The Rhode Island American, And General Advertiser

THE AMERICAN.

Thursday, September 8, 1814.

THE CRISIS.

At this portentous period, when our country is assailed in every section by a powerful and exasperated foe, and when its affairs are administered by imbecile and corrupt men the duties of the citizen become peculiarly arduous and imperative.

If the administration will not relinquish their schemes of conquest if they continue to neglect the common welfare, it devolves upon the people to remonstrate and for the latter. Remonstrances made for the servants of the people, reprimanded for warned against course they have pursued.

The provisions of the constitution should be resorted to, the elective franchise should be judiciously exercised, and remonstrances to the men who are hurrying us to ruin, should be addressed with alacrity and unanimity.

Agreeably to the President's Proclamation, Congress will assemble on the 19th instant. It has been suggested that they will be required to convene at Lancaster (Penn.) where, it is supposed by many, the government will be permanently established.

Administration must prepare themselves to receive, during the approaching session, indignant rebukes from both sides of the house. They cannot expect any longer to exculpate themselves—they cannot expect to shuffle the disgrace of losing our capital upon any of their creatures, for they were the constituted guardians of its safety.

It was their indispensable duty to be prepared for every emergency. Though they were on the spot, and had a week's notice of the landing and probable destination of the enemy, so criminally negligent were they in preparing for defence, and so disgracefully impotent in exerting the force they had collected, that a comparatively small number of British troops—'mere breakfast for us'—deliberately marched into the capital, and after having destroyed an immense amount of public property, deliberately marched out again.

How will Mr. Madison excuse this to Congress! Will he tell a round unvarnished tale, or will he rank the invasion and defence of Washington with that of Moscow? Whatever may be the style and contents of his next message, it is to be hoped that it will candidly represent the state of the country, and that no delusion will be attempted on the public mind.

It is time that the arcana of the cabinet were developed—it is time that the people were made acquainted with their present situation and their future prospects.