Sir, the feeling, if it exist, is creditable to him; but I can assure him, if this be a contest for honor, he will not alone "fetch up drowned honor by the locks," nor "without co-rival, wear all her dignities." In this contest, ten thousand gallant spirits will start with him in the race; ten thousand other gallant spirits will struggle with him for the goal. SENATE. when we were convinced of the fairness of the title, and took possession of it-when we put our doings on our own statute book, and promulgated them to the world-when we had done this, and observe a frown lowering upon the brow of an apostate Bishop, a wanderer from his country and his God-and we shrunk from a possession which we still claim-where was our honor? This is the foulest stain on the annals of your history; and, if the title be a fair one, the whole military force of the United States, if necessary, should be put in requisition to wipe it away, and to possess and defend the country in question. Where the fugitive has been for the last twelve years, I know not; but whether she has been drinking salt and bitter tears in the fathomless caves of ocean, or wandering an outcast, deserted and forlorn, among the wilds beyond the Western mountains, it is equally our duty to welcome Sir, when Mr. Serrurier told us, in his letter of her return; we should consider it as the harbin- the 23d of July last, that His Majesty the Emger of better times-as the morning star of a new peror of France, having an equal interest in all day-we should make it a jubilee for the nation."of the States, desires that the relations of comThe tutelary genius of America should receive her with open arms; should endeavor to make her teach us, in the high-wrought language of one of our native bards, to attempt, once again, "Amid our own stars, To inscribe a nation's name." And in a war for honor, in the words of the same poet, over whose tomb the cypress has recently been suspended, should make us remember, as regards more than one Power, that "Base submission, inviting both indignity and plunder, Like a worm, kills the oak that could have braved the thunder." But, sir, it is more especially the part of honor to discriminate, to draw even nice distinctions against whom, then, should commence this war "of honor? Most unquestionably, in the first instance, against France. For, let me ask you, sir, without going far back, when General Turreau wrote his most insolent letter to the American Government, demanding an interdiction of the trade to St. Domingo, and you complied with it, where was your honor? When France undertook to deprive you of one of your most essential rights of sovereignty, and to declare war for you; to state that you were at war, and she would so consider you; and you remained quiet-where was your honor? When she told you that you were a nation without policy, without spirit, and without principle; that you were inferior to any · assembly of the colony of Jamaica, and we still courted her where was your honor? When she plunders, sinks, burns, and destroys, our vessels and cargoes; when she manacles and impresses our seamen, and marches them, like galley slaves, through her territories, and we only complain, that these are "the most distressing modes by which belligerents can exercise force in opposition to right"-where is our honor? When we submit to that most infamous of all decrees the Rambouillet decree, issued in May, 1810, to take place from March, 1809, by which a large amount of American property was seized, and never has been restored, under the pretence of balancing seizures in the United States which never existed-where is our honor? When, after paying double the price which any other people would have given for a territory merce should be common to all parts of the Federal territory"-when we were told this to our teeth, at the very moment, or shortly before, when the whole of New England, possessing half the seacoast; and nearly half the tonnage of the United States, was under the ban of his empire, under à bull of excommunication, and not permitted to ship to the value of a single cent of colonial produce to his empire, while permissions were given to New York, to Charleston, and, for aught I know, to Baltimore, and we made no reply, where was our honor? Sir, I do not complain of the fact, but of the delusion with which we are perpetually shuffled; no, sir; on the contrary, so long as France pursues her present system of conduct toward us, I want no intercourse with her; would to God, so long as she thus treats us, there were a Chinese wall extending from the foundations of the great deep to the third Heavens, all round her empire, if such a one were necessary, to cut off all communication between her and us, until she is better disposed to do us justice. Thus, sir, although France unquestionably should be the first object of attack, yet adhering to the Republican principle, that the will of the majority, legally expressed, must govern, and the nation will not go to war with France, but will engage in a war with Great Britain; I am ready to admit that, in a war for honor, you have cause enough for war against Great Britain. I am no partisan of Britain in opposition to the interest or feelings of my own country. When one of her nayy officers inflicted that most outrageous insult upon us-the attack upon the Chesapeake-there was not a man in the nation who would have been willing to have gone further in anything, cursing and boasting excepted, to avenge it, than myself. Nor did I ever contend for the sweeping, extended construction that was attempted to be given to her principle of blockade. Both these points are, however, now happily adjusted; an atonement has been made and accepted for the attack on the Chesapeake, which it would be the part of petulance and cowardice, to repine at, inasmuch as it would be a reproach on our own pusillanimity, for having received what we ought not to have acceded to. And the principle of blockade has been so expli citly laid down in the recent correspondence of Mr. Foster, in conformity with the established recognised law of nations, as to make future cavil with regard to it impossible. FEBRUARY, 1812. her to Captain Lefevre. The frigates afterward did fall in with an English vessel, and the French captain humanely gave her to Captain Lefevre and his crew, who, by this means alone, reached the United States. Look at the case of the brig Julian, carried I derived no pleasure from the bitter sarcastic retorts of Mr. Canning-in my estimation much better adapted to the flippant petulance of the tea-into Norway and acquitted after the payment of table, than to the bureau of a statesman. Nor was I gratified by the diplomatic manoeuvring and evasions of the Marquis of Wellesley in regard to the appointment of a Minister to the United States, and a revocation of the Orders in Council, which, in my opinion, are equally indefensible in point of principle, whether they are attempted to be supported on the ground of retaliation, or that of self-preservation. costs, then again captured by a French privateer, and condemned for this, among other allegations: that if she were an American vessel, she was entitled to be respected by Denmark, and to be released without expense, and that the payment of these costs, without which the whole property had been sacrificed in the first instance, was evidence of her being British property! Look at a case still more atrocious-the stateI once thought Great Britain was contending ment of which I hold in my hand, and which I for her existence; that dream has now completely have been requested to present to the Senate. passed away. And, how is it possible that a third Its authenticity cannot be questioned; it comes and neutral party can make itself a fair object of from a highly respectable merchant whom I perretaliation for measures which it did not counsel, sonally well know, (John Parker, Esq.,) and is which it did not approve, which militate strongly supported by the process verbal, which I also with its interests, which it is and ever has been have, and other evidence of the facts contained anxiously desirous to remove, which it has resist in it. It is the case of the brig Catharine, Caped by every means in its power which it thought tain Ockington, and, by the memorial, it appears expedient to use-and, of these means, the Gov- that this vessel sailed from Boston on the tenth ernment of the neutral party ought to be the sole April, 1810, with a cargo consisting of coffee, sujudge; which it has endeavored to get rid of even gar, cocoa, dye-woods, and cotton, bound to Gotat a great sacrifice! How is it possible that a tenburg, in Sweden, and from thence to any other neutral country, thus conducting, can make itself port in the Baltic, which on her arrival at Gota fair object of retaliation for measures which it tenburg would appear to offer the most advantadid not originate, which it could not prevent, and geous market. The vessel and cargo were excannot control? The contrary doctrine may be clusively owned by American citizens, and were contended for by the diplomatist in obedience to furnished with every document required by our his instructions, by the statesman in conformity laws, or by the laws and usages of nations, inwith what he considers the interest and the policy cluding the most ample certificates from His of his country; but that it should now be support- Majesty the Emperor of France. On her pased by any man of sober, unimpassioned mind, sage to Gottenburg she was captured by a Danish can, to my perceptions, be accounted for, only privateer, and carried into Jahrsund, where, after from the existence of a prejudice as gross as ig-a detention of ten months and five days, she was norance made drunk. Thus, sir, to my view, the Orders in Council are wholly unjustifiable, let them be bottomed either on the principle of retaliation or of selfpreservation; they might not be untenable, if they could rest, which they never could do, on a revocation, a bona fide virtual revocation of the French decrees; for every gazette from the seaboard furnishes damning evidence of their existence; and almost every arrival in our ports showers upon us proofs as thick as hail-stones in a Summer's storm. Among others, look at the ship General Eaton, taken when bound from London to Charleston, in ballast, exclusively American; the memorial establishing the facts has been presented to the Senate by the gentleman from New Hampshire, (Mr. CUTTS.) Look at the account of Captain Lefevre, who has just arrived at Norfolk, and whose vessel was burned at sea by a couple of French frigates that had sailed from France after the pretended abrogation of the French decrees, the captain of which told him he had orders to destroy all American vessels bound to or from a British port, but that if he captured a British vessel, a vessel of their open, acknowledged, inveterate enemy, he could give liberated, subject however to the payment of costs, on the ground that she was bona fide American property, and had not contravened either the law of nations or the modern law set up by the Government of France, and enforced under its influence and authority in other countries of the continent of Europe. Thus liberated, after so long a detention, and at an expense of more than four thousand dollars, and thus furnished with the opinion of a vigilant court that she was liable to no suspicion, the vessel departed from Jahrsund, and proceeded to Gottenburg, her original port of destination, where finding her cargo unsaleable, she proceeded for St. Petersburg, first stopping at Elsinore to pay the Sound duties, in order to prevent any possible pretence, either that she availed herself of enemy's convoy, or that she had made any attempt to elude the laws of Denmark; and having there complied with all the regulations both of France and Denmark, and having also had the good fortune to escape being visited by British cruisers, the vessel sailed from Elsinore to St. Petersburg, when, on the 3d of May, 1811, she was captured by a French privateer, duly commissioned by the Emperor of France, and carried into Dantzic. On her arrival at that port, she was put under the control of the Consul of France, and all her papers were forcibly taken by the said Consul, and sent to Paris, in order that legal process might be there instituted against her. SENATE. subjected to the payment of costs, in a French court, the payment of these condemns her, because she ought to have been released without them. If she has been met with going to, or coming from an English port, whether with a cargo or without, this is sufficient ground to capture or destroy her; if she has been spoken by a vessel from her own country in the English language, or has entered a port where an English vessel should be lying at anchor, which did not even pay her so much attention as to hail her, she is to be condemned; if no proof is given that she took convoy, it is alleged that no proof is furnished that she might not have taken it; if she is visited by a British ship she is condemned; and if she has not been visited, nor molested, she is condemned, because her not being so disturbed is evidence she was in the interest of the enemy's. commerce! Nor has this been done by an inferior court, or by subordinate agents. The condemnation of the Catharine and cargo was decreed at Paris by the highest prize court on the 10th September, and was confirmed by the Emperor in person on the 14th, after a full knowledge of the circumstances, and after a favorable decision on the case had been promised by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. Thus, sir, is situated our commerce as it respects France, and such is the evidence of the virtual actual repeal of her decrees. In unloading the cargo, the most illegal conduct was adopted. Several of the crew were impressed for the service of His Imperial Majesty, and impediments were thrown in the way of the supercargo, by withholding his passports near two months, although he had applied for them to the American Chargé d'Affaires, to prevent his getting to Paris to defend the vessel and cargo. Thus situated, at a very early period the supercargo made known to Mr. Russell, the American Chargé d'Affairs at Paris, the circumstances of the capture, who applied to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and received assurances from him, that he had made a favorable report of the case to the Emperor. Notwithstanding this perfect knowledge of the case, and the favorable report of the French Minister, the Council of Prizes, on the 10th day of September last, without hearing any plea or defence on behalf of the owners of the vessel and cargo, proceeded to the condemnation of them both; in which, after reciting that the Catharine had been captured by the French armed ship the Jenne Adolphe, and that she had been libelled on the ground "that part of the cargo came from Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and that, moreover, Still, sir, if we are going to war with Great it consisted of colonial articles, whose importa- Britain, let it be a real, effectual, vigorous war. tion was prohibited by His Majesty's decrees;" Give us a naval force. This is the sensitive that she had been captured by the Danes, and chord you can touch, and which would have acquitted by the Danish courts, and that she had more effect on her than ten armies. Give us arrived at Gottenburg, in which port an English thirty swift-sailing, well-appointed frigates; they cutter was then lying, but which had not hailed are better than seventy-fours; two thirty-six-gun the Catharine; after reciting that another vessel frigates can be built and maintained for the same had hailed her on her passage, the officers of expense as one seventy-four, and for purposes of which had spoken the English language; that annoyance for which we want them, they are the captain, supercargo, and mariners, had all better than two seventy-fours; they are managed concurred in these facts; after reciting moreover easier, ought to sail faster, and can be navigated a complete list of all the papers found on board in shoal water. We do not want seventy-fours; the Catharine, which consisted of every docu- courage being equal, in line-of-battle ships, skill ment required by the law of nations, and the and experience will always insure success. We modern usages of France, all certified by the are not ripe for them; but butt-bolt the sides of French Consul at Boston; the Council of Prizes an American to that of a British frigate, and proceeded to condemn both vessel and cargo, though we should lose sometimes, we would win valued at eighty-five thousand dollars, on the as often as we should lose. The whole history following pretences, if even such they may be of the Revolutionary war, when we met at sea called: that "the said brig had anchored at Got- on equal terms, would bear testimony in favor of tenburg, at which port there was an armed Eng- this opinion. Give us, then, this little fleet well lish packet boat, and that this was an indication appointed; place your Navy Department under or proof-the cargo consisting also mostly of arti- an able and spirited Administration; give tone cles of colonial produce that the same was in to the service. Let a sentiment like the followthe interest of the enemy's commerce; that there ing precede every letter of instruction to the capwas no reason to believe that she entered the tain of a ship of war-"Sir, the honor of the Baltic without convoy; and if she were not dis-nation is in a degree attached to the flag of your turbed by the numerous vessels of the enemy, it was because she was an enemy's ship under an American mask ;" and they then proceeded to condemn both vessel and cargo, and to decree that the capture was good and available. Thus, if an American vessel is cleared in a Danish court as being bona fide neutral property, but vessel; remember, that it may be sunk without disgrace, but can never be struck without dishonor." Do this; cashier every officer who strikes his flag, and you will soon have a good account of your Navy. This may be said to be a hard tenure of service; but, hard or easy, sir, embark in an actual, vigorous war, and in a few weeks, perhaps days, I would engage completely to officer your whole fleet from New England alone. Give us this little fleet, and in a quarter part of the time you could operate upon her in any other way, we would bring her to terms with younot to your feet. No, Sir. Great Britain is, at present, the most colossal power the world ever witnessed. Her dominion extends from the rising to the setting sun. Survey it for a moment. Commencing with the newly found continent of New Holland, as she proceeds she embraces under her protection, or in her possession, the Philippine Islands, Java, Sumatra; passes the coast of Malacca; rests for a short time fruitlessly to endeavor to number the countless millions of her subjects in Hindostan ; winds into the sea of Arabia; skirts along the coasts of Coromandel and Ceylon; stops for a moment for refreshment at the Cape of Good Hope; visits her plantations of the Isles of France and Bourbon; sweeps along the whole of the Antilles; doubles Cape Horn to protect her whalemen in the Northern and Southern Pacific oceans; crosses the American continent from Queen Charlotte's Sound to Hudson's Bay; glancing in the passage at her colonies of the Canadas, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick; thence continues to Newfoundland, to look after and foster her fisheries, and then takes her departure for the United Kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland, nor rests until she reaches the Orkneys-the ultima thule of the geography of the ancients. Such an overgrown commercial and colonial power as this never be fore existed. True, sir, she has an enormous national debt of 700 millions of pounds sterling, and a diurnal expenditure of a million of dollars, which, while we are whining about a want of resources, would, in six short weeks, wipe off the whole public debt of the United States. Will these millstones sink her? Will they subject her to the power of France? No, sir; burst the bubble to-morrow; destroy the fragile basis on which her public credit stands, the single word confidence; sponge her national debt; revolutionize her Government; cut the throats of all her royal family, and dreadful as would be the process, she would rise with renovated vigor from the fall, and present to her enemy a more imposing, irresistible front than ever. No, sir; Great Britain cannot be subjugated by France; the genius of her institutions, the genuine gamecock, bull-dog spirit of her people, will lift her head above the waves long after the dynasty of Bonaparte-the ill-gotten power of France, collected by perfidy, plunder, and usurpation, like the unreal image of old, composed of clay, and of iron, and of brass, and of silver, and of gold, shall have crumbled into atoms. FEBRUARY, 1812. As Great Britain wrongs us I would fight her. Yet I should be worse than a barbarian did I not rejoice that the sepulchres of our forefathers, which are in that country, would remain unsacked, and their coffins rest undisturbed by the unhallowed rapacity of the Goths and Saracens of modern Europe. How then, sir, will it be asked, are we to operate on a Power such as I have described? Let us have these thirty frigates; she cannot blockade them; our coasts are in our favor; the elements are in our favor; from November to the month of March, in the Northern States I mean, all the navies of all the world could not blockade them in our ports; with our inclement weather and northeast and southeast storms, and hazardous shores, and tempestuous northwest gales, which afford the best chances to go off the coast, enemy ships of war could not keep their stations. Divide these thirty frigates into six squadrons; place them in the northern ports ready for sea; and, at favorable moments, we would pounce upon her West India Islands, and repeat the game of De Grasse and D'Estaing in 1779 and 1780. By the time she was looking for us there, we would be round Cape Horn cutting up her whalemen. When pursued there, we would skim away to the Indian ocean, and look after her China and India fleets, of whom we would give a far different account from that of Linois, the Frenchman. Occasionally we would look after her Quebec fleet, and her Jamaica fleet; sometimes we would do as the French privateers now do, make our appearance in the chops of the Channel, and now and then we might even wind north about, and look into the Baltic. We should sometimes meet with disasters, but we have abundant means to repair them. Well managed, it would require a hundred British frigates to watch the movements of these thirty. These are the means, sir, by which I would bring Great Britain not to our feet, but to her senses. The Government of Great Britain is in some degree a popular one; two branches of her Government-the King and the Commons-are governed by the popular sentiment, and the hospital of incurables must always follow suit.Touch the popular sentiment effectually, and you control the Commons; the Commons, by withholding the supplies and the civil list, control the King and obtain a change of Ministry and a change of measures. In this way you obtained the peace of 1783. Had it depended on the King and the Lords, you would not have had a peace until this time. We can touch the popular sentiment. With the fleet I have mentioned we could harass greatly the commerce of Great Britain; we could From this belief I acknowledge I derive a sen- bring her people to their senses; we could make timent of gratulation. In New England our them ask their Government for what object they blood is unmixed; we are the direct descendants continued thus to violate our rights? whether it of Englishmen; we are natives of the soil. In was for the interest of Great Britain to throw us the Legislature of the respectable and once pow-into the lap of her enemy? Whether it was for erful State of Massachusetts now in session, composed of near seven hundred members, to my knowledge not a single foreigner holds a seat. her interest to embitter us toward her still more? Whether it was for her interest to sever the principal lien of connexion between her and us, by obliging us to become a manufacturing people? And on this head we could make an exhibit that would astonish both friends and foes. Whether it was for her interest to force us to become prema. turely a great maritime nation, destined, one day or other, to dispute with her the sceptre of the ocean? In short, I would make the people ask the Government cui bono in this war. And the moment this is effected on both sides the water, the war is terminated, the business is finished, and you have only to agree on fair and equal terms of peace. add twelve per cent. per annum, to Making SENATE. 5,832,000 - 89,820.000 Thus giving an efficient maritime force of 30 frigates in complete order for ten years, with a surplus left sufficient to replace every ship of this fleet, should every one of the thirty in that time be lost or destroyed by the enemy. New and heavy tonnage duties on our own ves- Give us, then a navy. The Senate have proLook at the expense and the effect of the mea-ceeded thus far with a unanimity and harmony sures you have adopted. You are to have a highly honorable to them as men and as statesstanding army of 35,000 men, 50,000 volunteers, men. This measure will be considered as the and 100.000 of the militia. These you cannot test of our sincerity. For one, if it be not accedget into actual service without the militia, at less ed to, however reluctant it may be to my feelexpense than forty-five millions of dollars annu-ings, to divide at a moment like this, without an ally-the ways and means proposed being less is effectual defence being given us, I shall not conno evidence to the contrary-no experienced mil- sent to burden my constituents with itary man can estimate it at less. What are you Annual loans to a large amount; to do with it? You overrun Canada without Additional twenty-five per cent. retention on material difficulty, Quebec excepted; that Gib- drawbacks, thereby destroying the colonial raltar of the American continent can only be trade, and crippling the Treasury instead of taken by regular siege and investment; you must replenishing it; starve it out, but it will be provisioned for three years at least, and, before you get there, it will be fully garrisoned by experienced troops. Thus, then, to get Quebec you have got to summer and winter a siege in the face of an able and veteran garrison for three years, and in a climate where, during its long winters, the thermometer sometimes stands at thirty degrees below zero, and the sentinels freeze at their posts. Suppose it then falls, what do you then get? The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. GILES) has already told you: your enemy takes possession of New Orleans, New York, Newport, or some other prominent and important point-you then let one hand wash the other-make the exchange, and leave off just where you began, with a debt of $130,000,000 and the country subjected to all the evils of war. Instead of three years' expense of the land forces, take one year-call it $45,000,000 instead of $130,000,000-contrast this with the expense of a navy. The existing naval force of the United States may be estimated as equal to ten stout frigates; twenty additional thirty-six gun frigates would cost, agreeably to the estimate of the Secretary of the Navy of November 19, 1811, $162,000 each, equal for twenty new frigates, to - $3,420,000 3,060,000 30,600,000 3,420,000 on licenses ; on auction sales, frequently the last refuge of the distressed; on refined sugars; on carriages, chaises, and wagons, for the carriage of persons; on spirits Nor shall I, under such circumstances, by my vote, consent to impose on them stamp and direct taxes, cum mullis aliis, that must follow-expenses that ought not to be gone into, except for the purpose of vigorously prosecuting a war in such a manner as to procure a speedy and favorable peace, the only rational object of war. Peace is most unquestionably the polar star of the policy and the interest of the United States; essential sacrifice; it is no disgrace for an infant it should be obtained at every cost short of an the war with all the energy, and the force, and not to contend with a giant; if we cannot carry on power of the nation, let us record our wrongs, make the best of the existing state of things, and, when we have the ability, punish our aggressors to the last letter of the alphabet. Possibly this is the real policy of the United States; but, if we are to go to war, give us a navy; if you do not, and our commerce is abandoned, our navigation to be swept from the face of the ocean, our houses battered about our ears, and we are denied those means of defence which the God of nature has given us, and to which we are habituated, then, indeed, the Northern section of this Union will be little better situated than the colony of Jamaica; and, forms apart, there will be some cause to suspect that it has little more real voice or weight in the Councils of the Government than it has in the Parliament of Great Britain. Give no cause, sir, for suspicions of this sort |
