Berkeley And Jefferson Intelligencer

MARTINSBURG, October 4.

Ruin of our Commerce. It appears to be granted on all hands that American property to a vast amount scattered over every ocean and sea is daily falling a prey to some one or other of the belligerent powers of Europe under pretences which are a mockery upon the law of nations and an open outrage upon the rights of neutrals. We have the authority of an English newspaper for stating that orders have been given by the British government for the detention of all American vessels having on board property not the produce of the U.S. In this so or is it not? If such orders have actually been given, must they not have been known to our minister or consul? It ought not to be supposed that they are loitering about the court of St. James merely for the purpose of getting their salaries, totally unmindful of the duties of their stations. If they know of such orders, they must have informed our government of the fact at least as soon as it could be made known to us through the channel of English newspapers. What then, supposing the fact to be so, has prevented our administration from making the danger officially known and instantly calling congress together to deliberate upon the proper means of repelling such a flagrant act of hostility? If the whole is a mere unfounded rumour that also ought to be officially known by our government for upon the publication of the article alluded to it became the duty of our minister in London to demand an explanation; and if the orders were disavowed by the British government that disavowal should have been made known without delay to our government and officially published here. Why then are we left so totally in the dark upon a subject so deeply interesting to the nation? We know that the price of insurance within a few days, has risen in some cases more than a hundred per cent. We know that armed vessels along the coast take and carry in almost every American Ship that falls in their way and we know further that it was the duty of our government long since to ascertain whether these enormities are committed by the authority of the governments to which these vessels belong and to have taken public measures accordingly. When we look at these things, and then turn our eyes towards the administration and see the members of it scattered about the country engaged in paltry cabals about a petty state election or something else equally frivolous compared with the momentous concerns with which their time and their talents ought to be occupied - we feel an indignation which it may not be prudent to express.