was humbled at Breed's Hill, by men called from their farms, by the tolling of the village bells: He will find that an army of nearly the number Yet we have not found a limit for your efforts; which he mentioned, was crippled by the immorthe provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Sco-tal Starke, and surrendered to Gates at Saratia must fall. The Bahamas must no longer annoy us. As long as they and Halifax furnish the fleets of England with water, naval stores, docks, wharves, &c., so long, in war, this nation will be grievously annoyed.

H. OF R.

Additional Military Force.

JANUARY, 1812.

injury; it was the loss of a right to send our commerce to any country which we choose; for the prohibition of the British excludes us from trading to the United Netherlands, Hamburg, and Bremen, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy; to which places he found, by a recurrence to the returns from the Treasury Department for the year 1810, we exported goods to the amount of upwards of twenty-five millions of dollars; so that the gentleman from Virginia has made an error in his statement of twenty-three millions of dollars. And a large proportion of the gentleman's argument being drawn from this statement, it of course has no foundation.

was sorry, at this time of day, to hear the honor of a nation spoken of so lightly. Would it not be dishonorable in a nation to give up her acknowledged rights withbut resistance? The same reasoning would lead a man, when he was struck by another, to endeavor to make his escape; and if he could outrun his assailant, it would be well. Or, if a man takes possession of your house, on the same principle you must leave him there, and escape to your barn, for fear of entering into any scuffle with him. If, said he, we mean to act in this way, we had better break up and go home. Before Congress met, all parts of the country were anxious that they should get together. The people felt the country was insulted, and they wished their wrongs redressed. But if, after we get here, we do nothing, we had better have remained at home. It had been said, that the British would Mr. McKIм replied, that his statements inlay waste our cities; but where, said he, will be cluded the whole amount of our exports to the our gunboats at that time? While they are sta- places which he had mentioned, as he considered tioned in our harbors, he defied any British ves-it immaterial whether we exported our own prosels of war from entering to do any serious mischief. He had a high opinion of the usefulness of our gunboats for the protection of our harbors.

But, it was asked, will you take advantage of Great Britain, when she is fighting the battles of the world? She is not fighting our battles; and if she continues to use us as she has done, I would take every advantage of her. Indeed, we must either give up our commerce entirely, or defend ourselves against that Power. God and Nature have given us an extensive seacoast, and we ought to make a proper use of it.

But, the gentleman from Virginia says, Great Britain has a right to take her subjects from on board our vessels. This, Mr. W. denied. After they had been duly naturalized in this country, they were as much our citizens as if they had been born here. But, said Mr. W., they not only seize men of this description, but native-born citizens. I know it: I have seen several whom I know to to be of this description-sons of my neighbors.

The Army now proposed to be raised had been compared to that raised in 1798; but he said the comparison would not hold. That Army was raised under the pretence of meeting a French invasion, when it was known France had not a vessel which could leave her ports. Much was said about the ship Ocean and her passengers being taken, but they afterwards arrived in this country in safety. The people of the United States were not like the people of Europe, who knew nothing but the trades at which they worked for their living-saw that the talk of French in vasion had no foundation, and they would not enter the Army. But the case is very different now. The people know the object for which the Army is to be raised-they feel it-and they will fight in defence of their country.

Mr. McKIM conceived it to be his duty to offer a few observations on this bill, before the question was taken. The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. SHEFFEY) had said that our exports to France and her dominions amounted only to two millions a year. For himself, he did not consider the injury of which we complained as a pecuniary

Mr. SHEFFEY inquired whether the gentleman from Maryland had included nothing in his estimate but our own products?

duce or the produce of the West India Islands which had been received in return for that produce. He had included Spain and Portugal, though there had been a subsequent permission for our vessels to go to those ports; but he had said nothing of the ports of the Adriatic, as his knowledge of the geography of that country was not sufficient to ascertain the precise extent of the British blockade. If, said Mr. McKIM, Great Britain shall be permitted to interdict us from a commerce amounting to twenty-five millions a year, what is to hinder her from interdicting us from carrying on any commerce whatever; but it was not the pecuniary loss, great as it was, of which he principally complained, it was the deprivation of an indisputed right, which it was our duty to maintain at all hazards; for, if we give up one right, we give a mortgage upon and endanger all our rights. For his part, he was for making a stand on the present occasion, that we might pass down our rights undiminished to our posterity.

Mr. SHEFFEY said, in his estimates, he had confined himself to the exports of our productions, and not the export of articles of foreign growth, and insisted upon the correctness of his statements.

Mr. MACON wished to make a few observations on the passage of the bill. He apprehended great inconveniences would arise from the passage of the bill in its present form, on account of its containing a different arrangement for raising the troops from any other establishment in the nation. Will not, said he, every new organization in the Army introduce discordance? Have we not seen the effects produced by having two differently constructed corps already, and will not the inconvenience be increased by a third? He was willing to have voted for the 10,000 men asked for by the Executive, and would afterwards have gone farther, if necessary. But he disliked the proposed arrangement. Had there been any complaints, he asked, of our old organization? It carried us through the Revolution, and he thought might still be relied upon. In propor

tion as different arrangements are introduced into the Army, will you introduce discordance and confusion. An army should be but one body, and ought to be moved but by one soul.

H. of R.

must go to war. For where is the difference between stopping our produce between New York and Albany, and stopping it between New York and any other market?

No gentleman has yet pointed out any other course. Even the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. SHEFFEY,) whose talents he very much admired, though he had objected to the course proposed, had not offered any other.

Much had been said about the strength of this Government. Some think it is not strong enough; but if there be any strong Government in the world it must be this Government, and what gives it this strength is the attachment of the people to it; and it is as strong under an unpopular as a popular Administration, because the people know there is a time approaching when they can change the Administration, if they do not like it.

It appeared to him that this objection was a very material one to the bill, and, if he believed such a motion would prevail, he would now move to recommit the bill, in order that these troops might be put upon the same plan with those already in existence. He had another objection to the bill, in its present form. In the clause giving land to the soldiers there is no provision which prohibits them from disposing of it, which there certainly ought to be. But he had no hope of getting any amendment to the bill after he had seen the manner in which other attempts at amendment had been made. Comparisons had been made, Mr. M. said, between the times of 1798 and the present. There was no likeness except in this: It was then usual for With respect to our getting an army, it will Congress to pass one bill, in order to make it depend very much upon the persons appointed for necessary to pass another. What was the situa-officers; if they be men in whom the people have tion of things at that time? It had been emphat- confidence, we shall get an army; but if not, we ically called the "Reign of Terror." Was not shall get no army. the Rogue's March played at the door of one of the most distinguished members of the then Congress, and other acts of extravagance done, and was not the Sedition Act passed to prevent us from complaining?

Mr. M. said, he should have been glad to have voted for the bill, but for the objections which he had stated to it. He believed every gentleman was satisfied that something must be done; but he did not like to pass one bill to make another necessary.

There was something in the history of our affairs, with Great Britain which had not been mentioned, which goes to show the strong claim which this Government has upon Great Britain. He meant the conduct of Sir William Scott, in declining to give judgment in the case of the Fox, when he heard the Berlin and Milan decrees were repealed. So strongly was he persuaded that the Orders in Council would be repealed in consequence, that he stopped all proIceedings in the case of the vessel under consideration until he received instructions from the Ministry.

The party which opposed the raising of the Army in 1798, did not believe it was intended to operate against France, because they could see Something had been said on the subject of our no object on which it could be employed.-export trade. There was only one way, in the They saw the black cockade mounted, and they present state of things, to come at a knowledge heard every one denounced who did not mount of that.. We can never tell where the articles it. But there is nothing like this now. If we exported are consumed. Two-thirds of the tosay we will not defend our right to carry our pro- bacco shipped from this country are shipped to duce to a market, it is not worth our while to England, though one-seventh is only consumed make it. If you give up an acknowledged right, in that country. The usual way is to ship to you acknowledge some superior power. Why Cowes and a market. No reliance can be placed did we lay the embargo, and pass our restrictive upon the custom-house books, except as to the laws, but to avoid the situation into which we total amount of exports and imports. have now got? He approved of one of those measures, but not of the rest. If Great Britain would only do what France has done. there would be an end of the dispute. Is there a man in the House that wishes another attempt at negotiation, or one that wishes to go to war if it could possibly be avoided?

We are now, said Mr. M., approaching that state of things which we ought to have come to years ago. If we cannot fight by paper restrictions, we must meet force by force. If we cannot do this, it is time we put ourselves under the protection of some other Power. Every attempt which has been made to keep off the approaching crisis has proved ineffectual. As soon as the Hornet, which carried out the President's Message, and the report of the Committee of Foreign Relations, returns, if no redress is offered, we

But the real question is not, as has been stated, the amount of the loss we sustain. If our trade be confined, however, to Great Britain and her possessions, our produce will not pay for its freight; as it is well known that a great part of what was heretofore sent thither was consumed on the Continent, which could not now be the case.

If we are to have war, said Mr. M., it is not sought by us. If it were, there would have been no delay. The Hornet would not have been sent to England as a last step, or he might call it a step beyond the last. If ever a Government showed a disposition to remain at peace, this Government had shown that disposition for the last seven or eight years.

Some gentlemen appear to believe that we are not yet approaching the crisis of war; but he did

the thirtieth ultimo, on the several petitions of the collectors of the ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Plymouth, (Massachusetts,) and the naval officer of the port of Philadelphia, made a supplementary report; which was read, and committed to the Committee of the Whole on the bill in addition to the act to establish the compensation of the officers employed in the collection of the duties on imports and tonnage. The report is as follows:

H. OF R.

believed they were, with so much mischief to the real interests and happiness of the nation. He felt himself only at issue with his colleague as to the similitude between the crisis and causes of the war in 1798 and 1799 with France, and the present crisis and causes of the proposed war with Great Britain. He should not contend that the temper and violence of party had grown to the same extreme now as at the former period. The circumstances under which Congress sat were very different; Congress then sat where there were streets, and alleys, and people; and now in a city of little else than old fields. Yet, however, the temper and intolerance of party zeal were by no means unlike that which prevailed at the former period; at any rate it may be said to be so in some parts of the country. His colleague's ill health of late had not, perhaps, allowed him to be as attentive to the oracles of the day as his better health had allowed him to be. As to party intolerance, what were the signs of the times at the present period? A gentleman, than whom a the Administration was not in the House, almore candid, open, and honorable, supporter of though he had declared himself in favor of the force the Government had called for, because he refused to commit himself as to the ulterior measures of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and ventured to depict the evils of a war, and to deprecate its consequences, had passed through the ordeal of newspaper animadversion from Dan, in the North, to Beersheba, in the South. This That the prayers of the several petitions of the Col- might be called a single case; but if it were nelectors of the ports of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Nor-cessary to point out other instances of party derefolk, Plymouth, (Massachusetts,) and of the Naval Officer of the port of Philadelphia, ought not to be granted.

That, on a further investigation of the amount of emoluments received by those officers during the years 1808, 1809, and 1810, it appears that the net emoluments of the Collector of Philadelphia, from the 27th of August, 1808, when he entered upon his office, to the close of the year 1810, (including the half commissions paid to the estate of his predecessor,) amounted to the average sum of $3,262 02, annually; those of the Collector of Baltimore, from the 13th of April, 1808, when he entered on his office, to the close of the year 1810, including the half commissions as aforesaid, to the average sum of $1,687 68, annually; those of the Collector of Norfolk, from the year 1808 to the year 1810, both inclusive, including the half commissions as aforesaid, to the sum of $921 82, annually; those of the Collector of Plymouth, for the same period, to $1,953 92, annually; and those of the Naval Officer of the port of Philadelphia, for the same period, to $2,802 29, annually.

Under this view of the facts, the committee recommend to the House the adoption of the following resolution, in lieu of those recommended in their former report on this subject:

ADDITIONAL MILITARY FORCE.

The House resumed the consideration of the unfinished business of Saturday last, and the question depending at the time of adjournment on that day, to wit: that the bill from the Senate "to raise an additional military force," do pass as amended?

Mr. STANFORD renewed the observations he had commenced before the adjournment on Saturday evening. He made his acknowledgments to the Speaker for calling him to order for a term, which was, perhaps, a less respectful epithet than should have been used upon the occasion. He was far from meaning to use language which should give offence, but he said he would claim the authority of the Chair to protect him from interruptions coming from other quarters of the

House.

He proceeded, and stated that he had, before, expressed his regret at the circumstance of differing with his colleague (Mr. MACON) upon any occasion, and more especially upon the present important one. The older standing of his, colleague upon that floor, he said, placed him more in the relation of a political son than in that of any other; but if he were naturally, what he might be considered politically, he could by no means yield his assent to the present measure, or the doctrines growing out of it, fraught, as he

liction, persecution, and neglect, there were more than enough; and, among them, his colleague himself could not be otherwise than placed pretty high in the list; and, although he might be indifferent as to anything of the kind which related to himself personally, that circumstaoce could form no mitigation of the spirit of the times. But he was aware that it was an invidious and unpleasant task to dwell upon subjects of this kind, and he would forbear.

The sedition law had been cited to show the more violent character of the times at the former period, and alleged that it had been contrived to silence opposition to the measures of the day. He was willing to admit the worst that could be said of that law. But he considered the dumb rule, sanctioned at the present session, under the name of the previous question, as a more direct attack upon the liberty of speech, or what is the same thing, the privilege of debate and free discussion in this House, than the other had been upon the freedom of the press. The former contemplated silencing the libels of the press; the latter came home to ourselves, and went to put down a member in his place; to silence all debate, however interesting to his constituents. He had been mistaken the other day, in stating that a member could only speak at the "will and courtesy" of a majority of the House. The rule was worse than that; one-fifth of the House could arrest debate, and impose instant silence upon any subject. The sedition and alien laws had grown out of the war