having been the means of depressing instead of supporting it. Say to the merchants, you will take only specie, or bank of England paper, and you will convince them of your power.--Say to those who form the combination, you never more will have the smallest transactions with them, and they will soon repent their conduct, and be assured no others will hereafter presume to make a similar attempt in any part of the kingdom. Gentle men, there are other and still more important facts that must stimulate you to persevere in your judicious and manly resistance, and although perhaps those facts are but little known, yet as they ought to be developed, probably I may hereafter relate them, and in the meanwhile I thus publicly call on any one to refute if he can what I have already told you. With every mark of respect, I remain your well wisher,-THOMAS ROOPE.-Lakenham Cottage, Norwich, Dec. 28, 1808.

OFFICIAL PAPERS. AMERICA.-Message of the President of the United States to the Senate and House of Representatives. November 8, 1808. (Continue 1 from p. 983.)

By the aid of these, and of the armed vessels called into service in other quarters, the spirit of disobedience and abuse, which manifested itself early, and with sensible effect, while we were unprepared to meet it, has been considerably repressed. Considering the extraordinary character of the times, in which we live, our attention should unremittingly be fixed on the safety of our country. For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security. It is therefore incumbent on us, at every meeting, to revise the condition of the militia, and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every point of our territories exposed to invasion. Some of the states have paid a laudable attention to this object, but every degree of neglect is to be found among others. Congress alone having the power to produce an uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defence, the interests which they so deeply feel in their own and their country's security, will present this as among the most important objects of their deliberation. Under the acts of March 11, and April 23, respecting arms, the difficulty of procuring them from abroad, during the present situation and dispositions of Europe, induced us to direct our whole efforts to the means of internal supply; the public factories have, therefore, been enlarged,

additional machineries erected, and in proportion as artificers can be found or formed, their effect, already more than doubled, may be increased so as to keep pace with the yearly increase of the militia. The annual sums appropriated by the latter act, have been directed to the encouragement of private factories of arms; and contracts have beenentered into with individual undertakers, to nearly the amount of the first year's appropriation. The suspension of our foreign commerce, produced by the injustice of the belligerent powers, and the consequent losses and sacrifices of our citizens, are subjects of just concern. The situation into which we have thus been forced, has impelled us to apply a portion of our industry and capital to internal manufactures and improvements. The extent of this conversion is daily increasing, and little doubt remains that the establishments formed and forming, will, under the auspices of cheaper materials and subsistence, the freedom of labour from taxation with us, and of protecting duties and prohibitions, become permanent. The commerce with the Indians too, within our own boundaries, is likely to receive abundant aliment from the same internal source, and will secure to them peace and the progress of civilization undisturbed by practices hostile to both. The accounts of the receipts and expendi tures during the year ending on the 30th day of September last, being not yet made up, a correct statement will hereafter be transmitted from the treasury. In the meantime, it is ascertained, that the receipts have amounted to near eighteen millions of dollars, which, with the eight millions and a half in the treasury at the beginning of the year, have enabled us, after meeting the current demands and interest incurred, to pay two millions three hundred thousand dollars, of the principal of our funded debt, and left us in the treasury on that day, near fourteen millions of dollars; of these, five millions three hundred and fifty thousand dollars will be necessary to pay what will be due on the first day of January next, which will complete the reimbursement of the eight per cent. stock. These payments, with those made in the six years and a half preceding, will have extinguished thirtythree millions five hundred and eighty thousand dollars of the principal of the funded debt, being the whole which could be paid or purchased within the limits of the law and of our contracts; and the amount of principal thus discharged, will have liberated the revenue from about two millions of dollars of interest, and added that sum annually to the disposable surplus. The probable

accumulation of the surpluses of revenue, beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt, whenever the freedom and safety of our commerce shall be restered, merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it be unproductive in the public vaults? Shall the revenue be reduced? Or shall it not rather be appropriated to the improvement of roads, canals, rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union, under the powers which Congress may already possess, or such amendment of the constitution as may be approved by the states while uncertain of the course of things, the time may be advantageously employed in obtaining the powers necessary for a system of improvement,should that be thought best. Availing myself ofthis, the last occasion which will occur, of addressing the two houses of legislature at their meeting, I cannot omit the expression of my sincere gratitude, for the repeated proofs of confidence manifested to me by themselves and their predecessors, since my call to the administration, and the many indulgences experienced at their hands; the same grateful acknowledgments are due to my fellowcitizens generally, whose support has been my great encouragement under all embarrassments. In the transaction of their business, I cannot have escaped error-it is incident to our imperfect nature; but I may say, with truth, my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention; and that the advancement of their rights and interests has been the constant motive for every measure. On these considerations, I solicit their indulgence. Looking forward with anxiety to their future destinies, I trust, that in their steady character, unshaken by difficulties, in their love of liberty, obedience to law, and support of the public authorities, I see a sure guarantee of the permanence of our republic; and, retiring from the charge of their affairs, I carry with me the consolation of a firm persuasion, that heaven has in store for our beloved country, long ages to come of prosperity and happiness.-THOS. JEFFERSON.Nov. 8, 1809.

AMERICAN EMBARGO.-Letter from Mr. Pinckney, to Mr. Secretary Canning. Dated Great Cumberland Place, Aug. 23, 1808.

SIR; - I have had the honour, in consequence of the orders of the president, to recal your attention, in the course of several recent interviews, to the British orders in council, of the 7th January and 11th of November, 1807, and to the various orders

founded upon, or in execution of them; and I now take the liberty to renew, in the mode which I have understood to be indispensable, my instances on that subject. I need scarcely remind you, Sir, that the government of the United States has never ceased to consider these orders as violating its rights, and affecting most destructively its interests, upon grounds wholly inadmissible, both in principle and fact. The let ters of Mr. Madison to Mr. Erskine, of the 20th and 29th of March, 1807, produced by the official communication of that minister of the order of the 7th of January, and the answer of Mr. Madison of the 25th of March, 1808, to a like communication of the orders of the 11th of November, containing the most direct remonstrances against the system which these orders introduce and execute, and expressed the confident expectation of the president, that it would not be persisted in. That expectation has not yet been fulfilled, but it has, notwithstanding, not been relinquished. The president is still persuaded that its accomplishment will result from a careful review, by his majesty's govenment, made in the spirit of moderation and equity, of the facts and considerations which belong to the occasion. It is not my purpose to recapitulate, in this note, the sentiments and reasonings contained in the abovementioned letters of Mr. Madison, in support of the claim of the government of the United States, that the British orders be revoked. I content myself with referring to those letters for proofs, which it is not necessary to repeat, and for arguments which I could not hope to improve. But there are explanations which those letters do not contain, and which it is proper for me now to make. Even these, however, may be very briefly given, since you have already been made acquainted in our late conversations, with all their bearings and details. These explanations go to shew, that, while every motive of justice conspires to produce a disposition to recall the orders, of which my government com plains, it is become apparent, that even their professed object will be best attained by their revocation. I had the honour to state to you, Sir, that it was the intention of the president, in case Great Britain repealed her orders as regarded the United States, to exercise the power vested in him, by the act of the last session of Congress, entitled "an act to authorise the president of the United States, under certain conditions, to suspend the operation of the act laying an embargo on all ships and vessels

in the ports and harbours of the United States, and the several acts supplementary thereto," by suspending the embargo law and its supplements, as regards Great Bri tain. I am authorised to give you this assurance in the most formal manner; and, I trust, that upon impartial inquiry, it will be found to leave no inducement to persevere in the British orders, while it dictates the most powerful inducements of equity and policy to abandon them. On the score of justice it does not seem possible to mistake the footing upon which this overture places the subject; and I venture to believe, that in any other view there is as little room for doubt. If, as I propose, your orders should be rescinded as to the United States, and our enibargo rescinded as to Great Britain, the effect of these concurrent acts will be, that the commercial intercourse of the two countries will be immediately resumed; while, if France should adhere to maxims and conduct derogatory to the nentral rights of the United States, the embargo, continuing as to her, will take the place of your orders, and lead with an efficacy, not merely equal to theirs, but probably much greater, to all the consequences that ought to result from them. On the other hand, if France should concur in respecting those rights, and commerce should thus regain its fair immunities, and the law of nations its just dominions, all the alledged purposes of the British orders will have been at once fulfilled. If I forbear to pursue these ideas through all the illustrations of which they are susceptible, it is because the personal conferences to which I have before alluded, as well as the obvious nature of the ideas themselves, render it unnecessary. I capnot conclude this note without expressing my sincere wish, that what I have now suggested, in conformity with the liberal sentiments and enlightened views of the president, may contribute not only to remove the more immediate obstacles to the ordinary intercourse of trade between your country and mine, in a manner consistent with the honour of both, but to prepare the way for a satisfactory adjustment of every question important to their future friendship. I have the honour to be, with the highest consideration, Sir, your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) WM. PINCKNEY.

Extract of a Letter from Mr. Pinckney to the Secretary of State. Dated London, 24th Sept. 1808.

I am now able to transmit to you a Copy of Mr. Canning's Answer, received only

last night, to my note of the 23d of August.-I regret extremely, that the views which I have been instructed to lay before this government, have not been met by it, as I had at first been led to expect. The overture cannot fail, however, to place in a strong light the just and liberal sentiments by which our government is animated; and, in other respects, to be useful and honourable to our own country.

Mr Secretary Canning's Letter to Mr. Pinckney. Dated Foreign Office, Sept. 28, 1803.

The undersigned, his majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, had the honour to receive the official letter addressed to Mr. Pinckney, minister plenipotentiary of the United States, respecting the orders in council issued by his majesty, on the 7th Jan. and 11th Nov. 1807.-He has laid that letter before the king, and he is commanded to assure Mr. Pinckney, that the answer to the proposal which Mr. Pinckney was instructed to bring forward, has been deferred only in the hope that the renewed application, which was understood to have been recently made by the government of the United States to that of France, might, in the new state of things which has arisen in Europe, have met with such a reception in France, as would have rendered the com-. pliance of his majesty with that proposal, consistent as much with his majesty's own dignity, and with the interests of his people, as it would have been with his majesty's disposition towards the United States.-Unhappily there is now no longer any reason to believe that such a hope is likely to be realised; and the undersigned is therefore commanded to communicate to Mr. Pinckney the decision, which, under the circumstances as they stand, his majesty feels himself compelled, however unwillingly, to adopt.The mitigated measure of retaliation, announced by his majesty in the orders in council of the 7th January, of the further extension of that measure (an extension in operation, but not in principle) by the or ders in council of November, was founded (as has been already repeatedly avowed by his majesty) on the " unquestionable right of his majesty to retort upon the enemy the evils of his own injustice;" and upon the consideration, that, if third parties incidentally suffered by those retaliatory mea sures, they were to seek their redress from the power by whose original aggression that retaliation was occasioned."-His majesty sces nothing in the embargo laid on by the president of the United States of America, which varies this original and simple

state of the question.-If considered as a measure of impartial hostility against both belligerents, the embargo appears to his majesty to have been manifestly unjust, as, according to every principle of justice, that redress ought to have been first sought from the party originating the wrong; and his majesty cannot consent to buy off that hostility, which America ought not to have extended to him, at the expence of a concession, made not to America, but to France. If, as it has more generally been represented by the government of the United States, the embargo is only to be considered as an innocent municipal regulation, which affects none but the United States themselves, and with which no foreign state has any concern; viewed in this light, his majesty does not conceive that he has the right or the pretension to make any complaint of it, and he has made none. But in this light, there appears not only no reciprocity, but no assignable relation between the repeal by the United States of a measure of voluntary self-restriction, and the surrender by his majesty of his right of retaliation against his enemies.-The government of the United States is not now to be informed, that the Berlin decree of November 21, 1806, was the practicai commencement of an attempt, not merely to check or impair the prosperity of Great Britain, but utterly to annihilate her political existence through the ruin of her commercial prosperity; that in this attempt almost all the powers of the European continent have been compelled, more or less, to co-operate, and that the American embargo, though most assuredly not intended to that end, (for America can have no real interest in the subversion of the British power; and her rulers are too enlightened to act from any impulse against the real interests of this country) but by some unfortunate concurrence of circumstances, without any hostile intention, the American embargo did come in aid of the blockade of the European continent, precisely at the very moment when, if that blockade could have succeeded at all, this interposition of the American government would most effectually have contributed to its success. To this universal combination, his majesty has opposed a temperate, but a determined retaliation upon the enemy, trusting that a firm resistance would defeat this project, but knowing that the smallest concession would infallibly encourage a perseverance in it. The struggle has been viewed by other powers, not without an apprehension that it might be fatal to this country. The British government has not disguised

from itself that the trial of such an experi ment might be arduous and long, though it has never doubted of the final issue. But if that issue, such as the British government confidently anticipated, has providentially arrived much sooner than could have been hoped; if" the blockade of the continent," as it has been triumphantly styled by the enemy, is raised even before it had been well established; and if that system, of which extent and continuity were the vital principles, is broken up into fragments, utterly harmless and contemptible, it is nevertheless important, in the highest degree, to the reputation of this country (a reputation which constitutes great part of her power) that this disappointment of the hopes of her enemies should not have been purchased by any concession, nor that a doubt should remain to distant times of her determination, and of her ability, to have continued her resistance, and that no step, which could even mistakenly be construed into concession, should be taken on her part, while the smallest link of the confederacy remains undissolved, or while it can be a question, whether the plan devised for her destruction has or has not either completely failed, or been unequivocally abandoned.These considerations compel his majesty to adhere to the principles on which the orders in council of the 7th January and the 11th November are founded, so long as France adheres to that system by which his majesty's retaliatory measures were occasioned and justified.It is not improbable, indeed, that some alterations may be made in the orders in council, as they are at present framed; alterations calculated, not to abate their spirit, or impair their principle, but to adapt them more exactly to the different state of things which has fortunately grown up in Europe, and to combine all practicable relief to neutrals, with a more severe pressure on the enemy.-But of alterations to be made with this view only, it would be uncandid to take any advantage in the present discussion; however, it might be hoped, that, in their practical effect, they might prove beneficial to America, provided the operation of the embargo were not to prevent her from reaping that benefit.—It remains for the undersigned to take notice of the last paragraph of Mr. Pinckney's let ter.-There cannot exist, on the part of Mr. Pinckney, a stronger wish than there does on that of the undersigned and of the British government, for the adjustment of all the differences subsisting between the two countries. His majesty has no other disposition than to cultivate the most friendly inter-'

course with the United States.-The undersigned is persuaded that Mr. Pinckney would be one of the last to imagine, what is often idly asserted, that the depression of any other country is necessary or serviceable to the prosperity of this. The prosperity of America is essentially the prosperity of Great Britain, and the strength and power of Great Britain are not for herself only, but for the world.-When those adjustments shall take place, to which, though unfortunately not practicable at this moment, nor under the conditions prescribed by Mr. Pinckney, the undersigned, nevertheless, confidently looks forward, it will perhaps be no insecure pledge for the continuance of the good understanding between the two countries, that they will have learnt duly to appreciate each other's friendship, and that it will not hereafter be imputed to Great Britain, either, on the one hand, that she envies American industry, as prejudicial to British commerce, or, on the other hand, that she is compelled to court an intercourse with America, as absolutely necessary to her own existence.-His majesty would not hesitate to contribute, in any manner in his power, to restore to the commerce of the United States its wonted activity, and if it were possible to make any sacrifice for the repeal of the embargo, without appearing to depreciate it as a measure of hostility, he would gladly have facilitated its removal, as a measure of inconvenient restriction upon the American people.-The undersigned is commanded, in conclusion, to observe, that nothing is said in Mr. Pinckney's letter of any intention to repeal the proclamation by which the ships of war of Great Britain are interdicted from all those rights of hospitality in the ports of the United States, which are freely allowed to the ships of his majesty's enemies.-The continuance of an interdiction, which, under such circumstances, amounts so nearly to direct hostility, after the willingness professed, and the attempt made by his majesty to remove the cause on which that measure had been originally founded, would afford but an inauspicious omen for the commencement of a system of mutual conciliation: and the omission of any notice of that measure in the proposal which Mr. Pinckney has been instructed to bring forward, would have been of itself a material defect in the overtures of the president.-But the undersigned is commanded no further to dwell upon this subject, than for the purpose of assuring Mr. Pinckney, that on this, and every other point in discussion between the two govern. ments, his majesty earnestly desires the

restoration of a perfect good anderstanding, and that his majesty would decline no mea sure for the attainment of that object, which should be compatible with his own honour and just rights, and with the interests of his people. The undersigned requests, &c.-(Signed) GEORGE CANNING.

PORTUGAL, Proclamation by the Intendant-General of Police of the Court of Justice District at Oporto.

Portuguese Where does your fury transport you? Do you suppose that the English are become French? No, my dear Countrymen, the English are not come here in the character of conquerors as the Frenchmen did; they come to free us from the slavery that oppressed us. If we deny this. truth, we must be reproached as an ungrateful people. The English did not enter Portugal from any motives of ambition; the motives are more generous, wise, and politic; they know very well, that views of aggrandisement always tend to destroy the equilibrium that forms the fundamental law of nations. What Great Britain aims at, is only the restitution of all countries to their lawful sovereigns. Ab, incomparable George! How great will be thy glory in future times! Where is the sovereign in Europe that does not, at present, owe his crown to thee? Thy name shall for ever shine in the Portuguese annals. Excuse, then, O mighty king! the indiscreet zeal of a people who love their sovereign, and whose feelings are partly analogous to thy views. Remain quiet, then, O ye inhabitants of the most faithful and loyal city in Portugal! It is to you, ye, inhabitants of Porto, that I speak, for those honourable epithets are indisputably your right. Consider that the glorious cause which you have undertaken, can only be obstructed and retarded by vain and tumultuous mobs. This is what the common enemy wishes for; and a civil war would only retard their total destruction. Let us then unite ourselves to our faithful allies, the English and the Spaniards, in order to overthrow that hellish monster. The union of these three nations will scorn all Frenchmen's threats, their intrigues and perfidy. We shall then have the glory of being instrumental in the speedy overthrow of the tyrant, in bringing about a general peace, and in restoring our august prince to his lawful throne. This is the just cause that calls aloud for your vengeance, and in which you ought to display all your courage, your love, and your fidelity. Long live Portugal! Long live Great Britain! Long live Spain ---J.F.R.G.