Alexandria Daily Gazette, Commercial & Political

From the Virginia Patriot
Concerning the Belligerents.

An additional proof, if indeed an additional proof can at this time of day be wanting, of the consummate folly of our democratic administration in attempting to coerce the belligerents by their famous Embargo, may be found in the speech of the English Chancellor of Exchequer, published in our columns of to-day. He states in the most positive manner, that notwithstanding all the restrictions attempted to be imposed upon her commerce, by French decrees and American statutes, the actual exports, foreign and domestic, of Great Britain during the last year exceeded in amount those of any former year of war by ten millions, and those of any of the most prosperous years of peace by seven millions.

And yet it is but a few months since we were told and told too with an air of the smartest supercilious self-complacence, by the democratic organs through the country, that our embargo was working wonders towards the downfall of that nation; that between this regulation and the decrees of Napoleon, every outlet for her exports was closed; that her manufactories were ruined and her citizens in a state of starvation and insurrection. Many an honest man and patriotic citizen was imposed upon by these representations, and though he felt the almost insufferable pressure of the measure upon himself, bore it with the firmness becoming a good subject, because he was taught to believe that it would work the ruin of our foes.

At last comes the truth of the case: and the honest farmer, merchant and mechanic then finds, that while the embargo (according to an estimate made upon the floor of Congress,) has cost his country more than twenty millions sterling; the first lord of the treasury in that country which the embargo was principally designed to injure, makes his official boast, that in the single article of exports, his country is the richer for that measure by ten millions.

Will such facts as these, which are daily increasing both in number and importance, never convince the people how grossly they have been and continue to be imposed upon? Has the slumber of American patriotism become eternal: will nothing arouse our citizens to a sense of their shame and of their danger; and are we so fatally enamored with the name of liberty, that we have ceased to be solicitous about the substance? Are we already ripe for the rule of our friend Napoleon? If we are, in God's name let us submit to it at once, that we may know the full extent of our misery: but if we are not, it is high time for us to open our eyes and look about us.