This Government further notes with equal satisfaction the declaration of the British Government that “the instructions to be issued by his Majesty’s Government to the fleet and to the customs officials and executive committees concerned will impress upon them the duty of acting with the utmost dispatch consistent with the object in view, and of showing in every case such consideration for neutrals as may be compatible with that object, which is succinctly stated, to establish a blockade to prevent vessels from carrying goods for or coming from Germany.”

In view of these assurances formally given to this Government, it is confidently expected that the extensive powers conferred by the Order in Council on the executive officers of the Crown will be restricted by orders issued by the Government, directing the exercise of their discretionary powers in such a manner as to modify in practical application those provisions of the Order in Council, which, if strictly enforced, would violate neutral rights and interrupt legitimate trade.  Relying on the faithful performance of these voluntary assurances by his Majesty’s Government, the United States takes it for granted that the approach of American merchantmen to neutral ports situated upon the long line of coast affected by the Order in Council will not be interfered with when it is known that they do not carry goods which are contraband of war or goods destined to or proceeding from ports within the belligerent territory affected.

The Government of the United States assumes with the greater confidence that his Majesty’s Government will thus adjust their practice to the recognized rules of international law because it is manifest that the British Government have adopted an extraordinary method of “stopping cargoes destined for or coming from the enemy’s territory,” which, owing to the existence of unusual conditions in modern warfare at sea, it will be difficult to restrict to the limits which have been heretofore required by the law of nations.  Though the area of operations is confined to “European waters, including the Mediterranean,” so great an area of the high seas is covered and the cordon of ships is so distant from the territory affected that neutral vessels must necessarily pass through the blockading force in order to reach important neutral ports which Great Britain as a belligerent has not the legal right to blockade and which, therefore, it is presumed she has no intention of claiming to blockade.

The Scandinavian and Danish ports, for example, are open to American trade.  They are also free, so far as the actual enforcement of the Order in Council is concerned, to carry on trade with German Baltic ports, although it is an essential element of blockade that it bear with equal severity upon all neutrals.

This Government, therefore, infers that the commanders of his Majesty’s ships of war, engaged in maintaining the so-called blockade, will be instructed to avoid an enforcement of the proposed measures of non-intercourse in such a way as to impose restrictions upon neutral trade more burdensome than those which have been regarded as inevitable, when the ports of a belligerent are actually blockaded by the ships of its enemy.