opinion, that it was intended as a permanent measure; that the real object was not what had been expressed in the Message, but to put down commerce and set up manufactures; to convert all our commercial capital into manufactures, and all our commercial men into manufacturers; and many honest politicians had thought it would be a practicable, and useful, and beneficial plan, though the contrary had ever been his opinion. In confirmation of his opinion, Mr. H. said, when they looked over official and other publications which bore the stamp of authority, or were considered as being approved by the constituted authorities of the country, they were told that the agriculturist and manufacturer should be planted side by side, and that they should sit at their own doors, clothed in their own manufactures of those articles which they had before received from others. These ideas could never be realized but by abandoning commerce. NOVEMBER, 1808. but the reason the gentleman had given for it was a very extraordinary one, for when an objection had been made to the appointment of this committee it had been answered that its appointment would not at all interfere with his (Mr. H.'s) resolution; upon which ground no opposition had been made to the appointment of the committee. Mr. POPE said it had been his opinion this morning that this resolution should have been referred to that committee, but after what had been said, it was his wish that some commercial gentleman, whose knowledge of commercial subjects would enable him to explore the wide field taken by the gentleman from Connecticut, would have answered him. He had hoped, at this session, after the Presidential election was decided, that all would have dismounted from their political hobbies, that they would have been all Federalists, all Republicans, all Americans. When they saw the ocean swarming with pirates, and commerce almost annihilated, he had hoped that the demon of party spirit would not have reared its head within these walls, but that they would all have mingled opinions and consulted the common good. He had heretofore been often charmed with the matter-of-fact arguments of the gentleM. H. said no man was more desirous to obey man from Connecticut; but on this day the genthe laws of his country than he was; but in a tleman had resorted to arguments from newspafree country laws could not be forced down. pers, and revived all the old story of French inEither by force, or in some other way, the people fluence, in the same breath in which he begged would get rid of a disagreeable law. They al- them to discard all party feelings and discuss ways had and always would do it. Therefore, with candor. The gentleman had gone into a attempting this system was prostrating the dig-wide field, which Mr. H. said he would not now nity of the Government and teaching the people to trample on the constituted authorities. He wished to see the magistracy of a free country omnipotent in its laws; but if, by projects of this kind, the people were driven to opposition, they would not confine themselves to the Constitutional remedy, but feeling their power, would exercise it with violence. Therefore, when a measure was found not to operate right, they should retreat, and they might do it too with a good grace, for it would be for the honor of the nation that they should retrace their steps. Mr. H. here went at some length into a discussion on the subject of manufactures, using arguments tending to demonstrate that large manufactories are as unsuitable to the genius of a free people as to the peculiar habits of the people of the United States. explore, but begged time till to-morrow, when he would endeavor to show to the nation and to the world that the arguments used by the gentleman in favor of his resolution were most weighty against it. If patriotism had departed the land, if the streams of foreign corruption had flowed so far that the people were ready to rise in opposition to their Government, it was indeed time that foreign intercourse should cease. If the spirit of 1776 were no more-if the spirit of commercial speculation had surmounted all patriotism—if this was the melancholy situation of the United States, it was time to redeem the people from this degeneracy, to regenerate them, to cause them to be born again of the spirit of 1776. But he believed he should be able to show that the proposition of the gentleman from Connecticut hardly merited the respect or serious consideration of this honorable body. Mr. P. said he had expected that in advocating his resolution the gentleman would have told the Senate that we should go to war with Great Britain and France; that he would have risen with patriotic indignation and have called for a more efficient measure. But to his surprise, the gentleman had risen, and with the utmost sang froid told them, let your ships go out, all's well, and nothing is to be apprehended. Mr. P. said he would not go into the subject at this moment; he had but risen to express his feelings on the occasion. He wished the subject postponed, the more because he wished Mr. HILLHOUSE said he had no objection that to consult a document just laid on their table, to the subject should be postponed till to-morrow, I see how the memorials presented a short time ago Mr. H. said he imagined some ulterior steps might be proper if the embargo were raised; but, on conversing with members, he had found so many different opinions to prevail, that he had not coupled anything with this. When the embargo should have been done away, no doubt the councils of the nation would come to some result and adopt some measure which would take its place. For all these reasons, Mr. H. concluded by saying that he was clearly of opinion that his resolution should be adopted, and the embargo repealed. Mr. BRADLEY moved the postponement of the further consideration of the subject till to-morrow. A committee had been appointed by the House on this subject, and the present agitation of the subject must paralyze the proceedings of the committee, if not operate against its total dissolution. NOVEMBER, 1808. The Embargo. SENATE. to great embarrassment, vexation, and plunder, from the belligerents of Europe. There is no doubt but both France and Great Britain have violated the laws of nations, and immolated the rights of neutrals; but there is, in my opinion, a striking difference in the circumstances of the two nations; the one, instigated by a lawless thirst of universal domination, is seeking to extend an iron from those whose cause the gentleman from Connecticut undertook to advocate, accorded with the sentiments he had this day expressed for them. Mr. HILLHOUSE said he should have been much gratified if the gentleman from Kentucky had confined his remarks to argument, without making a personal attack on him. Mr. H. said he had arraigned no party, charged none with party views or corruption. He could not see where the gen-handed, merciless despotism over every region of tleman found ground for personality; for Mr. H. said he never did use it himself, nor ever would. Mr. LLOYD said as it was an exceedingly interesting subject, and had been ten days before the House, and put off with as much civility as possible to accommodate gentlemen, he wished that the subject might progress in regular discussion, not expecting, however, that it would be decided to-day or to-morrow. the globe; while the other is fighting for her natale solum. for the preservation of her liberties, and probably for her very existence. The one professes to reluct at the inconvenience she occasions you by the adoption of measures, which are declared to be intended merely as measures of retaliation on her enemies, and which she avows she will retract, as soon as the causes which occasion them are withdrawn. The other, in addition to depredation and conflagration, treats you with the utmost contumely and disdain; she admits not that you possess the rights of sovereignty and independence, but undertakes to legislate for you, and declares that, whether you are willing or unwilling, she considers you as at war with her enemy; that she had arrested your property, and would hold it as bail for your obedience, until she knew whether you would servilely echo submission to her mandates. Mr. S. SMITH said that if the honorable gentleman last up had a design to give a view of the subject such as it deserved, he should be glad to hear him. The gentleman was capable of giving a correct view of the subject, and perhaps had prepared his mind on it. Mr. S. confessed his own negligence in not being prepared; but if the gentleman from Massachusetts would give a commercial view of the subject, he hoped the gentleman from Vermont would withdraw his motion. Mr. LLOYD said this was so interesting a sub- There is no doubt that the conduct of these ject that he could not be silent on it. Whether belligerents gave rise to the embargo; but if this he should give that chaste view of the subject of measure has been proved by experience to be inwhich the gentleman from Maryland was ca-operative as it regards them, and destructive only pable, he could not say. If the Senate would in- as it respects ourselves, then every dictate of magdulge him, however, he would express those ideas nanimity, of wisdom, and of prudence, should urge which immediately occurred to him on the sub- the immediate repeal of it. ject. ponement. The propriety of doing this is now under disMr. BRADLEY withdrew his motion for post-cussion. The proposition is a naked one; it is unconnected with ulterior measures; and gentlemen who vote for its repeal ought not to be considered as averse from, and they are not opposed to, the subsequent adoption of such other measures as the honor and the interest of the country may require. Mr. LLOYD said he considered the question now under discussion as one of the most important that has occurred since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It is a subject, said Mr. L., deeply implicating, and perhaps determining, the fate of the commerce and navigation of our country; a commerce which has afforded employment for nearly a million and a half of tons of navigation; which has found occupation for hundreds of thousands of our citizens; which has spread wealth and prosperity in every region of our country, and which has upheld the Government by furnishing the revenue for its support. A commerce which has yielded an annual amount of exports exceeding one hundred millions of dollars; an amount of exports three times as great as was possessed by the first maritime and commercial nation of the world at the commencement of the last century, when her population was double that of the United States at this time; an amount of exports equal to what Great Britain, with her navy of a thousand ships, and with all her boasted manufactures, possessed even at so recent a period as within about fifteen years from this date: surely this is a commerce not to be trifled with; a commerce not lightly to be offered up as the victim of fruitless experiment. Our commerce has unquestionably been subject In considering this subject, it naturally presents itself under three distinct heads: 1st. As it respects the security which it gave to our navigation, and the protection it offered our seamen, which were the ostensible objects of its adoption. 2dly. In reference to its effect on other nations, meaning France and Great Britain, in coercing them to adopt a more just and honorable course of policy towards us: and, 3dly. As it regards the effects which it has produced and will produce among ourselves. In thus considering it, sir, I shall only make a few remarks on the first head. I have no desire to indulge in retrospections; the measure was adopted by the Government; if evil has flowed from it, that evil cannot now be recalled. If events have proved it to be a wise and beneficial measure, I am willing that those to whom it owes its parentage should receive all the honors that are due to them; but if security to our navigation, and protection to our seamen, were the real ob|jects of the embargo, then it has already answer ed all the effects that can be expected from it. In fact, its longer continuance will effectually counteract the objects of its adoption; for it is notorious, that each day lessens the number of our seamen, by their emigration to foreign countries, in quest of that employment and subsistence which they have been accustomed to find, but can no longer procure, at home; and as it regards our navigation, considered as part of the national property, it is not perhaps very material whether it is sunk in the ocean, or whether it is destined to become worthless from lying and rotting at our wharves. In either case, destruction is equally certain, it is death; and the only difference seems to be, between death by a coup de grace, or death after having sustained the long protracted torments of torture. What effect has this measure produced on foreign nations? What effect has it produced on France? The honorable gentleman from Connecticut has told you, and told you truly, in an exposé presented by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs to the Emperor, that this measure is much applauded: it is called a magnanimous measure of the Americans! And in a conversation which is stated to have passed recently at Bayonne, between the Emperor of France and an American gentleman, it is said, and I believe correctly, that the Emperor expressed his approbation of the embargo. I have no doubt that this is the fact; the measure is too consentaneous with his system of policy, not to be approbated by him. So long as the extreme maritime preponderancy of Great Britain shall continue, with or without the existence of an American embargo, or with, or without the British Orders in Council, France can enjoy but very little foreign commerce, and that little, the Emperor of France would undoubtedly be willing to sacrifice, provided that, by so doing, he could insure the destruction of a much larger, and more valuable amount of British and American commerce. It is therefore apparent, that this measure, considered as a coercive measure against France, is nugatory in the extreme. What, sir, are, or have been its effects on Great Britain? When the embargo was first laid the nation were alarmed. Engaged in a very extended and important commerce with this country, prosecuted upon the most liberal and confidential terms, this measure, whether considered as an act of hostility, or as a mere municipal restrictive regulation, could not but excite apprehension; for most of her writers, in relation to her colonies, had impressed the belief of the dependence of the West India settlements on the United States for the means of subsistence. Accordingly, for several months after the imposition of the embargo, we find it remained an object of solicitude with them, nor have I any doubt that the Ministry, at that time, partook of the national feeling; for it appears, so late as June, that such a disposition existed with the British Ministry, as induced our Minister at the Court of London to entertain the NOVEMBER, 1808. belief, and to make known to his Government the expectation he entertained, that an adjustment would take place of the differences between this country and Great Britain. But, sir, the apprehensions of the British nation and Ministry gradually became weaker; the embargo had been submitted to the never erring test of experience, and information of its real effects flowed in from every quarter. It was found that, instead of reducing the West Indies by famine, the planters in the West Indies, by varying their process of agriculture, and appropriating a small part of their plantations for the raising of ground provisions, were enabled, without materially diminishing their usual crops of produce, in a great measure, to depend upon themselves for their own means of subsistence. The British Ministry also became acquainted about this time (June) with the unexpected and unexampled prosperity of their colonies of Canada and Nova Scotia. It was perceived that one year of an American embargo was worth to them twenty years of peace or war under any other circumstances; that the usual order of things was reversed; that in lieu of American merchants making estates from the use of British merchandise and British capital, the Canadian merchants were making fortunes, of from ten to thirty or forty thousand pounds in a year, from the use of American merchandise and American capital: for it is notorious, that great supplies of lumber. and pot and pearl ashes, have been transported from the American to the British side of the Lakes; this merchandise, for want of competition, the Canadian merchant bought at a very reasonable rate, sent it to his correspondents in England, and drew exchange against the shipments; the bills for which exchange he sold to the merchants of the United States for specie, transported by wagon loads at noon-day, from the banks in the United States, over the borders into Canada. And thus was the Canadian merchant enabled, with the assistance only of a good credit, to carry on an immensely extended and beneficial commerce, without the necessary employment, on his part, of a single cent of his own capital. About this time, also, the revolution in Spain developed itself. The British Ministry foresaw the advantage this would be of to them, and immediately formed a coalition with the patriots: by doing this, they secured to themselves, in despite of their enemies, an accessible channel of communication with the Continent. They must also have been convinced, that if the Spaniards did not succeed in Europe, the Colonies would declare themselves independent of the mother country, and rely on the maritime force of Great Britain for their protection, and thus would they have opened to them an incalculably advantageous mart for their commerce and manufactures; for, having joined the Spaniards without stipulation, they undoubtedly expected to reap their reward in the exclusive commercial privileges that would be accorded to them; nor were they desirous to seek competitors for the favor of the Spaniards: if they could keep the navigation, the enterprise, SENATE. West India interest; they petitioned Parliament for a prohibition of the use of grain in the distilleries, and the substitution of sugar and molasses in lieu of it: the reasons assigned in support of the petition were, that it would give a double advantage to the nation, by affording relief to the West India planters, and also greatly reduce the price of food to the poor. The bill was, however, opposed to the landed interest, and at that time rejected on the single ground, that by bringing into the market so large a surplus quantity of grain, as six millions of bushels, being the amount annually consumed in the distilleries, the price would be so greatly reduced as not to pay the farmer for the labor and expense of raising it. But, sir, are there yet other channels through which we can operate upon Great Britain, by means of this measure? It may possibly be said that disturbances among the manufacturers in England yet exist, and that they are only quieted for the moment. Sir, as long as I remember to have heard of the British nation, I have heard of tumults among her manufacturers, although I Thus it is evident that we have no chance of have never known any serious result from them; operating on the fears of Great Britain on acbut every petty squabble between a manufacturer count of her harvest; for it is shown that she has and his workmen, is, by the magic of some gen-it at any time in her power, and even with an entlemen's imagination, converted into an alarming couragement to her colonies, to throw into her insurrection, menacing the prostration of her corn market a quantity of grain nearly equal to Government. Suppose, sir, by abstaining from the whole quantity of wheat exported from this the receipt of British manufactures, you make country in the year ending in September, 1807; bankrupts of one hundred of her wealthiest man- for, by the returns of the Secretary of the Treasufacturers; what is produced by this? Within ury, it appeared that all the flour and wheat extwelve months you have witnessed nearly as many ported during that year, amounted only to what bankruptcies in one of your own cities, and yet would be equal to about seven millions three hunthat city retains its usual credit and reputation dred thousand bushels of wheat. for wealth. But, to extend this argument fur- But, sir, if we cannot trade with France and ther, suppose, from the causes before mentioned, England, why should we be deprived of all interyou make bankrupts of five hundred of the wealth-course with Spain and Portugal? These are naiest of her manufacturers, and that in consequence you deprive of employment fifty thousand of their workmen; what is the effect produced by this? What has become of the manufacturers of France? These men will not starve; they will not become nonentities; in time of war they have a certain asylum; they will be absorbed in her army or navy; and thus you take fifty thousand of the most turbulent of her citizens, who are in constant opposition to the Government, from under the control of a lax civil authority, and by placing them under the coercion of an efficient military discipline, you add in reality to the strength of the nation, and give to her the means of extending and retaining her maritime dominion: this surely is not desirable. Some gentlemen may say, that the fear of famine is to effect what an insurrection among her manufacturers will not accomplish. Of all idle expectations, this is the most idle. It is well known that the harvest in England is got in during the month of August, and the early part of September: I have before me, sir, a price current of the 20th of September, from which it appears that American flour, subject to the payment of freight, insurance, commission, and other charges, was selling in Liverpool at forty-seven shillings sterling the barrel. Another fact will, perhaps, give gentlemen some information on this subject. Owing to the interdiction of the trade to the Continent of Europe, sugars, during the last Winter, from the West Indies, had so greatly accumulated in England, as to render them unsaleable in any considerable quantity: this greatly incommoded the 10th CoN. 2d SESS.-2 tions struggling for their liberties. Will it be told you, sir, that the trade to these countries is an inconsiderable one; that it will yield little or no profit; and that it will be unequally and unjustly divided between the different parts of the United States? Spain, Portugal, and their dependencies, have taken of our exports about twenty millions of dollars in a year. Can this be called an inconsiderable trade? The exports of Spain and Portugal consist principally in wines, brandies, and fruits. They are not grain countries, but depend principally for their supplies of grain upon other countries. They have formerly received them from the Mediterranean, from the coast of Barbary, and from the Baltic. Under the present circumstances of the European world, these supplies could probably be best obtained from the United States, and would require large quantities of wheat and flour from the Southern States. The Spaniards and Portuguese professing the Roman Catholic religion, and being obliged by its ordinances to abstain for part of the year from the use of meat, and being accustomed to live during that time principally on fish, have rendered Spain and Portugal the best market in Europe for that staple of the Northern States. The lumber for their packages, their casks, and boxes, they obtain chiefly from New York and Norfolk; the lumber of the Eastern States not being so well adapted for their purpose. Thus, then, it appears, that this trade, instead of being an unequal one, is more equally divided among the different portions of the Union, than any other trade which is prosecuted from the United States to any part of Europe. SENATE. The Embargo. NOVEMBER, 1808. It remains now, sir, to consider the effects of responded with the gentleman in saying that such the embargo on ourselves. Every gentleman a plan would be extremely injurious; that possibly must be the best judge of its effects within the it could not be enforced in the United States; and immediate circle of his own observation. From that, if it could, merchants would conceive themthe observation I have been enabled to make, it selves highly aggrieved by it. But the gentleappears to me to be fraught with destruction. It man's ideas had no foundation. Mr. S. said he appears to be wasting our resources instead of had before seen it in newspapers, but had considpreserving them; breaking down the spirit of the ered it a mere electioneering trick; that nothing people, and dividing instead of uniting them. It like common sense or reason was meant by it, and is inviting foreign insult and aggression, by the nobody believed it. The gentleman surely did imbecility which it opposes to them; and it ap- not throw out this suggestion by way of harmopears to me to bear extremely hard upon the com- nizing; for nothing could be more calculated to mercial and navigating States. create heat. The human mind is composed of nearly the same materials in all countries. Extend over an enlightened community, possessing the means of easy communication, a great and severe degree of privation and suffering, without accompanying that suffering with an absolute conviction on the public mind of some great, some urgent public necessity requiring it, and some eventual good to emanate from it, and there is reason to fear you may create great discontent and uneasiness. Wherever this exists in a great degree, it will be manifested in memorials to the constituted authorities of the country. Legislative resolutions will next follow; remonstrances succeed; and if these are unattended to, resistance imbodies itself, and the spark of discontent, which might easily have been smothered in its origin, is fanned into a flame of rebellion, spreading ruin and desolation around it, and in its progress perhaps overturning the liberties and Government of the country. Happily, we have not reached this stage: I trust in God we never shall. It should be the duty of every man, both in and out of office, to adopt every measure, and make every exertion to prevent it. The removal of the embargo will, as I believe, be one means to check an incipient state of discontent. I am therefore for this, as well as for many other reasons, most earnestly and zealously in favor of its repeal, and the passing the resolution for that purpose. A motion was now made for adjournment, and negatived. Mr. SMITH, of Maryland, said he was not prepared to go as largely into this subject as it merited, having neither documents nor papers before him. He would therefore only take a short view of it in his way, and endeavor to rebut a part of the argument of the gentleman from Massachusetts, and perhaps to notice some of the observations of the gentleman from Connecticut. He perfectly agreed with the latter gentleman that this subject ought to be taken up with coolness, and with temper, and he could have wished that the gentleman from Connecticut would have been candid enough to pursue that course which he had laid down for others. Had he done it? No. In the course of the discussion, the gentleman had charged it upon some one, he knew not whom, that there was a disposition to break down commerce for the purpose of erecting manufactures on its ruins. If this was the disposition of those who had advocated the embargo, Mr. S. said, he was not one to go with them, and perfectly cor The gentleman last up, throughout his argument, had gone upon the ground that it is the embargo which has prevented all our commerce; that, if the embargo were removed, we might pursue it in the same manner as if the commerce of the whole world was open to us. If the gentleman could have shown this, he would have gone with him heart and hand; but it did not appear to him that, were the embargo taken off to-morrow, any commerce of moment could be pursued. Mr. S. said he was not certain that it might not be a wise measure to take off the embargo; but he was certain that some other measure should be taken before they thought of taking that. And he had hoped that gentlemen would have told them what measure should have been taken before they removed the embargo. Not so, however. A naked proposition was before them to take off the embargo; and were that agreed to, and the property of America subject to depredations by both the belligerents, they would be foreclosed from taking any measure at all for its defence. For this reason this resolution should properly have gone originally to the committee on the resolution of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. GILES.) Mr. S. said he was not prepared for a long discussion, he should take but a short view. He would not go back to see which nation had been the first offender. He was not the apologist of any nation, but, he trusted, a fervent defender of the rights, honor, and interest of his own country. By the decrees of France every vessel bound to or from Great Britain, was declared good prize. And still further; if spoken alone by any British vessel, they were condemned in the French prize courts. When a vessel arrived in the ports of France, Mr. S. said, bribery and corruption were made use of in order to effect her condemnation. Every sailor on board was separately examined as to what had happened in the course of the voyage; they were told, you will have one-third of the vessel and cargo as your portion of the prizemoney, if you will say that your vessel has touched at a British port or has been visited by a British cruiser. Of course then, by the decrees of France, all American property that floats is subject to condemnation by the French, if it had come in contact with British hands. Were gentlemen willing to submit to this; to raise the embargo, and subject our trade to this depredation? Yes, said the gentleman from Connecticut, who was willing, however, that our ships should arm and defend themselves. Mr. S. said that he had |