MARCH, 1806.]

Importations from Great Britain.

look upon. I confess that I am more ready to surrender to a naval power a square league of ocean, than to a territorial one, a square inch of land within our limits; and I am ready to meet the friends of the resolution on this ground at any time.

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your neutral rights? Sir, let me tell them a hundred millions will be but a drop in the bucket, if once they launch without rudder or compass into this ocean of foreign warfare. Whom do they want to attack? England. They hope it is a popular thing, and talk about Bunker's Hill, Let them take off the injunction of secrecy. and the gallant feats of our Revolution. But is They dare not. They are ashamed and afraid to Bunker's Hill to be the theatre of war? No, do it. They may give winks and nods, and pre- sir, you have selected the ocean, and the object tend to be wise, but they dare not come out and of attack is that very navy which prevented the tell the nation what they have done. Gentlemen combined fleets of France and Spain from levymay take notice if they please, but I will never, ing contribution upon you in your own seas; from any motive short of self-defence, enter upon that very navy which, in the famous war of war. I will never be instrumental to the ambi- 1798, stood between you and danger. Whilst tious schemes of Buonaparte, nor put into his the fleets of the enemy were pent up in Toulon, hands what will enable him to wield the world, or pinioned in Brest, we performed wonders to and on the very principle that I wished success be sure; but, sir, if England had drawn off, to the French arms in 1793. And wherefore? France would have told you quite a different Because the case is changed. Great Britain can tale. You would have struck no medals. This is never again see the year 1760. Her continental not the sort of conflict that you are to count influence is gone for ever. Let who will be up- upon, if you go to war with Great Britain. Quem permost on the continent of Europe, she must Deus vult perdere prius dementat. And are you find more than a counterpoise for her strength. mad enough to take up the cudgels that have Her race is run. She can only be formidable as been struck from the nerveless hands of the a maritime power; and, even as such, perhaps three great maritime powers of Europe? Shall not long. Are you going to justify the acts of the planter mortgage his little crop, and jeoparthe last Administration, for which they have dize the constitution in support of commercial been deprived of the Government at our instance? monopoly, in the vain hope of satisfying the inAre you going back to the ground of 1798-'9? satiable greediness of trade? Administer the I ask any man who now advocates a rupture constitution upon its own principles; for the with England to assign a single reason for his general welfare, and not for the benefit of any opinion, that would not have justified a French particular class of men. Do you meditate war war in 1798? If injury and insult abroad would for the possession of Baton Rouge or Mobile, have justified it, we had them in abundance places which your own laws declare to be withthen. But what did the Republicans say at in your limits? Is it even for the fair trade that that day? That, under the cover of a war with exchanges your surplus products for such foreign France, the Executive would be armed with a articles as you require? No, sir, it is for a cirpatronage and power which might enable it to cuitous trade-an ignis fatuus. And against master our liberties. They deprecated foreign whom? A nation from whom you have any war and navies, and standing armies, and loans, thing to fear?—I speak as to our liberties. No, and taxes. The delirum passed away-the good sir, with a nation from whom you have nothing, sense of the people triumphed, and our differ- or next to nothing, to fear; to the aggrandizeences were accommodated without a war. And ment of one against which you have every thing what is there in the situation of England that to dread. I look to their ability and interest, invites to war with her? It is true she does not not to their disposition. When you rely on that deal so largely in perfectibility, but she supplies the case is desperate. Is it to be inferred from you with a much more useful commodity-with all this that I would yield to Great Britain? coarse woollens. With less profession, indeed, No. I would act towards her now, as I was she occupies the place of France in 1793. She disposed to do towards France, in 1798-'9; treat is the sole bulwark of the human race against with her, and for the same reason, on the same universal dominion; no thanks to her for it. principles. Do I say I would treat with her? In protecting her own existence, she ensures At this moment you have a negotiation pending theirs. I care not who stands in this situation, with her Government. With her you have not whether England or Buonaparte. I practise the tried negotiation and failed, totally failed, as you doctrines now that I professed in 1798. Gentle- have done with Spain, or rather France; and, men may hunt up the journals if they please; I wherefore, under such circumstances, this hostile voted against all such projects under the Admin-spirit to the one, and this-I will not say what istration of John Adams, and I will continue to do so under that of Thomas Jefferson. Are you not contented with being free and happy at home? Or will you surrender these blessings that your merchants may tread on Turkish and Persian carpets, and burn the perfumes of the East in their vaulted rooms? Gentlemen say it is but an annual million lost, and even if it were five times that amount, what is it compared with

to the other?

But a great deal is said about the laws of nations. What is national law but national power guided by national interest? You yourselves acknowledge and practise upon this principle where you can, or where you dare-with the Indian tribes for instance. I might give another and more forcible illustration. Will the learned lumber of your libraries add a ship to your

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Importations from Great Britain.

[MARCH, 1806.

Gentlemen say that Great Britain will count upon our divisions. How? What does she know of them? Can they ever expect greater unanimity than prevailed at the last Presidential election? No, sir, it is the gentleman's own conscience that squeaks. But if she cannot calculate upon your divisions, at least she may reckon upon your pusillanimity. She may well despise the resentment that cannot be excited to honorable battle on its own ground; the mere effusion of mercantile cupidity. Gentlemen talk of repealing the British Treaty. The gentleman from Pennsylvania should have thought of that, before he voted to carry it into effect. And what is all this for? A point which Great Britain will not abandon to Russia, you expect her to yield to you-Russia! indisputably the second power of continental Europe; with not less than half a million of hardy troops; with sixty sail-of-the-line, thirty millions of subjects, and a territory more extensive even than our

fleet, or a shilling to your revenue? Will it pay or maintain a single soldier? And will you preach and prate of violations of your neutral rights, when you tamely and meanly submit to the violation of your territory? Will you collar the stealer of your sheep, and let him escape that has invaded the repose of your fireside has insulted your wife and children under your own roof? This is the heroism of truck and traffic-the public spirit of sordid avarice. Great Britain violates your flag on the high seas. What is her situation? Contending, not for the dismantling of Dunkirk, for Quebec, or Pondicherry, but for London and Westminster-for life; her enemy violating at will the territories of other nations, acquiring thereby a colossal power that threatens the very existence of her rival. But she has one vulnerable point to the arms of her adversary, which she covers with the ensigns of neutrality; she draws the neutral flag over the heel of Achilles. And can you ask that adversary to respect it at the ex-own-Russia, sir, the storehouse of the British pense of her existence? and in favor of whom? An enemy that respects no neutral territory of Europe, and not even your own. I repeat that the insults of Spain towards this nation have been at the instigation of France; that there is no longer any Spain. Well, sir, because the French Government does not put this in the Moniteur, you choose to shut your eyes to it. None so blind as those who will not see. You shut your own eyes, and to blind those of other people, you go into conclave, and slink out again and say, "a great affair of State!"-C'est une grande affaire d'Etat! It seems that your sensibility is entirely confined to the extremities. You may be pulled by the nose and ears, and never feel it, but let your strong box be attacked, and you are all nerve-"Let us go to war!" Sir, if they called upon me only for my little peculium to carry it on, perhaps I might give it; but my rights and liberties are involved in the grant, and I will never surrender them while I have life. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. CROWNINSHIELD) is for sponging the debt. I can never consent to it; I will never bring the ways and means of fraudulent bankruptcy into your committee of supply. Confiscation and swindling shall never be found among my estimates to meet the current expenditure of peace or war. No, sir, I have said with the doors closed, and I say so when the doors are open, "pay the public debt;" get rid of that dead weight upon your Government-that cramp upon all your measures and then you may put the world at defiance. So long as it hangs upon you, you must have revenue, and to have revenue you must have commerce-commerce, peace. And shall these nefarious schemes be advised for lightening the public burdens; will you resort to these low and pitiful shifts; dare even to mention these dishonest artifices to eke out your expenses, when the public treasure is lavished on Turks and infidels, on singing boys and dancing girls, to furnish the means of bestiality to an African barbarian?

Navy, whom it is not more the policy and the interest than the sentiment of that Government to soothe and to conciliate-her sole hope of a diversion on the continent, and her only efficient ally. What this formidable power cannot obtain with fleets and armies, you will command by writ-with pothooks and hangers. I am for no such policy. True honor is always the same. Before you enter into a contest, public or private, be sure you have fortitude enough to go through with it. If you mean war, say so, and prepare for it. Look on the other side; behold the respect in which France holds neutral rights on land; observe her conduct in regard to the Franconian estates of the King of Prussia. I say nothing of the petty powers of the Elector of Baden, or of the Swiss-I speak of a first-rate Monarchy of Europe, and at a moment, too, when its neutrality was the object of all others nearest to the heart of the French Emperor. If you make him monarch of the ocean, you may bid adieu to it for ever. You may take your leave, sir, of navigation-even of the Mississippi. What is the situation of New Orleans if attacked tomorrow? Filled with a discontented and repining people, whose language, manners, and religion, all incline them to the invader a dissatisfied people, who despise the miserable Governor you have set over them-whose honest prejudices and basest passions alike take part against you. I draw my information from no dubious source; but from a native American, an enlightened member of that odious and imbecile Government. You have official informstion that the town and its dependencies are ut terly defenceless and untenable. A firm belief that (apprised of this) Government would do something to put the place in a state of security, alone has kept the American portion of that community quiet. You have held that post, you now hold it, by the tenure of the naval predominance of England, and yet you are for a British naval war.

MARCH, 1806.]

Importations from Great Britain.

[H. OF R.

There are now but two great commercial na- | low after. But, sir, as French is the fashion of tions-Great Britain is one, and the United the day, I may be asked for my projet. I can States the other. When you consider the many readily tell gentlemen what I will not do. I points of contact between our interests, you may will not propitiate any foreign nation with mobe surprised that there has been so little colli-ney. I will not launch into a naval war with sion. Sir, to the other belligerent nations of Great Britain, although I am ready to meet her Europe your navigation is a convenience, I at the Cowpens or on Bunker's Hill-and for this might say, a necessary. If you do not carry for plain reason, we are a great land animal, and our them they must starve, at least for the luxuries business is on shore. I will send her money, of life, which custom has rendered almost indis-sir, on no pretext whatever, much less on prepensable; and if you cannot act with some de-tence of buying Labrador, or Botany Bay, when gree of spirit towards those who are dependent my real object was to secure limits, which she upon you as carriers, do you reckon to browbeat formally acknowledged at the peace of 1783. I a jealous rival, who, the moment she lets slip the go further: I would (if any thing) have laid an dogs of war, sweeps you at a blow from the embargo. This would have got our own propocean. And cui bono? for whose benefit? The erty home, and our adversary's into our power. planter? Nothing like it. The fair, honest, If there is any wisdom left among us, the first real American merchant? No, sir, for rene-step towards hostility will always be an embargadoes; to-day American, to-morrow Danes. Go go. In six months all your mercantile meto war when you will, the property, now cover- grims would vanish. As to us, although it ed by the American, will then pass under the would cut deep, we can stand it. Without Danish, or some other neutral flag. Gentlemen such a precaution, go to war when you will, say that one English ship is worth three of ours; you go to the wall. As to debts, strike the balwe shall therefore have the advantage in priva-ance to-morrow, and England is I believe in our teering. Did they ever know a nation to get rich by privateering? This is stuff, sir, for the I hope, sir, to be excused for proceeding in nursery. Remember that your products are this desultory course. I flatter myself I shall bulky, as has been stated; that they require a not have occasion again to trouble you. I know vast tonnage to transport them abroad, and that not that I shall be able, certainly not willing, but two nations possess that tonnage. Take unless provoked in self-defence. I ask your atthese carriers out of the market. What is the tention to the character of the inhabitants of result? The manufactures of England, which that Southern country, on whom gentlemen rely (to use a finishing touch of the gentlemen's rhet- for support of their measure. Who and what oric) have received the finishing stroke of art, are they? A simple, agricultural people, accuslie in a small comparative compass. The neu- tomed to travel in peace to market with the tral trade can carry them. Your produce rots in produce of their labor. Who takes it from us? the warehouse. You go to Eustatia or St. Another people, devoted to manufactures-our Thomas, and get a striped blanket for a joe, if sole source of supply. I have seen some stuff in you can raise one. Double freight, charges, and the newspapers about manufactures in Saxony, commission. Who receives the profit? The and about a man who is no longer the chief of a carrier. Who pays it? The consumer. All dominant faction. The greatest man whom I your produce that finds its way to England, ever knew-the immortal author of the letters must bear the same accumulated charges-with of Curtius-has remarked the proneness of cunthis difference, that there the burden falls on the ning people to wrap up and disguise in wellhome price. I appeal to the experience of the selected phrases, doctrines too deformed and delate war, which has been so often cited. What testable to bear exposure in naked words; by a then was the price of produce, and of broad-judicious choice of epithets to draw the attention cloth?

debt.

from the lurking principle beneath, and perpetBut you are told England will not make war; uate delusion. But a little while ago, and any that she has her hands full. Holland calculated man might have been proud to have been conin the same way in 1781. How did it turn out? sidered as the head of the Republican party. You stand now in the place of Holland, then Now, it seems, it is reproachful to be deemed the without her navy, and unaided by the prepon- chief of a dominant faction. Mark the magic derating fleets of France and Spain, to say no- of words. Head-chief. Republican party— thing of the Baltic Powers. Do you want to dominant faction. But as to the Saxon mantake up the cudgels where these great maritime ufactures. What became of their Dresden china? States have been forced to drop them? to meet Why the Prussian bayonets have broken all the Great Britain on the ocean, and drive her off its pots, and you are content with Worcestershire face? If you are so far gone as this, every capi- or Staffordshire ware. There are some other tal measure of your policy has hitherto been fine manufactures on the continent, but no wrong. You should have nurtured the old, and supply, except perhaps of linens, the article devised new systems of taxation, and have we can best dispense with. A few individcherished your navy. Begin this business when uals, sir, may have a coat of Louvier's cloth, you may, land-taxes, stamp-acts, window-taxes, or a service of Sevres china; but there is too hearth-money, excise, in all its modifications of little, and that little too dear, to furnish the vexation and oppression, must precede or fol-nation. You must depend on the fur trade

[MARCH, 1806.

in earnest, and wear buffalo hides and bear equally sensible of their politeness, and not less skins. so, sir, of your patient attention. It is your Can any man who understands Europe pre-own indulgence, sir, badly requited indeed, to tend to say that a particular foreign policy is which you owe this persecution. I might offer now right because it would have been expedient another apology for these undigested, desultory twenty, or even ten years ago, without aban- remarks-my never having seen the Treasury doning all regard for common sense? Sir, it is documents. Until I came into the House this the Statesman's province to be guided by cir- morning, I had been stretched on a sick bed. cumstances; to anticipate, to foresee them; to But when I behold the affairs of this nation, give them a course and a direction; to mould instead of being where I hoped, and the people them to his purpose. It is the business of a believed, they were, in the hands of responsible counting-house clerk to peer into the day-book men, committed to Tom, Dick and Harry, to and ledger, to see no further than the spectacles the refuse of the retail trade of politics, I do on his nose, to feel not beyond the pen behind feel, I cannot help feeling, the most deep and his ear? to chatter in coffee-houses, and be the serious concern. If the Executive Government oracle of clubs. From 1783 to 1793, and even would step forward and say, "such is our plan, later, (I don't stickle for dates,) France had a such is our opinion, and such are our reasons in formidable marine-so had Holland-so had support of it," I would meet it fairly, would Spain. The two first possessed of thriving man- openly oppose, or pledge myself to support it. ufactures and a flourishing commerce. Great But, without compass or polar star, I will not Britain, tremblingly alive to her manufacturing launch into an ocean of unexplored measures, interests and carrying trade, would have felt to which stand condemned by all the information the heart any measure calculated to favor her to which I have access. The Constitution of rivals in these pursuits. She would have yielded the United States declares it to be the province then to her fears and her jealousy alone. What and the duty of the President "to give to Conis the case now? She lays an export duty on gress, from time to time, information of the her manufactures, and there ends the question. state of the Union, and recommend to their If Georgia shall (from whatever cause) so com- consideration such measures as he shall judge pletely monopolize the culture of cotton as to be expedient and necessary." Has he done it? I able to lay an export duty of three per cent. know, sir, that we may say, and do say, that upon it, besides taxing its cultivators, in every we are independent, (would it were true:) as other shape, that human or infernal ingenuity free to give a direction to the Executive as to can devise, is Pennsylvania likely to rival her receive it from him. But do what you will, and take away the trade? foreign relations, every measure short of war, and even the course of hostilities, depend upon him. He stands at the helm, and must guide the vessel of State. You give him money to buy Florida, and he purchases Louisiana. You may furnish means; the application of those means rests with him. Let not the master and mate go below when the ship is in distress, and throw the responsibility upon the cook and the cabin-boy. said so when your doors were shut; I scorn to say less now that they are open. Gentlemen may say what they please. They may put an insignificant individual to the ban of the Republic-I shall not alter my course. I blush with indignation at the misrepresen tations which have gone forth in the public prints of our proceedings, public and private. Are the people of the United States, the real sovereigns of the country, unworthy of knowing what, there is too much reason to believe, has been communicated to the privileged spies of foreign governments? I think our citizens just as well entitled to know what has passed as the Marquis Yrujo, who has bearded your President to his face, insulted your Government within its own peculiar jurisdiction, and outraged all decency. Do you mistake this diplo matic puppet for an automaton? He has orders for all he does. Take his instructions from his pocket to-morrow, they are signed "Charles Maurice Talleyrand." Let the nation know what they have to depend upon. Be true to them, and (trust me) they will prove true to

But, sir, it seems that we, who are opposed to this resolution, are men of no nerve, who trembled in the days of the British treaty-cowards (I presume) in the reign of terror? Is this true? Hunt up the Journals; and let our actions tell. We pursue our old unshaken course. We care not for the nations of Europe, but make foreign relations bend to our political principles and subserve our country's interest. We have no wish to see another Actium, or Pharsalia, or the lieutenants of a modern Alexander playing at piquet, or all-fours, for the empire of the world. It is poor comfort to us to be told that France has too decided a taste for luxurious things to meddle with us; that Egypt is her object, or the coast of Barbary, and, at the worst, we shall be the last devoured. We are enamored with neither nation; we would play their own game upon them, use them for our interest and convenience. But with all my abhorrence of the British Government, I should not hesitate between Westminster Hall and a Middlesex jury, on the one hand, and the wood of Vincennes and a file of grenadiers, on the other. That jury-trial, which walked with Horne Tooke and Hardy through the flames of ministerial persecution, is, I confess, more to my taste than the trial of the Duke d'Enghein.

Mr. Chairman, I am sensible of having detained the committee longer than I ought; certainly much longer than I intended. I am

themselves and to you. The people are honest | tail the means of transporting it to the best -now at home at their ploughs, not dreaming foreign markets, and the means will assuredly of what you are about. But the spirit of in- be curtailed if we withdraw our protection from quiry, that has too long slept, will be, must be the enterprise of our citizens upon the ocean. awakened. Let them begin to think-not to Declare to foreign nations that the active comsay such things are proper because they have merce of this country meets no longer the been done-of what has been done, and where- fostering care of Government, and you will fore, and all will be right. soon hear of their tenfold insolence upon the seas; and our vessels, frowned from the enjoyment of their rights there, will find an asylum in our harbors only, where they will be left to rot. The produce of our country must share a similar fate, unless we consent to dispose of it to foreign merchants and speculators, at any price they may please to offer for it. But what is not less important, if we have a regard for morals and happiness, a horrid picture here presents itself; that moment you stagnate the vent of your grain, an extensive inland country will be inundated with whiskey and the destructive vices which flow from the free use of it.