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. The possibilities of serious interruption of American trade under the Order in Council are so many, and the methods proposed are so unusual, and seem liable to constitute so great an impediment and embarrassment to neutral commerce, that the Government of the United States, if the Order in Council is strictly enforced, apprehends many interferences with its legitimate trade which will impose upon his Majesty's Government heavy responsibilities for acts of the British authorities clearly subversive of the rights of neutral nations on the high seas. It is, therefore, expected that the Majesty's Government, having considered these possibilities, will take the steps necessary to avoid them, and, in the event that they should unhappily occur, will be prepared to make full reparation for every act which, under the rules of international law, constitutes a violation of neutral rights.