The Armed Neutralities.
The Prussian Remonstrance was a bold and audacious attempt to challenge the law of nations on the subject of the neutral flag. The armed neutralities of 1780 and 1800 must rather be considered as forcible attempts to change that law, by taking advantage of a concurrence of events which seemed to place England at the mercy of the armed confederates.
In the first armed neutrality of 1780, England had hardly emerged from a death grapple with her great revolted colony, in which, by the aid of France, assisted by the forces of Spain and Holland, that colony had all but achieved its independence. This was the moment chosen by the northern confederates for putting forth pretensions in favour of the immunity of the neutral flag and of enemies' goods conveyed under its cover. Considering how completely Russia's commerce was at the mercy of English cruisers in case of a war with England, this could only be regarded as a bold and natural stroke of policy on the part of the ambitious Catherine, and so opportune that there was every prospect of its success. But the English statesmen of those days, in spite of the accumulation of foes, and of perils menacing England's very existence, never for a moment hesitated as to the line of conduct which English interests dictated to them. They defied the armed confederates, and issued letters of marque to prey upon their commerce, and when the Peace of Versailles closed the war and secured the independence of the United States, not one word was said about the neutral flag, nor a single concession made by England to the pretensions of the armed neutrals. It is true that England was not in a position to resist the first armed neutrality very successfully by arms, but she absolutely refused to abate one single jot or tittle of her maritime rights.
It is very easy to show how the nations who composed this armed neutrality were urged solely by motives of policy and not in the slightest degree by principle, in the course they pursued, for Denmark, only four days before joining it, (i.e. on the 4th July), agreed with England on certain extensive additions (hemp and timber) to the list of contraband articles,—an agreement which four days afterwards she repudiated. Spain, one month before joining it, issued an order to her cruisers, distinctly ordering them to seize enemies' goods in neutral bottoms. And France; the year before (1779), seven months before joining, made a treaty with Mecklenburg (identical with one signed ten years before, 1769, with Hamburg), in which it was stipulated that enemies' goods should be seizable in neutral bottoms. Moreover, within ten years of this first armed neutrality, there was not one nation which had joined it which did not turn round and adopt the exactly opposite maxims. Sweden, Spain. Russia herself! Portugal, Naples, Austria, and Prussia! And Russia actually (1794) quarrelled with Denmark—threatening war and ordering her cruisers to employ force,—because Denmark raised pretensions of not allowing her merchantmen, that were sailing under convoy, to be searched. But what perhaps best reveals the true motives of policy of the authors of the armed neutrality was that the Empress Catherine, who was at the head of it and the moving spirit in it, actually had no mercantile navy and no neutral navigation to protect, and consequently was least of all the Rulers in Europe entitled to promulgate a new law on the subject, in opposition to the sentiments and practice of the maritime States. But her policy was well grounded. By weakening the British navy, she hoped to remove a powerful obstacle to her own ambitious projects, and by committing the two Baltic provinces, Sweden and Denmark, to a quarrel with England, she was sure to place them in a state of absolute dependence on herself.
The second armed neutrality took place at a conjunction of affairs apparently equally favourable to such a combination. The success of France against Austria, and the desertion by Russia of the allies, the Emperor Paul becoming fascinated by Napoleon's genius, were events likely to check the public spirit of England, and to incline it to compromise its own rights. But such was by no means the actual result. Never did the spirit of the country rise higher than in 1800. Pitt, Grenville, and all the statesmen of the day, repudiated the principles of the coalition and defied its authors, and issued letters of marque against the commerce of the armed neutrals, which soon was utterly ruined. So great a pressure did this exercise over the Russian proprietors, that it was the chief cause of the revolution, in which the Emperor Paul was strangled, and his successor Alexander obliged to sue for peace with England in the following year. On this occasion. Lord Nelson made a speech in which he stigmatised the maxim that the neutral flag should cover enemies' merchandize, and that ships under convoy should not be searched: "A principle so monstrous in itself, so contrary to the law of nations, and so injurious to the maritime interests of the country, that if it had been persisted in, we ought not to have concluded the war with those powers whilst a single man, a single shilling, or a single drop of blood remained in the country." Pitt made use of stronger language still: "sooner than yield the principle he would wind the flag round his body and seek his glory in the grave."
At the Treaty of Amiens in the following year it was sought to make this matter a subject of treaty arrangement, but Lord Hawkesbury, writing to the English plenipotentiary at Amiens, said:—"His Majesty will never consent in a treaty of peace to place out of his hands those means which may be necessary to the security of his dominions in time of war."
In 1807 there was an attempt at a third armed neutrality, again under the hegemony of Russia. The battle of Friedland and the Peace of Tilsit had detached Russia from the coalition against Napoleon, and the Emperor Alexander proclaimed anew the principles of the armed neutrality of 1801. In the English counter-declaration against Russia the following words occurred:—"Those principles of maritime law it is the right and duty of His Majesty to maintain against every coalition, and, under the blessing of Providence, His Majesty is determined to maintain them; they have at all times contributed essentially to the maritime power of Great Britain" No hostilities actually ensued, and in May, 1809; the coalition was dissolved, its defeat being owing to the same causes which dissolved the second armed neutrality.
It is well worthy of remark that the moment this coalition was dissolved, Alexander turned round, as Catherine had done in 1793, and exceeded the measure of Great Britain's maritime pretensions, in confiscating not only enemies' (French) goods, but also the neutral vessels in which they were found, in all cases where more than half the cargo consisted of enemies' goods.
To carry on the history of the attitude assumed by the English Government in this important matter,—in 1812, in the English declaration in answer to the French demands—as to the terms of peace—it was said:—"By these demands (the neutral flag covering the enemies' cargo), the enemy requires that Great Britain and all maritime nations shall at his pleasure renounce the natural and incontestable rights of war, and that Great Britain in particular shall surrender all the advantages of her naval superiority."
And at the Congress of Chatillon, 1814, the English Plenipotentiary, Lord Castlereagh, had orders from his government not even to discuss the question of maritime rights.
Contrast the uniform conduct and determination of English statesmen between 1780 and 1815 (thirty-five years of warlike effort and dangers) with the conduct of the English Government in 1856. The short statement I have made, of the successive assertions and abandonments of the principles of the armed neutrality by their champions, will clearly show that no constant or uniform system has ever been founded on them even by their authors, much less by the Powers of Europe in general; and instead of furnishing a permanent code of neutral laws, they have furnished nothing but fruitless indications of hostility to England, manifested at those periods only when it was supposed that such hostility might be exhibited with impunity.