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
