before you bid an eternal adieu to your independence by an alliance with another.

There is not a greater diversity of interests between them and yourselves than will be found in the distant provinces of all great empires; none, indeed, that a truly national administration cannot reconcile. It is believed too, that many of your southern brethren accord with you in their estimate of the true interests of their country, and are inclined magnanimously to sacrifice local prejudices to national safety and honour. This happy result may be expected, when New-England, faithful to her true interests, shall speak with one voice, and exclude from her councils those who from misapprehension of those interests, or any other cause, are advocates for the present destructive system. Then, and not till that time, will a temper of mutual accommodation begin to display itself in the measures of government, and a steady, dignified conduct shield the nation from foreign and domestick dangers. The Congress of the United States will no longer be the theatre of base contention and sanguinary threats. The spirit of private combat will no longer be the test of publick spirit, and the denunciations of vanity and inexperience will cease to be vented against powerful members of the common Union.

It would indeed be a grateful occupation to the legislature to apply an immediate remedy to the evils of which the petitioners complain, and which we fear will be aggravated by a continuance of existing commercial restrictions, or substitutes not less oppressive and fatal, though veiled under new titles. But they are compelled to avow that it is with the people themselves that every efficient plan of redress must originate. While the advocates for British war and the contemners of commerce can calculate upon your divisions, they will advance in their mad and presumptuous course, and rely upon your governours and your representatives to neutralize your opposition to their measures. But when they perceive that

you are prepared to break the chains imposed by a fatal and mistaken policy, and that all the constituted authorities of New England are united in sentiment and purpose; when they are sensible that you are able to resist, and that self preservation will make resistance a duty, they will reflect upon your claims, and yield to the justice of your pretensions. They will feel that the confederation is intended for the general welfare, and that it is only by paying some regard to this object, we can maintain that union which common interest should make perpetual.

On the contrary, nothing less than a perfect union and intelligence among the eastern states can preserve to them any share of influence in the national government. Without influence they can expect no regard to their interests, but are exposed to the effects of a policy, whose object will be to secure power and office, with a view to local and personal aggrandizement, and to make them colonial governments, subject to the worst form of domination, that of one member of a confederacy over another.

The present state of our connexion is not far from this condition. The late election of representatives to Congress, and the votes for president, plainly demonstrate the disapprobation of the present system by a great majority of the eastern people. Mr. Madison, who was known to favour it, had not a vote in those states except in Vermont; and recent elections there afford evidence that at this moment he would have none. On the other hand, in the southern states, from the artificial popularity of this fatal system, his majority has been triumphant.

The same division is apparent in Congress. The known wishes of the eastern states have been not merely neglected, but rejected with threatenings and contempt.

Politicians of yesterday, from the back woods and mountains,,vie with each other in the language of insult and defiance; and the men whom you delight to honour, and the great majority of those who have

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the deepest interests at stake, in the welfare of the country, are stigmatized as a corrupt and seditious part of the community. Even when those of your own representatives, who have encouraged this presumptuous conduct by their own countenance, discovering their errours, are desirous to recede, repentance comes too late. Thus, under new names, and with the same views, the embargo system is still rivetted upon our unhappy country, in spite of the opposition of some of those who appear too late desirous of retrieving their constituents from ruin. Thus a bill has already passed one branch of the legislature, authorizing letters of marque and reprisal ; a measure calculated either to provoke an open war with Great Britain, or to protract the irritation and controversies subsisting between us. Choose, then, fellow citizens, between the condition of citizens of a free state, possessing its equal weight and influence in the national government; or that of a colony, free in name, but in fact enslaved by sister states.

4.