The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

From the Public Advertiser.

At no period since the establishment of our independence, have I witnessed the national resentment equal to what has been manifested by every class of citizens, on the news of the murder of our seamen on board the Chesapeake; nor has there been an occasion equally villainous since that period to justify such loud expressions of public indignation.

In this, as in all free governments, there are local attachments to political men, and some difference of opinion as to political measures; but on the present occasion, with the exception of a few tory characters, there is but one sentiment and one voice.

The people of America are for peace; because happy in our government, and the native felicities of our country, we have no inducements to go to war. Liberty, plenty, and extensive territory are the portion of Americans, and none of these do we wish to increase by the hazard of war. Impressed with these sentiments, we have gone great lengths to preserve peace with the European nations. We appeal to a candid world, and even to the people of England themselves, whether we have not given the most ample evidence of a pacific disposition, and have preserved the most honorable and strict neutrality ever since the present war in Europe.

England has not ceased to oppress our commerce and insult our national dignity, but it was reserved for the captain of the Leopard to consummate the baseness of his nation, by firing on one of our national ships in time of peace, and when unprepared to fight, in killing and wounding our citizens, who are in the daily habit of giving these ungrateful people every comfort our shores afford. There is a point, beyond which patience cannot be exerted, nor forbearance extended. At that period, fellow citizens, we have now arrived.

At a time when every bosom swells with indignation, it is natural enough to ask, what can be done?

The sentiments I express will not be considered as dictating to the government, than whom no man loves and respects more than myself. They are reflections that naturally rise out of the subject under consideration. On this subject then I say, we appeal to Heaven for the justice of our cause and the wrongs we have received.—We must confide in the wisdom and justice of Jefferson and his worthy associates:—We must be prepared and determined to support them in any and every measure they may pursue for the honor and happiness of our country. If impertinence should enquire—what can government do? To such I would answer, they can do much. We cannot fight them by sea, nor do we wish to do it if we possessed the means. We possess, however, more effectual means of punishing these tyrants.

We can lay an embargo.

We can enforce and extend the non-importation act to every article of British produce and manufactures.

We can suspend the payment of British commercial debts.

We can seize the stock held by British subjects in our banks and funds.

We can, and I hope will, at all events, pass a law to prevent British merchants and aliens from transacting business in this country other than by the agency of American citizens.

We can starve and ruin by a suspension of intercourse, the British West Indies.

We can create bankruptcy and ruin among the British merchants.

We can derange and ruin their manufactories.

We can reduce the British revenue 14 millions of dollars annually, by depriving them of an extravagant convoy duty.

We can make the British people know that all the miseries they may feel in consequence of a suspension of intercourse with us, is to be attributed to the wicked and impolitic conduct of their own ministry.

All this, and much more our government can do by the scratch of a pen—by renouncing all intercourse with a government who has shewn to the world they are totally unworthy our confidence and connection.

But should any or all those measures fail to restore the British ministry to a sense of justice, and war must be the ultimate resort, we wish them to know that America can be to Britain one of her most formidable foes.

We have wealth

We have courage, and they know it.

We have experience.

We have a powerful population, who when they fight do so for themselves and not for a master.

We can with ease deprive them of the Canadas and Nova Scotia and deliver that people from a galling yoke which they are now willing and only want an opportunity to throw off.

We can expel them from the continent of America.

We can harass their West India commerce by a chain of privateers, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to that of Mexico.

These, my fellow citizens, are some of the powers the God of nations and of nature has possessed you of; and thus can you avenge yourselves on a nation already given up by the God of Providence to judicial blindness, to work their own destruction with greediness.

But let me not say any thing to fan the flame which now burns in your manly breasts—rather would I recommend a patient waiting for the measures of that man, who has never disappointed the just expectations of his country.