These are merely the well-known limitations which war places upon neutral commerce on the high seas.  But nothing beyond these has it conceded.

I call your Excellency’s attention to this, notwithstanding it is already known to all the world as a consequence of the publication of our correspondence in regard to these matters with several of the belligerent nations, because I cannot assume that you have official cognizance of it.

In the second place, this Government attempted to secure from the German and British Governments mutual concessions with regard to the measures those Governments respectively adopted for the interruption of trade on the high seas.  This it did, not of right, but merely as exercising the privileges of a sincere friend of both parties and as indicating its impartial good-will.

The attempt was unsuccessful, but I regret that your Excellency did not deem it worthy of mention in modification of the impressions you expressed.  We had hoped that this act on our part had shown our spirit in these times of distressing war, as our diplomatic correspondence had shown our steadfast refusal to acknowledge the right of any belligerent to alter the accepted rules of war at sea in so far as they affect the rights and interests of neutrals.

In the third place, I note with sincere regret that in discussing the sale and exportation of arms by citizens of the United States to the enemies of Germany, your Excellency seems to be under the impression that it was within the choice of the Government of the United States, notwithstanding its professed neutrality and its diligent efforts to maintain it in other particulars, to inhibit this trade, and that its failure to do so manifested an unfair attitude toward Germany.

This Government holds, as I believe your Excellency is aware and as it is constrained to hold in view of the present indisputable doctrines of accepted international law, that any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war, which would affect unequally the relations of the United States with the nations at war, would be an unjustifiable departure from the principle of strict neutrality, by which it has consistently sought to direct its actions, and I respectfully submit that none of the circumstances, urged in your Excellency’s memorandum, alters the principle involved.

The placing of an embargo on the trade in arms at the present time would constitute such a change and be a direct violation of the neutrality of the United States.  It will, I feel assured, be clear to your Excellency that holding this view and considering itself in honor bound by it, it is out of the question for this Government to consider such a course.

I hope that your Excellency will realize the spirit in which I am drafting this reply.  The friendship between the people of the United States and the people of Germany is so warm and of such long standing, the ties which bind them to one another in amity are so many and so strong, that this Government feels under a special compulsion to speak with perfect frankness, when any occasion arises which seems likely to create any misunderstanding, however slight or temporary, between those who represent the Governments of the two countries.