National Gazette

TO COME now, sir, with your leave, and with the leave of my fellow citizens here present, to speak a few words on the prospect there seems to arise of a war between Great-Britain and the United States, which seems to be the design of the proclamation to avoid. It appears to me, and I presume to every thinking man in the United States, that we have had and still have an indirect war with that restless and designing nation, nearly since signing the late peace, through their unjust detention of the western posts; which it was presumed at that treaty they really meant to give up in the course of a year or two—taking a reasonable time for their traders to call in their property from the distant regions. It is true that that part of the treaty is loosely worded, and not so explicit as a bargain school boys would have made in the transfer of a top, a ball, or a marble—yet I think the honest unsuspecting hearts of our commissioners thought the Britons as honest as themselves, & that they would soon give up those posts according to the true intent and meaning of the treaty. & I can by no means impute their conduct, as has been rumored, to the British gold dust blinding the eyes of their understanding in the signing that article. From this cause, without a doubt arising in the mind of any sensible man I have conversed with on this subject, springs the war with the Indians, for it is well known that at those posts they are supplied not only with arms and ammunition, but with every article they stand in need of for their savage depredations, in which the United States have suffered the loss of thousands of men, women and children, besides the expenditure of at least five millions of dollars, and in the present year, I doubt whether the account will be closed under two millions and perhaps the lives of many of our worthy fellow citizens; which money should have been applied to pay our just debts; add to this their late and present depredations on the ocean, perhaps not less than 150 of our vessels, taken by them, from our honest merchants, and unjustly detained to the ruin of our families, and our unarmed seamen treated in an inhuman manner. Now if we are to bear all this without a prospect of redress, and our hands to be tied up, let us strike out from our new made calendar the day that has been kept in remembrance of our birth as a nation, and return to lick the dust that despots are preparing for us. If the Britons wish to be at peace with the United States, let them come forward and show an example of justice and humanity, by immediately giving up Niagara, Detroit, and all the extent of country they ceded to us by the late treaty of peace; but so long as they hold those posts they certainly war in a dastardly manner against us. And let our government also come forward and show an example of justice to the natives; and this terrible and expensive war will soon cease. It is true that we as private citizens cannot judge fully of these matters; not knowing the secret springs of government, but so far as they have come to our knowledge, we as free citizens have a right to judge for ourselves, and may and ought