the apprehensions and restore the confidence of the eastern and commercial states; to remove their actual sufferings, and to replace them in the happy and prosperous condition from which they have been driven, by a succession of measures hostile to the rights of commerce, and destructive to the peace of the

union.

It is not to be expected that a hardy and industrious people, instructed in the nature of their rights, and tenacious of their exercise, whose enterprize was a source of individual wealth and national prosperity, should find themselves obliged to abandon their accustomed employments, and relinquish the means of subsistence, without complaint; or, that a moral and christian people should contribute their aid in the prosecution of an offensive war, without the fullest evidence of its justice and necessity.

The United States, from the form of their government, from the principles of their institutions, from the sacred professions which, in all periods of their history, they have made, from the maxims transmitted to them by patriots and sages, whose loss they can never sufficiently deplore, as well as from a regard to their best and dearest interests, ought to be the last nation to engage in a war of ambition or conquest.

The recent establishment of their institutions, the pacific, moral, and industrious character of their citizens, the certainty that time, and prudent application of their resources, would bring a seasonable remedy for any transient wrongs, would have induced a wise and provident, an impartial and temperate administration, to overlook, if it had been necessary, any temporary evils, which either the ambition, the interest, the cupidity, or the injustice of foreign powers might occasionally, and without any deep and lasting injury, have inflicted.

With these maxims and these views, we cannot discern any thing in the policy of foreign nations towards us, which, in point of expediency, required the sacrifice of so many and so certain blessings as might have been our portion, for such dreadful and inevitable evils as all wars, and especially in a republic, entail upon the people.

But when we review the alleged causes of the war against Great Britain, and, more particularly, the pretences for its continuance, after the principal one was removed, we are constrained to say, that it fills the minds of the good people of this commonwealth with infinite anxiety and alarm. We cannot but recollect, whatever the pretences of the emperor of France may have been, pretences which have uniformly preceded and accompanied the most violent acts of injustice, that he was the

sole author of a system calculated and intended to break down neutral commerce, with a view to destroy the opulence and cripple the power of a rival, whose best interest and whose real policy were to uphold that commerce so essential to her own prosperity.

It is not for us to decide whether the enemy of France did, or did not, adopt the most natural and efficacious means of repelling her injustice. It is sufficient that we are persuaded the United States might, by a firm and dignified, yet pacific resistance to the French decrees, have prevented the recurrence of any retaliatory measures on the part of Great Britain; measures not intended to injure us, but to operate on the author of this unjust and iniquitous system. And however honourable men may differ as to the justice of the British retaliatory orders in council, we do not hesitate to say, that France merited from our government a much higher tone of remonstrance and a more decided opposition.

In reviewing the avowed causes of the present war, we would, if it were possible, pass over a series of transactions imperfectly explained, and calculated to excite our alarm and regret, at the hasty manner in which it was declared, But the history of the pretended repeal of the French decrees, which, if our government was sincere, we are bound to believe was the immediate cause of the war, is so well attested and has been so often discussed, and is besides so important in this inquiry, that mere motives of delicacy cannot induce us to pass over it without notice.

If war could be justified against Great Britain exclusively, it must have been on the ground assumed by our government, that the French decrees were actually repealed on the first of November, 1810. The indiscriminate plunder and destruction of our commerce; the capture of our ships by the cruizers of France, and their condemnation by her courts and by the emperor in person; his repeated and solemn declarations that those derees were still in force and constituted the fundamental laws of his empire, at a period long subsequent to the pretended repeal, seemed to furnish an answer sufficiently conclusive to this question; and we cannot but lament, that evidence so satisfactory to the rest of the nation, should have had so little weight with that congress whose term of service has lately expired.

But this important question is now definitively answered; and the American people have learned with astonishment the depth of their degradation. The French emperor, as if for the perfect and absolute humiliation of our government, and for the annunciation to the world that he held us in utter contempt, reserved till May, 1812, the official declaration of the fact that these decrees were not repealed until April, 1811; and then, not in

consequence of his sense of their injustice, but because we had complied with the condition he had prescribed, in the letter of the duke of Cadore, in causing "our rights to be respected," by a resistance to the British orders; and he has since added, that this decree of repeal was communicated to our minister at Paris, as well as to his own at Washington, to be made known to our cabinet. As the previous pledge of Great Britain gave the fullest assurance that she would repeal her orders as soon as the decrees on which they were founded should cease to exist; and as her subsequent conduct leaves no doubt that she would have been faithful to her promise, we can never too much deplore the neglect to make known this repeal, whether it be attributed to the French government or our own.

If to the former belong the guilt of this duplicity and falsehood, every motive of interest, and every incitement of duty, call loudly upon our administration to proclaim this disgraceful imposition to the American people; not only as it would serve to develope the true character and policy of France, but to acquit our own officers of a suppression too serious to be overlooked or forgiven.

But whatever may be the true state of this mysterious transaction, the promptness with which Great Britain hastened to repeal her orders, before the declaration of war by the United States was known to her, and the restoration of an immense amount of property, then within her power, can leave but little doubt that the war, on our part, was premature, and still less that the perseverance in it, after that repeal was known, was improper, impolitic, and unjust.

It was improper; because it manifested, in this instance, a distrust in the good faith and disposition to peace of a nation, from which we had just received a signal proof of both.

It was impolitic; because it gave countenance to the charge of a subserviency to the views of France, and of an ulterior design of co-operating with her, in the profligate and enormous project of subjugating the rest of Europe.

It was impolitic; as it tended to unite all descriptions of people in England, in favour of the present war, and to convince them, however erroneously, that moderation and fairness, on her part, only laid the foundation of new claims and higher pre

tensions on ours.

It was unjust; because the evidence, afforded by the prompt repeal of the orders in council, ought to have satisfied us, that Great Britain was sincerely disposed to maintain and preserve pacific relations with the United States; and all wars are unjust, the objects of which can be attained by negotiation.

It was unjust; because the whole history of our diplomatic intercourse with Great Britain shows, that we never induced her to believe, that we considered the impressment of her own seamen, on board our merchant ships, as a reasonable ground of war, and we had never offered her the alternative of war, or a relinquishment of this practice.

It was unjust; because the pretensions and claims, on the one side and on the other, althoug! attended with difficulties, were not irreconcileable. Great Britain did not claim the right to impress our native seamen. She disavowed the practice in all cases when the fact was made known to her. She restored, on legal evidence, she had recently offered to return all who were of that description, of whom a list should be furnished by our government; and she had many years before made such offers of fair and amicable arrangements of this whole subject, as, to two distinguished members of our present cabinet, appeared "both honourable and advantageous."

It was unjust; because we had not taken previously all the reasonable steps, on our part, to remove her complaints of the seduction and employment of her seamen. This is made mani

fest, by the conduct of the same congress which declared the war, they having admitted the propriety of obviating those complaints, by an act passed subsequent to the commencement of hostilities.

No state in the union can have a greater interest, or feel a stronger desire to protect commerce, and maintain the legitimate rights of seamen, than this commonwealth. Owners of one third of all the navigation, and probably furnishing one half nearly of all the native seamen of the United States, we are better enabled to appreciate the extent of their sufferings, and must also be presumed to sympathise with them more sincerely than the citizens of states destitute of commerce, and whose sons are not engaged in its prosecution; unless it be admitted, that the sufferers, their parents, relatives, and friends, are less interested in their welfare and protection than those who are united to them only by the feeble ties of political connexion.

With all the means of information, furnished by every motive of duty, and every inducement of interest, we are constrained to say, that this evil of impressment has been grossly exaggerated; that we have reason to believe, an honest and fair proposal, as honestly and fairly executed, to exclude the subjects of Great Britain from our service, would have much more effectually relieved our own seamen, and more essentially advanced their interest, than a resort to war; that the true interests of the United States coincide with the policy adopted by all other

countries, and that we should be more independent, our seamen would be better protected, and our country eventually more prosperous, by renouncing altogether the pretension of screening and employing British seamen.

The doctrine of natural allegiance is too well founded, has been too long established, and is too consonant with the permanent interest, the peace and independence of all nations, to be disturbed, for the purpose of substituting in its place certain visionary notions, to which the French revolution gave birth, and which, though long since exploded there, seem still to have an unhappy influence in our country.

Having thus found the avowed causes of the war, and especially the motives for a perseverance in it, so wholly inadequate to justify the adoption of that policy, we have been obliged to resort to other and more concealed motives. We cannot, however, without the most conclusive evidence, believe, although the measures and language of some high public functionaries indicate the fact, that ambition, and not justice; a lust of conquest, and not a defence of endangered rights, are among the real causes of perseverance in our present hostilities.

Must we then add another example to the catalogue of republics, which have been ruined by a spirit of foreign conquest? Have we no regard to the solemn professions we have so often repeated, none to the example, none to the precepts of Washington? Is it possible, either to acquire or to maintain extensive foreign conquests, without powerful standing armies? And did such armies ever long permit the people, who were so imprudent as to raise and maintain them, to enjoy their liberties?

Instances of military oppression have already occurred among us; and a watchful people, jealous of their rights, must have observed sonte attempts to controul their elections, and to prostrate the civil before the military authority. If the language of some men, high in office; if the establishment of a chain of military posts in the interior of our country; if the extensive preparations which are made in quarters where invasion cannot be feared, and the total abandonment and neglect of that part of our country where alone it can be apprehended, have excited our anxiety and alarm as to the real projects of our rulers; these emotions have not been diminished by the recent invasion, seizure, and occupation of the territory of a peaceable and unoffending neighbour.

If war must have been the portion of these United States, if they were destined by Providence to march the downward road to slavery, through foreign conquest and military usurpation, your remonstrants regret that such a moment and such an oc