Alexandria Advertiser And Commercial Intelligencer

AMERICAN SEAMEN

As the indications of approaching war in Europe may terminate in that event, we wish to call the attention of the citizens of the United States and particularly the seamen, to such measures as are calculated for their security abroad, and which are customary in time of war.-- Should it happen, we hope we shall not witness as one of its consequences a repetition of that indiscriminate scene of impressment of which, during the last, our seafaring citizens were so often the victims.

But before going to sea at such a precarious time as the present, it behoves the seamen to provide themselves with the passport or protection directed to be issued at the collector's office by the act of Congress and to be careful not to confide in any others, such as those issued by notaries public, justices of the peace, &c. The distinction may be found to be of much consequence : for should a seaman claim exemption from impressment by virtue of a protection of the latter unauthorized kind, he would probably be told that as he had not followed the laws of his own country in taking it from the collector, he was entitled to no favor and that he could not be considered as an American. This caution is more particularly addressed to the seamen themselves, but its observance must depend in a great degree upon the vigilance of the merchants and masters of vessels in seeing it strictly attended to by the former.

Nat. Int.