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of money necessary to pay, clothe, and feed these people. Sir, we affect them vitally by affecting their manufactures; for by the export duty on these, and imports on their returns, they obtain great part of their revenue. If they export noththey can import nothing. This conclusion of the gentleman from Massachusetts cannot therefore be correct.

would commence the attack could she believe this country under the influence of France. I would just as much believe in the sincerity of that exposé, as Mr. Canning's sincerity, when he says that his Majesty would gladly make any sacrifice to restore to the commerce of the United States its wonteding activity. No man in the nation is silly enough to be gulled by these declarations; but, from the use made of them, we should be led to think other- The gentleman from Massachusetts says, it is wise, were it not for the exercise of our whole true that a considerable alarm was excited in Engstock of charity. Now I cannot believe that any land when the news of the embargo arrived there; man in this nation does believe in the sincerity of that they had been led to believe, from their wriMr. Canning's expressions, or that Bonaparte be-ters and speakers, that a discontinuance of their lieves that the embargo was laid to promote his intercourse with this country would be productive interest. I cannot believe that there is any man of most injurious consequences; but that they in this nation who does candidly and seriously were now convinced that all their writers and entertain such an opinion. statesmen were mistaken, and that she can suffer When we advance to the second proposition, a discontinuance of intercourse without being we are told in the most positive terms, by the gentle convulsed or suffering at all. To believe this men from Delaware and Connecticut, that this requires a considerable portion of credulity, esmeasure has produced no effect on foreign na-pecially when the most intelligent men affirm to tions. The gentleman from Massachusetts barely the contrary. In the last of March or the first of admits that at first it had excited some small de- April last, we find, on an examination of merchants gree of alarm in Great Britain for a short time. at the bar of the British House of Commons, that I cannot believe that gentlemen wish to be under- the most positive injury must result from a constood literally when they tell us this. It can tinuance of non-intercourse. It is not possible that be nothing more than a figure of rhetoric. It can- our merchants on this side of the water, however not really be meant that the embargo has produced intelligent they may be, can be as well acquainted no effect. The gentleman from Massachusetts with the interests of Great Britain as her most gets over it by saying that insurrections among intelligent merchants. This alarm however, the her manufacturers were familiar to him; he had gentleman has told us, continued through the always heard of them. But, sir. I do not recol- Spring and dissipated in the Summer. It is very lect to have heard of any insurrection, of the kind easy to discover the cause of the dissipation of to which I allude, having taken place. They this alarm. It was not because the loss of interhave at times heretofore been disorderly indeed, but course was not calulated to produce an effect, but in the late case it was a peaceable assemblage of it proceeded from an adventitious cause, which laborers, not intending to overthrow the Govern- could not have been anticipated-the revolution ment or to resist the laws, but to show the abso- in Spain; and there is no intelligent man who lute state of starvation with which they were will not acknowledge its injurious effects on our threatened. There has been nothing of this kind concerns. No sooner did the British Ministers within my recollection before. We have heard see a probability that the struggle between the of mobs and riotous tumults; but in the present Spanish patriots and France would be maintained, case no movement was made by these unfortunate than they conceived hopes that they might find people to disturb the Government. With a de- other supplies; and then they thought they might gree of facility which excited my astonishment, give to the people an impulse by interesting the the gentlemen tells us that if 100 principal man- nation in the affairs of Spain, which would render ufacturers should be reduced to bankruptcy, and lighter the effects of our embargo. This is the 50,000 mechanics should be turned out of em- cause of the change in Mr. Canning's language; ploy, this would but strengthen the army and navy for every gentleman in the House knows that a of the British nation; that, when you affect Great very material change took place in it in the latter Britain most seriously, you do her a benefit. Pur- part of the Summer. If then the embargo has suing this argument a little farther, suppose 500,- not produced the effects calculated from it, we 000 should be unemployed, the arm of the nation have every reason to believe that its failure to prowould be so much the more strengthened, and the duce these effects has been connected with causes more it would enable her to enforce her arbitrary wholly adventitious, and which may give way if maritime regulations. I see no conclusion to the nation adheres to the measure. If however which this argument would lead us, but to this; there be any probability that these causes will be that as you destroy her manufactures you make continued for a long time, we ought to abandon her powerful. If the effect of destroying her man-it. I am not in favor of continuing any measure ufactures was to be simply that which the gentle of this kind, except there be a probability of its man conceives, of arming her vessels and filling producing some effect on those who make it nethe ranks of her armies, it possibly might promote cessary for us to exercise this act of self-denial. her strength. But these people must be clothed When I first saw the account of the revolution in and fed, whether in the sea or land service, and Spain, my fears were excited lest it should promust also have a little pay. If all her manufac-duce the effect which it has done. As soon as I tures are destroyed, where is she to obtain the sum saw the stand made by the Spanish patriots, I was

apprehensive that it might buoy up the British nation under the sufferings arising from the effects of their iniquitous orders, which, compared with the sufferings which we ourselves have borne, have been as an hundred to one. Ifthere be evidence that the effects of this measure will yet be counteracted by recent events in Spain, I will abandon it, but its substitute should be war, and no ordinary war-I say this notwithstanding the petitions in the other branch of the Legislature, and the resolutions of a State Legislature which have lately been published. When I read the resolutions, called emphatically the Essex resolutions, I blush for the disgrace they reflect on my country. We are told there that this nation has no just cause of complaint against Great Britain; and that all our complaints are a mere pretext for war. I blush that any man belonging to the great American family should be so debased, so degraded, so lost to every generous and national feeling, as to make a declaration of this kind. It is debasing to the national character.

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but by war, except we keep without their reach? If the embargo produces a repeal of these edicts, we effect it without going to war. Whenever we repeal the embargo we are at war, or we abandon our neutral rights. It is impossible to take the middle ground, and say that we do not abandon them by trading with Great Britain alone. You must submit, or oppose force to force. Can arming our merchant vessels, by resisting the whole navy of Great Britain, oppose force to force? It is impossible. The idea is absurd.

By way of ridiculing the embargo, the gentleman from Connecticut, in his familiar way, has attempted to expose this measure. He elucidated it by one of those familiar examples by which he generally exemplifies his precepts. He says your neighbor tells you that you shall not trade with another neighbor, and you say you will not trade at all. Now this, he says, is very magnanimous, but it is a kind of magnanimity with which he is not acquainted. Now let us see the magnanimity of that gentleman, and see if it savors more of We are told by the gentleman from Connecti- true magnanimity than our course. Great Briteut, not, to be sure, in language equally strong ain and France each say that we shall not trade with that of the Essex resolutions, that the repeal with the other. We say we will not trade with of the embargo will not involve us in war, unless either of them, because we believe our trade will indeed Bonaparte makes war on us; that we are be important to both of them. The gentleman not driven to that alternative; that we have yet says it is a poor way of defending the national an honorable and lucrative trade left open to us. rights. Suppose we pursue his course. Great The same gentleman has said that he will not Britain says we shall not trade to France; we say consent to go to war for rights not well established, we will not, but will obey her. We will trade but that he will never abandon a neutral right upon such terms as she may impose. "This will which is clearly established. From this it would be magnanimity indeed; this will be defending appear that the gentleman thinks that the British commerce with a witness!" It will be bowing Orders in Council are no infringement on the rights the neck to the yoke. The opposition to taxation of neutral nations. [Mr. HILLHOUSE said he did against our consent, at the commencement of the not say so.] I did not say that the gentleman Revolution, was not more meritorious than the said so; but I drew the inference from the gen- opposition to tribute and imposition at the prestleman's position. [Mr. HILLHOUSE observed that ent day. I cannot, for my soul, see the difference he had said that he was doubtful whether the na- between paying tribute and a tacit acquiescence tion should go to war for doubtful rights; but for in the British Orders in Council. True, every rights clearly indisputable he would permit the gentleman revolts at paying tribute. But where arming of our merchant vessels.] The gentle- is the difference between that and suffering yourman's explanations, Mr. CRAWFORD said, did not self to be controlled by the arbitrary act of anothchange the inference he had before stated. He er nation? If you raise the embargo you must admits that he said that a repeal of the embargo carry your produce to Great Britain and pay an would not involve the nation in war; and that arbitrary sum before you can carry it elsewhere. in support of rights not clearly established, he is If it remains there, the markets will be glutted not prepared to say whether he would go to war and it will produce nothing. For it appears, from or not. I here understood the gentleman to al- the very evidence to which I have before alluded. lude to that portion of trade carried on by export- that at least four-fifths of our whole exports of ing the produce of enemies' colonies to foreign tobacco must go to England and pay a tax before countries. I had thought that the right of an in- we could look for a market elsewhere, and that dependent nation to trade with the whole world, out of seventy-five thousand hogsheads raised in except in ports absolutely blockaded, or in articles this country, not more than fifteen thousand are contraband of war, was a right which could not consumed in Great Britain. Where does the rebe denied, a right in which no nation had hereto-mainder usually go? Why, to the ports of the fore attempted to control another. The gentleman from Connecticut says he will not go to war for doubtful rights; and, that he will not go to war against the Orders in Council. I can draw no other inference from these observations, than that the gentleman conceives that the Orders in Council do not infringe our neutral rights; or, that all our rights are doubtful.

How are these orders and decrees to be opposed

Continent. I ask, then, if the whole consumption of Great Britain be but fifteen thousand hogsheads, if an annual addition of sixty thousand hogsheads be thrown into that market, would it sell for the costs of freight? Certainly not The same would be the situation of our other produce.

But the gentleman says that he is not prepared to go to war for doubtful rights! What are these doubtful rights? Has the law of nations ever in

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terdicted the trade with enemies' colonies, against of our domestic exports is shipped ostensibly for the interruption of which the American merchants Great Britain; but it is equally true that a very lately remonstrated with so much force and per- large proportion of these very exports find their spicuity? For the information of the Senate I way into the continental ports. For the British will read a part of the memorial presented by the merchants in their examination before the House merchants of Boston. For my own part, I have of Commons, already alluded to, say that threenever considered it a matter of much importance fourths of their receipts for exportation to the whether we have suffered more from France or United States have been usually drawn from the Great Britain. I have long been convinced that Continent; and that even if the embargo was reboth nations intended to do us all the evil they moved and the Orders in Council were continued, could; and where there is a difference in the they must stop their exportation, because the conquantum, it only results from an inability in the tinental ports would be closed against American feast mischievous to do more. But it is attempted vessels; because their coasts swarm with Engto be shown by the gentleman from Massachusetts lish cruisers, the French must know that the Amerthat there is a great difference between the inju-ican vessels attempting to enter have come from ries received from one Power, and those which an English port. That they had facilities of conwe have received from another: veyance to the Continent prior to the Orders in "While your memorialists have witnessed, with Council, the merchants acknowledged; and when mingled feelings of indignation towards the perpetra- requested to explain the mode of conveyance, they tors and of commiseration of their unfortunate coun- begged to be excused. No doubt every gentleman trymen, the insults and barbarities which the commerce has seen these depositions, or might have seen them, of these States have sustained from the cruisers of for they have been published in almost every paper France and Spain, it is their object, in the present me- on the Continent. They have opened to me and to morial, to confine their animadversions to the more my constituents a scene perfectly new. They tell alarming, because more numerous and extensive de- you that the Berlin decree was nothing. Nottentions and condemnations of American vessels by withstanding that decree, they had a facility of Great Britain; and to advert to the principles recently conveying produce into the continental ports; but avowed, and adopted by her courts, relative to neutral the Orders of Council completely shut the ports trade in articles of colonial produce. Principles which, of the Continent against the entrance of Ameriif admitted or practised upon in all the latitude which may fairly be inferred to be intended, would be destructive of the navigation, and radically impair the most lucrative commerce of our country.'

After going into a train of reasoning to show that the pretensions of Great Britain are a manifest violation of the neutral rights of this nation, they conclude by saying:

"But whatever may have been the motives for the proceedings on the part of Great Britain, the effect is notorious. From her recent conduct great losses have been sustained, our commerce has been checked and embarrassed, and large quantities of produce are now remaining locked up in this country which were purchased for foreign markets, because our merchants cannot send it abroad, without taking risks on themselves which prudence would not justify, or without paying such rates for insurance as the trade of the country

cannot afford."

This memorial is in support of the very trade which the gentleman from Connecticut says he would not go to war for. Now a different language is held by the signers of this petition, under the increased injuries we have sustained; and I am only sorry for the character of the United States that this difference of language has taken place.

The gentleman from Delaware, (Mr. WHITE) has said, that, by repealing the embargo, we can now carry on a safe and secure trade to the extent of nearly four-fifths of the amount of our domestic productions. There is nothing more delusive, and better calculated to impose on those who do not investigate subjects, than these calculations in gross. If the gentleman will take the trouble to make the necessary inquiries, he will find that instead of Great Britain taking to the amount he supposes of our domestic productions, she takes nothing like it. It is true that a large proportion

can vessels. On this point there was no contrariety of opinion; and several of these merchants declared that they had sent vessels to the Continent a very few days before the date of the Orders of Council. This clearly shows that any conclusion to be drawn from the gross amount of exports must be fallacious, and that probably three-fourths ought to be deducted from the gross amount. This statement of the gentleman from Delaware, which holds out to the public the prospect of a lucrative trade in four-fifths of their exports, will certainly have a tendency to render them uneasy under the privations which they are called upon to suffer by the iniquitous measures of foreign nations. Although the statement was extremely delusive, I do not say that the gentleman meant to delude by it. This, however, being the effect of the gentleman's assertion, I am certainly warranted in saying that the evidence of the British merchants who carry on this trade, is better authority than the gentleman's statements.

But admit, for the sake of argument, and on no other ground would I admit it, that these gross statements are correct; and that, at the time the embargo was adopted, these Orders in Council notwithstanding, the trade of the United States could have been carried on to this extent. What security have we, if the embargo had not been laid, after submitting and compromitting the national dignity and independence, that the British aggressions and Orders in Council would have stopped at the point at which we find them? Have we not conclusive evidence to the contrary? Are we not officially notified that the French leeward islands are declared by proclamation in a state of blockade? And do we not know that this is but carrying into effect a report of the

committee of the British House of Commons on the West India islands, in which this measure is recommended, and in which it is stated that His Britannic Majesty's West India subjects ought to receive further aid by placing these islands in a state of blockade? I can see in this measure nothing but a continuation of the system recommended last Winter in this report, and published-for the information of the United States, I

suppose.

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on the question of repealing the embargo laws, in the precise form in which it had been brought before the Senate. There was as yet a want of information; for certain additional documents, expected from the Executive, had not yet been communicated, and the select committee to which the part of the Message concerning the foreign relations of the country was lately referred, had not brought forward a report. He would have been better pleased if the proposition had been If the embargo should be repealed, and our so framed as to have expressed indignation at the vessels suffered to go out in the face of the pres- injuries our Government had received from forent Orders in Council and blockading decrees and eign nations. Then he would cheerfully have proclamations, Mr. C. said, they would but ex-given it his concurrence. But now, when those pose us to new insults and aggressions. It was in who are willing to do something, though not exvain to talk about the magnanimity of nations. actly what the motion proposes, are made to vote It was not that magnanimity which induced na- directly against a removal of the existing restrictions as well as men to act honestly; and that tions upon our commerce, their situation is rather was the best kind of magnanimity. The very unpleasant; indeed, it is unfair, inasmuch as they magnanimity which had induced them to distress must either give their assent to a measure, to the our commerce, would equally induce them to cut time and manner of which they may be averse, off the pitiful portion they had left to us. In a or they must vote negatively in a case which, but general point of view, there was now no lawful for some incidental or formal matter, would have commerce. No vessel could sail from the United met their hearty approbation. He could, thereStates without being liable to condemnation in fore, have wished that the question had been preBritain or France. If they sailed to France, Mr. sented to the House in such terms as to afford an C. said, they were carried into Britain; if they opportunity of expressing their sense of the sailed to Britain, they were carried into France. wrongs our nation had endured from foreign Now, he asked, whether men who had any regard Sovereigns, and of the restrictions laid upon to national honor would consent to navigate the American commerce by their unjust regulations, ocean on terms so disgraceful? We must be as well as on the further restrictions that, under cool calculators, indeed, if we could submit to the pressure of events, it had been thought necesdisgrace like this! sary for our own Legislature to impose.

The last reason offered by the supporters of the present resolution, Mr. C. said, may properly be said to be an argument in terrorem. The gentleman from Massachusetts says, by way of abstract proposition, that a perseverance in a measure opposed to the feelings and interests of the people may lead to opposition and insurrection; but the gentleman from Connecticut uses the same expressions as applicable to the embargo. It may be a forcible argument with some gentlemen, and most likely may have had its effect on those who intended it to produce an effect on others. But I trust that this House and this nation are not to be addressed in this way. Our understandings may be convinced by reason, but an address to our fears ought to be treated with contempt. If I were capable of being actuated by motives of fear, I should be unworthy of the seat which I hold on this floor. If the nation be satisfied that any course is proper, it would be base and degrading to be driven from it by the discordant murmurs of a minority. We are cautioned to beware how we execute a measure with which the feelings of the people are at war. I should be the last to persist in a measure which injuriously affected the interest of the United States; but no man feels more imperiously the duty of persevering in a course which is right, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of a few; and though I may regret and respect the feelings of these few, I will persist in the course which I believe to be right, at the expense even of the Government itself.

Mr. MITCHILL said he was not prepared to vote

But, although this course had not been taken, he should avail himself of the present occasion to offer to the Senate such sentiments as had arisen in his mind on the subject. In doing this, he should endeavor to take a commercial view of our situation; and, although he felt no small discouragement, from inability to arrange, in a methodical way, the proper topics for a speech, yet he found it his duty to offer something like a survey, however partial or detached, of the mercantile condition of the United States. For this purpose, he should give a sketch of the progress of our trade and navigation from the recognition of our independence in 1783.

Immediately after the severing of their empire in America from the British Crown, difficulties arose on the mode of conducting commercial intercourse between this country and Great Britain. The Parliament immediately took the matter into consideration, and provided by law for a commercial intercourse with the new States. The details of this arrangement were vested in the King and Council, and to this first statute of the British, on the manner of conducting American trade, may be traced the origin of the delegated legislative power, with which that body of men have, in subsequent years, assailed neutral rights. Thus authorized by Parliament to regulate commerce, they have prescribed, enforced, relaxed, or rescinded their orders, according to their pleasure, or the ever-varying course of events, and thereby been enabled, in a summary way, to meet the exigencies of the times.

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to assume an entire and undivided character in relation to foreign Powers.

About this time may be traced the commencement of that wonderful spirit of adventure which so distinguishes our people. We find some of The navigating spirit of our countrymen havthem doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and dis- ing called the attention of the world to the Northplaying, for the first time, the flag of their nation west coast of America, we find that, in 1790, to the Chinese at Canton, while others found Great Britain and Spain were preparing to engage their way round Cape Horn, and opened a traffic in a war, concerning the possession of a region, with the nations of the Northwest coast of Amer- which, in truth, belonged to neither, but which ica. And the joy which was excited on this side had been purchased of the natives some years beof the Atlantic, by the success and the profits of fore, and possessed in full right and property by these voyages, was attended by a jealousy on the citizens of Massachusetts. In 1793, France, havother, that the monopoly of the East India Com- ing undergone its republican metamorphosis, depany would be invaded by these daring competi-clared in due form the same commercial privitors. The exertions of this class of our country- leges to this as to other nations. men have been such, that a small firm in partnership, or even the capital of an individual American merchant, has repeatedly provided the outfit, that, forty years ago, required the patronage of an European Government. Madagascar, the Sand wich, and the Fejee Islands, have been visited, and served but as resting places for our mariners in their circumnavigation of the globe.

Difficulties having been found to increase between the American States and the British Islands, in respect to their commerce, it was found expedient on our part to send them a Minister Plenipotentiary. And, accordingly, in 1785, Mr. Adams went to London in that capacity. As an evidence of the temper both of England and France, at that period of our history, ought to be mentioned the attempts then made to seduce the whalemen from Nantucket. So successful for a while were these wily efforts, that the sandy but industrious island, whence its inhabitants migrated to Liverpool and to Dunkirk, suffered no inconsiderable shock by the migration of many of its most active citizens, and a removal of much of its shipping and stock. It was easy to discern that the desire of the two great commercial nations to increase their respective supplies of spermaceti, bone, and oil, was gratified by depriving our country of the most skilful and daring of its

seamen.

This, if I am not mistaken, said Mr. M., is the point of time when the commercial enterprise of our countrymen was considered, by the belligerent Powers of Europe, as worthy of special attention. And here is the commencement of these efforts to drive a lucrative trade on the one side, and of those exertions to curtail it on the other, which have led us, step by step, to our present awful situation. Repeated disasters and defeats had weakened the naval armament of France. She was unable to maintain her dominion on the ocean, or to give adequate protection to her external commerce. The business which had heretofore been carried on by her own merchant ships was now transferred to neutrals. And of these, the Americans, as the most enterprising, and contiguous to her West India colonies, acquired the principal part of it. Great Britain saw with displeasure the relief thus afforded to her enemy. She endeavored to prevent this interference of a neutral. And, that very year, ordered her cruisers to stop vessels of neutrals going to France and her dominions. The vast diffusion of our commerce, already spread over the greater part of the maritime world, was now very ably portrayed, and presented to the inspection of a prosperous and thrifty people by the American Secretary of State. The intercourse with France, still alluring neutrals by the prospect of great profits, our people crowded their ports with vessels and cargoes. The British persisted in their interruptions of this trade, and proceeded to make seizures, on the allegation that those ships were freighted with French property.

While the precarious Orders in Council thus governed the trade of our people to Great Britain, there existed a source of difficulty within the American States themselves, which proceeded from their political condition. A cluster of independent governments, loosely adhering by the With the British nation, possessing a commerce original articles of compact, framed during the of the greatest extent and a navy capable of proRevolution, and under the specious appearance of tecting her trade and settlements abroad, it was political unity, assuming the character of thir- a matter of the most ardent desire that our Govteen distinct sovereignties, begat a variety of un-ernment should have a Treaty of Amity and precedented occurrences. Attempts to strengthen Commerce. The uneasiness of the people and this confederation, by granting the duties on im- the discontents in the great cities were so serious, ports to Congress for the purpose of paying the that it was judged necessary to send an Envoy debts and supporting the credit of the nation, were Extraordinary to the Court of St. James. And, ineffectual. And the refusal of New York, in with the hope that the fermentation would be de1787, to surrender its rich and increasing impost, layed by a suitable negotiation, Mr. Jay was demay be considered as having left the Union to spatched on a special mission. He succeeded in expire for want of support. Under the new Con- forming a treaty. When, however, the President stitution, which was framed that very year, pro- submitted it to the Senate, and its contents were vision was expressly made for vesting in Congress made known to the nation, the dissatisfaction the authority to regulate commerce. We were seemed to have been rather aggravated than asmerely enabled to remedy many of the defects suaged. It was contended on the part of a people inherent in our former system: and particularly who could but count, ten years since, the date of