully convinced of the innocence of his intentions, and it he was defirous of deviating from that line of moderation he has ever obferved, he might make an invidious and cenfurable enumeration of the conduct of England; of the unpunithed offences of the commanders of English fhips of war, even in Swedish harbours; of the inquifitorial examinations which the captains and crews of the hips detained, as well in the West Indies

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as in England, have been fubject; of the detention of the convoy in 1798; of the deceitful chicanery with which the proceedings of the courts of admiralty were accompanied; of the abfolute denial of justice in many inftances; and lastly, by the infult offered to the Swedish flag at Barcelona. His Swedish Majefty muft, doubtlefs, ftate among the offences of which he has cause to complain, that after one of his minifters had been sent to the British court, its aggreffions, inftead of being admitted and remedied, were juftified. But he has fought no revenge; his Majefty wishes only to procure that security to his flag to which it is entitled. In confequence of this fentiment, the underfigned is empowered to declare, that the British court fhall acknowledge the rights of Sweden; that it fhall do juftice with regard to the convoys detained in 1798, as well as refpecting the violence offered to the Swedish flag at Barcelona; and above all, that it fhall take off the embargo which has been fo unjustly laid on the Swedifh fhips. His Majefty will, with the greatest pleafure, fee his ports again opened to the trade of England, and the ancient good understanding between the two courts renewed. His Majefty, impreffed with that dignity due to his empire, has, in confequence of the embargo laid upon the Swedifh fhips, placed a fimilar embargo on all English veffels in the harbours of Sweden.

As the pacific tendency of the prefent convention has been, proved to a demonftration, his Majefty therefore hopes that no confideration, refpecting any accidental occurrence which may have taken place between the ally of his Majefty the Emperor of Ruffia and the court of London, will be introduced. The a&t of the convention itfelf proves, that its bases are the rights of neutrality, and that it is in its nature unconnected with every other fubject of difpute.

While the undersigned Minifter Plenipotentiary of his Swedifl Majefty recommends the contents of this prefent note to the earneft confideration of the minister of his Britannic Majefty, he has the honour to entreat that his Excellency Lord Hawkesbury will tranfmit him an anfwer, which he hopes will fpeak the fentiments of the King his master.

His Majefty has commanded the undersigned to present this to his Excellency. Should the conciliatory views with which it was dictated prove fruitless, it is his Majefty's opinion, that the prefence of the undersigned at the court of London will no longer be of any advantage.

The underligned has the honour to affure his Excellency Lord Hawkesbury of his higheft cfteem.

THE BARON VON EHRENSWARD.

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