American Watchman And Delaware Advertiser

To Mr. Harrison Gray Otis, a member of the Senate of Massachusetts, on the present state of our National Affairs, with remarks upon Mr. T. Pickering's Letter, to the Governor of the Commonwealth, by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS; written March 31, 1808:--with an Appendix, written July, 1824.

Washington, March 31, 1808.

DEAR SIR,

I have received from one of my friends in Boston a copy of a printed pamphlet containing a letter from Mr. Pickering to the governor of the commonwealth, intended for communication to the legislature of the state, during the session recently concluded. But this object not having been accomplished, it appears to have been published by some friend of the writer, whose inducement is stated, no doubt truly, to have been the importance of the matter discussed in it, and the high respectability of the author.

The subjects of this letter are the embargo, and the differences in controversy between our country and Great Britain--subjects upon which it is my misfortune, in the discharge of my duties as a senator of the United States, to differ from the opinion of my colleague. The place where the question upon the first of them, in common with others of great national concern, was between him and me, in our official capacities, a proper object of discussion, was the senate of the union. There it was discussed, and, as far as the constitutional authority of that body extended, there it was decided. Having obtained alike the concurrence of the other branch of the national legislature, and the approbation of the president, it became the law of the land, and as such I have considered it entitled to the respect and the obedience of every virtuous citizen.

From these decisions, however, the letter in question is to be considered in the nature of an appeal; in the first instance, to our common constituents, the legislature of the state; and in the second, by the publication, to the people. To both these tribunals I shall always hold myself accountable for every act of my public life. Yet, were my own political character alone implicated in the course which has in this instance been pursued, I should have forborne all notice of the proceeding, and have left my conduct in this, as in other cases, to the candor and discretion of my country.

But to this species of appeal, thus conducted, there are some objections on constitutional grounds which I deem it my duty to mention for the consideration of the public. On a statement of circumstances attending a very important act of national legislation, a statement which the writer undoubtedly believed to be true but which comes only from one side of the question, and which I expect to prove, in the most essential points, erroneous, the writer, with the most animated tone of energy, calls for the interposition of the commercial states, and asserts that nothing but their sense, clearly and emphatically expressed, will save them from ruin. This solemn and alarming invocation is addressed to the legislature of Massachusetts, at so late a period of their session, that had it been received by them, they must have been compelled either to act upon the views of this representation, without hearing the counter statement of the other side, or seemingly to disregard the pressing interest of their constituents, by neglecting an admonition of the most serious complexion. Considering the application as precedent, its tendency is dangerous to the public. For on the first supposition, that the legislature had been precipitated to act on the spur of such an instigation, they must have acted on imperfect information, and under an excitement, not remarkably adapted to the composure of safe deliberation. On the second, they would have been exposed to unjust imputations, which, at the eve of an election, might have operated in the most unequitable manner upon the characters of individual members.

The interposition of one or more state legislatures, to control the exercise of the powers vested by the general constitution in the congress of the United States, is at least of questionable policy. The views of a state legislature are naturally and properly limited in a considerable degree to the peculiar interests of the state. The very object and formation of the national deliberative assemblies was for the compromise and conciliation of the interests of all--of the whole nation. If the appeal from the regular, legitimate measures of the body where the whole nation is represented, be proper to one state legislature, it must be so to another. If the commercial states are called to interpose on one hand, will not the agricultural states be with equal propriety summoned to interpose on the other? If the east is stimulated against the west, and the northern and southern sections are urged into collision with each other, by appeals from the acts of congress to the representative states--in what are these appeals to end?

It is undoubtedly the right, and may often become the duty of a state legislature to address that of the nation, with the expression of its wishes, in regard to interests peculiarly concerning the state itself. Nor shall I question the right of every member of the great federative compact to declare its own sense of measures interesting to the nation at large. But whenever the case occurs, that this sense should be "clearly and emphatically" expressed, it ought surely to be predicated upon a full and impartial consideration of the whole subject--not under the stimulus of a one-sided representation--far less upon the impulse of conjectures and suspicions. It is not through the medium of personal sensibility, nor of party bias, nor of professional occupation, nor of geographical position, that the whole truth can be discerned, of questions involving the rights and interests of this extensive union. When the discussion is urged upon a state legislature, the first call upon its members should be to cast all their feelings and interests as the citizens of a single state into the common stock of the national concern.

Should the occurrence upon which an appeal is made from the councils of the nation, to those of a single state be one upon which the representation of the state had been divided, and the member who found himself in the minority, felt himself impelled by a sense of duty, to invoke the interposition of his constituents, it would seem that both in justice to them, and in candor to his colleague, some notice of such intention should be given to him, that he too might be prepared to exhibit his views of the subject upon which the differences of opinion had taken place; or at least that the resort should be had, at such a period of time as would leave it within the reach of possibility for his representations to be received, by their common constituents, before they would be compelled to decide on the merits of the case.

The fairness and propriety of this course of proceeding must be so obvious that it is difficult to conceive of the propriety of any other. Yet it presents another inconvenience which must necessarily result from this practice of appellate legislation. When one of the senators from a state proclaims to his constituents that a particular measure, or system of measures which has received the vote and support of his colleague, are pernicious and destructive to those interests which both are bound by the most sacred of ties, with zeal and fidelity to promote the denunciation of the measures amounts to little less than a renunciation of the man. The advocate of a policy thus reprobated must feel himself summoned by every motive of self-defence to vindicate his conduct: and in his general sense of his official duties would bind him to the industrious devotion of his whole time to the public business of the session, the hours which he might be forced to employ for his own justification, would of course be deducted from the discharge of his more regular and appropriate functions. Should these occasions frequently recur, they could not fail to interfere with the due performance of the public business. Nor can I forbear to remark the tendency of such antagonizing appeals to distract the councils of the state in its own legislature, to destroy its influence, and expose it to derision, in the presence of its sister states and to produce between the colleagues themselves mutual asperities and rancors, until the great concerns of the nation would degenerate into the puny controversies of personal altercation.

It is therefore with extreme reluctance that I enter upon this discussion. In developing my own views, and the principles which have governed my conduct in relation to our foreign affairs, and particularly to the embargo, some very material differences in point of fact as well as of opinion, will be found between my statements, and those of the letter, which alone can apologise for this. They will not, I trust, be deemed in any degree disrespectful to the writer. Far more pleasing would it have been to me could that honest and anxious pursuit of the policy best calculated to promote the honor and welfare of our country, which, I trust, is felt with equal ardor by us both, have resulted in the same opinions, and have given them the vigor of united exertion. There is a candor and liberality of conduct and of sentiment due from associates in the same public charge, towards each other, necessary to their individual reputation, to their common influence, and to their public usefulness. In our republican government, where the power of the nation consists alone in the sympathies of opinion, this reciprocal deference, this open-hearted imputation of honest intentions, is the only armament at once attractive and impenetrable, that can bear, unshattered, all the thunder of foreign hostility. Ever since I have had the honor of a seat in the national councils, I have extended it to every department of the government. However differing in my conclusions, upon questions of the highest moment, from any other man, of whatever party, I have never, upon suspicion, imputed his conduct to corruption.

If this confidence argues ignorance of public men and public affairs, to that ignorance I must plead guilty. I know, indeed enough of human nature, to be sensible that vigilant observation is at all times, and that suspicion may occasionally become necessary, upon the conduct of men in power. But I know as well that confidence is the only cement of an elective government. Election is the very test of confidence--and its periodical return is the continual check upon its abuse; of which the electors must of course be the sole judges. For the exercise of power, where man is free, confidence is indispensable--and when it once totally fails--when the men to whom the people have committed the application of their force, for their benefit, are to be presumed the vilest of mankind, the very foundation of the social compact must be dissolved. Towards the gentleman whose official station results from the confidence of the same legislature, by whose appointment I have the honor of holding a similar trust, I have thought this confidence peculiarly due from me, nor should I now notice his letter, notwithstanding the disapprobation it so obviously implies, at the course which I have pursued in relation to the subjects of which it treats, did it not appear to me calculated to produce upon the public mind, impressions unfavorable to the rights and interests of the nation.

Having understood that a motion in the senate of Massachusetts was made by you, requesting the governor to transmit Mr. Pickering's letter to the legislature, together with such communications, relating to public affairs, as he might have received from me. I avail myself of that circumstance, and of the friendship which has so long subsisted between us, to take the liberty of addressing this letter, intended for publication, to you. Very few of the facts which I shall state will rest upon information peculiar to myself. Most of them will stand upon the basis of official documents, or of public and undisputed notoriety. For my opinions, though fully persuaded, that even where differing from your own, they will meet with a fair and liberal judge in you, yet of the public I ask neither favor nor indulgence. Pretending to no extraordinary credit from the authority of the writer, I am sensible they must fall by their own weakness, or stand by their own strength.

The first remark which obtrudes itself upon the mind, on the perusal of Mr. Pickering's letter is, that in enumerating all the pretences (for he thinks there are no causes) for the embargo, and for a war with Great Britain, he has totally omitted the British orders of council of November 11, 1807--those orders, under which millions of the property of our fellow citizens, are now detained in British hands, or confiscated to British captors--those orders, under which ten-fold as many millions of the same property would have been at this moment in the same predicament, had they not been saved from exposure to it by the embargo--those orders, which if once submitted to and carried to the extent of their principles, would not have left an inch of American canvass upon the ocean, but under British taxation. An attentive reader of the letter, without other information, would not even suspect their existence.--They are indeed in one or two passages, faintly and darkly alluded to under the justifying description of "the orders of the British government, retaliating the French imperial decree:" but as causes for the embargo, or as possible causes or even pretences of war with Great Britain, they are not only unnoticed, but their very existence is by direct implication denied.

It is indeed true, that these orders were not officially communicated with the president's message recommending the embargo. They had not been officially received--but they were announced in several paragraphs from London and Liverpool newspapers of the 10th, 11th, and 12th of November, which appeared in the National Intelligencer of 18th December, the day upon which the embargo message was sent to congress. The British government had taken care that they should not be authentically known before their time: for the very same newspapers which gave this unofficial notice, of these orders, announced also the departure of Mr. Rose, upon a special mission to the United States. And we now know, that of these all-devouring instruments of rapine, Mr. Rose was not even informed. His mission was professedly a mission of conciliation and reparation for a flagrant, enormous, acknowledged outrage. But he was not sent with these orders of council in his hands. His text was the disavowal of admiral Berkeley's conduct--the commentary was to be discovered on another page of the British ministerial policy--on the face of Mr. Rose's instructions. these orders of council were as invisible as they are on that of Mr. Pickering's letter.

They were not merely without official authenticity. Rumors had for several weeks been in circulation, derived from English prints, and from private correspondences, that such orders were to issue: and no inconsiderable pains were taken here to discredit the fact. Assurances were given that there was reason to believe no such orders to be contemplated. Suspicion was lulled by declarations equivalent nearly to a positive denial; and these opiates were continued for weeks after the embargo was laid, until Mr. Erskine received instructions to make the official communication of the orders themselves, in their proper shape, to our government.

Yet, although thus unauthenticated, and even although thus in some sort denied, the probability of the circumstances under which they were announced, and the sweeping tendency of their effects, formed to my understanding a powerful motive, and together with the papers sent by the president, and his express recommendation, a decisive one, for assenting to the embargo. As a precautionary measure, I believed it would rescue an immense property from depredation, if the orders should prove authentic. If the alarm was groundless it must very soon be disproved, and the embargo might be removed with the danger.

The omission of all notice of these facts in the pressing inquiries "why the embargo was laid?" is the more surprising, because they are of all facts the most material, upon a fair and impartial examination of the expediency of that act, when it passed--and because these orders, together with the subsequent "retaliating" decrees of France and Spain, have furnished the only reasons upon which I have acquiesced in its continuance to this day. If duly weighed, they will save us the trouble of resorting to jealousies of secret corruption, and the imaginary terrors of Napoleon for the real cause of the embargo. These are fictions of foreign invention. The French emperor had not declared that he would have no neutrals--he had not required that our ports should be shut against British commerce;--but the orders of council, if submitted to, would have degraded us to the condition of colonies. If resisted, would have fattened the wolves of plunder with our spoils. The embargo was the only shelter from the tempest--the last refuge of our violated peace.

I have indeed been myself of opinion, that the embargo must in its nature be a temporary expedient, and that preparations manifesting a determination of resistance against these outrageous violations of our neutral rights, ought at least to have been made a subject of serious consideration in congress. I have believed, and do still believe, that our internal resources are competent to the establishment and maintenance of a naval force public and private, if not fully adequate to the protection and defence of our commerce, at least sufficient to induce a retreat from those hostilities, and to deter from a renewal of them, by either of the warring parties; and that a system to that effect might be formed, ultimately far more economical, and certainly more energetic, than a three years embargo. Very soon after the closure of our ports, I did submit to the consideration of the senate, a proposition for the appointment of a committee to institute an inquiry to this end. But my resolution met no encouragement. Attempts of a similar nature have been made in the house of representatives, but have been equally discountenanced; and from these determinations, by decided majorities of both houses, I am not sufficiently confident in the superiority of my own wisdom to appeal by a topical application, to the congenial feelings of any one--not even of my own native section of the union.

The embargo, however, is a restriction always under our own control. It was a measure altogether of defence, and experiment. If it was injudiciously or over-hastily laid, it has been every day since its adoption open to a repeal; if it should prove ineffectual for the purposes it was meant to secure, a single day will suffice to unbar the doors. Still believing it a measure justified by the circumstances of the time, I am ready to admit that those who thought otherwise may have had a wiser foresight of events, and a sounder judgment of the then existing state of things than the majority of the national legislature, and the president. It has been approved by several of the state legislatures, and among the rest by our own. Yet of all its effects we are still unable to judge with certainty. It must still abide the test of futurity. I shall add that there were other motives, which had their operation in contributing to the passage of the act, unnoticed by Mr. Pickering, and which having now ceased, will also be left unnoticed by me. The orders of council of the 11th Nov. still subsist in all their force: and are now confirmed, with the addition of taxation by act of Parliament.

As they stand in front of the real causes for the embargo, so they are entitled to the same pre-eminence in enumerating the causes of hostility, which the British ministers are accumulating upon our forbearance. They strike at the root of our independence. They assume the principle that we shall have no commerce in time of war, but with her dominions, and as tributaries to her. The exclusive confinement of commerce to the mother country, is the great principle of the modern colonial system; and should we by a dereliction of our rights at this momentous stride of encroachment, surrender our commercial freedom without a struggle, Britain has but a single step more to take, and she brings us back to the stamp act and the tea tax.

Yet these orders--thus fatal to the liberties for which the heroes of our revolution toiled and bled--thus studiously concealed until the moment when they burst upon our heads--thus issued at the very instant when a mission of atonement was professedly sent--in these orders we are to see nothing but a "retaliating order upon France"--in these orders, we must not find so much as a cause--nay, not so much as a pretence, for complaint against Great Britain.

To my mind, sir, in comparison with those orders, the three causes to which Mr. Pickering explicitly limits our grounds for a rupture with England, might indeed be justly denominated pretences--in comparison with them former aggressions sink into insignificance.--To argue upon the subject of our disputes with Britain, or upon the embargo, and to keep them out of sight, is like laying your finger over the unit before a series of noughts, and then arithmetically proving that they are all nothing.

It is not however in a mere omission, nor yet in the history of the embargo, that the inaccuracies of the statement I am examining have given me the most serious concern. It is in the view taken of the questions in controversy between us and Britain. "The wisdom of the embargo is a question of great, but transient magnitude, and omission sacrifices no national right." Mr. Pickering's object was to dissuade the nation from a war with England, into which he suspected the administration was plunging us, under French compulsion. But the tendency of his pamphlet is to reconcile the nation, or at least the commercial states, to the servitude of British protection, and war with all the rest of Europe. Hence England is represented as contending for the common liberties of mankind and our only safeguard against the ambition and injustice of France. Hence all our sensibilities are invoked in her favor, and all our antipathies against her antagonist. Hence too all the subjects of difference between us and Britain are alleged to be on our part mere pretences, of which the right is unequivocally pronounced to be on her side. Proceeding from a senator of the United States, specially charged as a member of the executive with the maintenance of the nation's rights against foreign powers, and at a moment extremely critical of pending negotiation upon all the points thus delineated, this formal abandonment of the American cause, this summons of unconditional surrender to the pretensions of our antagonist, is in my mind highly alarming. It becomes therefore a duty to which every other consideration must yield: to point out the errors of this representation. Before we strike the standard of the nation, let us at least examine the purport of the summons.

And first, with respect to the impressment of our seamen.--We are told that "the taking of British seamen found on board our merchant vessels, by British ships of war, is agreeably to a right, claimed and exercised for ages." It is obvious that this claim and exercise of ages, could not apply to us, as an independent people. If the right was claimed and exercised while our vessels were navigating under the British flag, it could not authorise the same claim when their owners have become the citizens of a sovereign state. As a relict of colonial servitude, whatever may be the claim of Great Britain, it surely can be no ground for contending that it is entitled to our submission.

If it be meant that the right has been claimed and exercised for ages over the merchant vessels of other nations, I apprehend it is a mistake. The case never occurred with sufficient frequency to constitute even a practice much less a right. If it had been either, it would have been noticed by some of the writers on the laws of nations. The truth is, the question arose out of American independence--from the severance of one nation into two. It was never made a question between any other nations. There is therefore no right of prescription.

But, it seems, it has also been claimed and exercised, during the whole of the three administrations of our national government. And is it meant to be asserted that this claim and exercise constitute a right? If it is, I appeal to the uniform, unceasing, & urgent remonstrances of the three administrations--I appeal not only to the warm feelings, but to the cool justice of the American people--nay, I appeal to the sound sense and honorable sentiment
of the British nation itself, which, however it may have submitted at home to this practice, never would tolerate its sanction by law, against the assertion. If it is not, how can it be affirmed that it is on our part a mere pretence?

But the first merchant of the United States in answer to Mr. Pickering's late enquiries, has informed him that since the affair of the Chesapeake there has been no cause of complaint—that he could not find a single instance where they had taken one man out of a merchant vessel. Who it is that enjoys the dignity of first merchant of the United States, we are not informed. But if he had applied to many merchants in Boston, as respectable as any in the United States, they could have told him of a valuable vessel and cargo, totally lost upon the coast of England, late in August last, and solely in consequence of having had two of her men, native Americans, taken from her by impressment, two months after the affair of the Chesapeake.

On the 15th of October, the king of England issued his proclamation, commanding his naval officers to impress his subjects from neutral vessels. This proclamation is represented as merely "requiring the return of his subjects, the seamen especially, from foreign countries," and then "it is an acknowledged principle that every nation has a right to the service of its subjects in time of war."

Is this, sir, a correct statement either of the proclamation, or of the question it involves in which our right is concerned? The king of England's right to the service of his subjects in time of war is nothing to us. The question is, whether he has a right to seize them forcibly on board of our vessels while under contract of service to our citizens, within our jurisdiction upon the high seas: And whether he has a right expressly to command his naval officers to seize them. Is this an acknowledged principle? Certainly not. Why then is this proclamation described as founded upon uncontested principle: And why is the command, so justly offensive to us, and so mischievous as it then might have been made in execution, altogether omitted?

But it is not the taking of British subjects from our vessels, it is the taking under colour of that pretence, our own, native American citizens, which constitutes the most galling aggravation of this merciless practice. Yet even this, we are told, is but a pretence—for three reasons.

1. Because the number of citizens thus taken is small.
2. Because it arises only from the impossibility of distinguishing Englishmen from Americans.
3. Because such impressed American citizens are delivered up, on duly authenticated proof.

1. Small and great in point of numbers, are relative terms. To suppose that the native Americans form a small proportion of the whole number impressed is a mistake—the reverse is the fact. Examine the official returns from the department of state. They give the names of between four and five thousand men impressed since the commencement of the present war. Of which number, not one fifth part were British subjects. The number of naturalized Americans could not have amounted to one-tenth. I hazard little in saying, that more than three fourths were native Americans.

If it be said that some of these men, though appearing on the face of the returns, American citizens, were really British subjects, and had fraudulently procured their protections, I reply that this number must be far exceeded by the cases of citizens impressed, which never reach the department of state. The American consul at London estimates the number of impressments during the war, at nearly three times the amount of the names returned. If the nature of the offence be considered in its true colors, to a people having a just sense of personal liberty and security, it is in every single instance, of a malignity not inferior to that of murder. The very same act, when committed by the recruiting officer of one nation within the territories of another, is by the universal law and usage of nations punished with death. Suppose the crime had, in every instance, as by its consequences it has been in many, deliberate murder—would it answer or silence the voice of our complaints to be told, that the number was small?

2. The impossibility of distinguishing English from American seamen is not the only, nor even the most frequent occasion of impressment. Look again into the returns from the department of state—you will see that the officers take our men without pretending to enquire where they were born; sometimes merely to show their animosity or their contempt for our country; sometimes from the wantonness of power. Then they manifest the most tender regard for the neutral rights of America, they lament that they want the men. They regret the necessity, but they must have their complement.

When we complain of these enormities, we are answered that the acts of such officers were unauthorised; that the commanders of men of war, are an unruly set of men, for whose violence their own government cannot always be answerable; that enquiry shall be made—a court martial is sometimes mentioned—and the issue of Whitby's court martial has taught us what relief is to be expected from that. There are even examples I am told, when such officers have been put upon the yellow list. But this is a rare exception—the ordinary issue, when the act is disavowed, is the promotion of the actor.

3. The impressed native American citizens, however, upon duly authenticated proof, are delivered up. Indeed! how unreasonable then were complaint! how effectual a remedy then for the wrong!

An American vessel bound to an European port has two, three, or four native Americans impressed by a British man of war, bound to the East or West Indies. When the American captain arrives at his port of destination, he makes his protest, and sends it to the nearest American minister or consul. When he returns home, he transmits the duplicate of his protest to the secretary of state. In process of time, the names of the impressed men, and of the ship into which they have been impressed, are received by the agent in London—he makes his demand that the men may be delivered up—the lords of the admiralty, after a reasonable time for enquiry and advisement, return for answer, that the ship is on a foreign station, and that their lordships can, therefore, take no further steps in the matter—or, that the ship has been taken, and that the men have been received in exchange of French prisoners—or that the men had no protections (the impressing officers often having taken them from the men)—or, that the men were probably British subjects—or, that they have entered, and taken the bounty; (to which the officers know how to reduce them)—or, that they have been married, or settled in England. In all these cases, without further remonstrance, their discharge is refused. Sometimes, their lordships, in a vein of humor, inform the agent, that the man has been discharged as unserviceable. Sometimes, in a sterner tone, they say he was an imposter. Or perhaps, by way of consolation to his relatives and friends, they report that he has fallen in battle, against nations in amity with his country. Sometimes they coolly return, that there is no such man on board the ship; and what has become of him, the agonies of a wife and children in his native land may be left to conjecture. When all these and many other such apologies for refusal fail, the native American is discharged—and when, by the charitable aid of his government, he has found his way home, he comes to be informed, that all is as it should be—that the number of his fellow-sufferers is small—that it was impossible to distinguish him from an Englishman—and that he was delivered up, on duly authenticated proof.

Enough of this disgusting subject—I cannot stop to calculate how many of these wretched victims are natives of Massachusetts, and how many natives of Virginia. I cannot stop to solve that knotty question of national jurisprudence, whether some of them might not possibly be slaves, and therefore not citizens of the United States—I cannot stay to account for the wonder, why, poor, and ignorant, and friendless, as most of them are, the voice of their complaints is so seldom heard in the navigating states.

I admit that we have endured this cruel indignity, through all the administrations of the general government. I acknowledge that Britain claims the right of seizing her subjects in our merchant vessels, and that even if we could acknowledge it, the line of discrimination would be difficult to draw. We are not in a condition to maintain right, by war, and as the British government have been more than once on the point of giving it up of their own accord, I would still hope for the day when returning justice shall induce them to abandon it, without compulsion.—Her subjects we do not want. The degree of protection which we are bound to extend to them, cannot equal the claim of our own citizens. I would subscribe to any compromise of this contest, consistent with the rights of sovereignty, the duties of humanity, and the principles of reciprocity: but to the right of forcing even her own subjects out of our merchant vessels on the high seas, I never can assent.

The second point upon which Mr. Pickering defends the pretensions of Great Britain, is her denial to neutral nations of the right of prosecuting with her enemies and their colonies, any commerce from which they are excluded in time of peace. This statement of this case adopts the British doctrine as sound. The right, as on the question of impressment, so on this, is surrendered at discretion—and it is equally defective in point of fact.

In the first place, the claim of Great Britain, is not to "a right of imposing on this neutral commerce some limits and restraints," but of interdicting it altogether, at her pleasure, of interdicting it without a moment's notice to neutrals, after solemn decisions of her courts of admiralty, and formal acknowledgments of her ministers, that it is a lawful trade—and, on such a sudden, unnotified interdiction, of pouncing upon all neutral commerce navigating upon the faith of her decisions and acknowledgments, and of gorging with confiscation the greediness of her cruizers—this is the right claimed by Britain—this is the power she has exercised—what Mr. Pickering calls "limits and restraints." She calls relaxations of her right.

It is but little more than two years, since this question was agitated both in England and America, with as much zeal, energy and ability, as ever was displayed upon any question of national law. The British side was supported by sir William Scott, Mr. Ward, and the author of War in Disguise. But even in Britain their doctrine was refuted to demonstration by the Edinburgh reviewers. In America, the rights of our country were maintained by numerous writers profoundly skilled in the science of national and maritime law. The answer to War in Disguise was ascribed to a gentleman whose talents are universally acknowledged, and who by his official situations had been required thoroughly to investigate every question of conflict between neutral and belligerent rights which has occurred in the history of modern war. Mr. Gore and Mr. Pinkney our two commissioners at London, under Mr. Jay's treaty, the former, in a train of cool, conclusive argument addressed to Mr. Madison, the latter in a memorial of splendid eloquence from the merchants at Baltimore supported the same cause; memorials, drawn by lawyers of distinguished eminence, by merchants of the highest character, and by statesmen of long experience in our national councils, came from Salem, from Boston, from New Haven, from New York, and from Philadelphia, together with remonstrances to the same effect from Newburyport, Newport, Norfolk, and Charleston. This accumulated mass of legal learning, of commercial information, and of national sentiment, from almost every inhabited spot upon our shores, and from one extremity of the union to the other, confirmed by the unanswered and unanswerable memorial of Mr. Monroe to the British minister, and by the elaborate research and irresistible reasoning of the examination of the British doctrine, was also made a subject of full, and deliberate discussion in the senate of the United States. A committee of seven members of that body, after three weeks of arduous investigation, reported three resolutions, the first of which was in these words, "resolved, that the capture and condemnation, under the orders of the British government, and adjudications of their courts of admiralty of American vessels and their cargoes, on the pretext of their being employed in a trade with the enemies of Great Britain, prohibited in time of peace, is an unprovoked aggression upon the property of the citizens of these United States, a violation of their neutral rights, and an encroachment upon their national independence."

To be continued in our next.