allowed, before the property is exposed, by a transgression of the orders, to be confiscated or seized. No such forbearance can be discovered in the decrees, which are to be indiscriminately executed upon the innocent and the guilty; upon those who never heard, or could have heard of them, in the same manner as upon those who knowingly violate them.

I hope, sir, it will not be understood, that I mean to defend the orders in council, or to advise this nation to submit to them; but I could wish to direct some portion of the warmth and indignation, which has been expressed against them, against those decrees which produced them, and which exceed them in iniquity and outrage.

The avowed object of the honorable gentleman from Virginia, is a war with England. On this subject, I make but one question; is it possible to avoid it with honor? If this possibility exists, the war ought to be avoided. And it is my opinion, that it does exist. To this opinion I am, in a great degree, led by a want of confidence in the sincerity of the disposition of our executive to settle our differences with Great Britain. Your measures have not been impartial as to the belligerents, and your negociations have not been sincere as to England. The gentleman from Virginia has called this charge of insincerity a miserable vision. I believe, sir, it is a miserable and melancholy fact; and if you will have patience with me, I will furnish proof enough to support the belief of the most incredulous.

I mean to show, that your government has had it in its power to secure peace with Britain, by the settlement of the differences between the two nations, and that the means have not only been neglected, but means employed to prevent such a settlement from taking place.

It will be necessary for us to consider what those differences were. They may be referred to three heads: first, the rule, as it is called, of the war of

1756: second, constructive blockades: third, impressment of seamen on board of American merchant vessels.

I do not mean to say, that there were no other causes of complaint, arising from the indiscretions and insolence of British commanders; but they had not the character of national differences, and would, probably, have soon ceased and been forgotten, if the points of controversy between the governments had been amicably arranged. To settle the differences, which I have stated, a negociation was opened in London, in 1803, and carried on till December, 1806. It is remarkable, that while this negociation was depending and progressing, our government had recourse to a step, in its nature calculated to repel, instead of to invite, the British government to a friendly settlement. In April, 1806, they pass a law prohibiting the importation of certain British goods. The acknowledged object of this law was to coerce Britain to agree to our own terms. Did this law evidence a disposition to be friendly upon our part; or was it calculated to inspire a friendly temper on the part of England? It was fuel to the flame of discord. The British government is not less high-spirited and proud than our own, and the attempt to force them to terms was the likeliest course which could have been pursued, by provoking retaliation, to widen the breach between the two countries. This measure enforced, when negociation was going on and promised a favorable result, is no small proof, in my mind, that the executive was satisfied with the forms of negociation, but wanted no treaty with England.

I proceed to inquire, whether our differences with Britain were not of a nature to be compromised; and if our government had been sincerely disposed, whether they might not have retained the relations of amity with that power.

First, as to the rule of 1756. This rule was founded on the principle, that a neutral nation could not ac

quire a right to trade, by the cession of one belligerent in time of war, which did not exist, but was withheld in time of peace. The rule was supported on the principle, that a neutral could not come in aid of a belligerent, and cover its property on the ocean, when it was incapable of protecting it itself.

I am not going to defend this rule, nor to inquire into its origin. Thus much I will say, that if it was the British rule of 1756, it was the express rule of the French maritime code in the years 1704 and 1744. I will not trouble you with reading the decrees of the French monarchs, which I have on the table, made in the years mentioned, and which prohibit to neutrals any but a direct trade to the colony of an enemy. Though the rule of 1756 may not be an ancient rule, yet we must admit, that it was not a new rule, introduced in the present war and contrived to ruin or injure the Ameri

can commerce.

France was unable to trade with her colonies; the United States became her carriers, and under our flag, the manufactures of the mother country were safely carried to the colonies, and the produce of the colonies transported to Europe. This trade was certainly as beneficial to France as profitable to the United States. Britain only was the sufferer, and the rule of 1756 was revived, in order to take from French commerce the protection of a neutral flag. Our government were certainly right, in claiming the free enjoyment of this profitable trade, but the only question is, whether the neutral and belligerent pretension did not admit of adjustment, by each side making an equal concession of points of interest.

The treaty of 1806, which the President rejected, fairly compromised the dispute on this subject. The eleventh article of that treaty secured to the United States the carrying trade of France and her colonies, subject to terms somewhat inconvenient to the merchant, but rendering it no less beneficial to the nation. The treaty requires that goods, exported from France or her colonies in American vessels, shall be entered

and landed in the United States; and when exported from France through the United States to her colonies, shall be liable to a duty of one per cent., and from the colonies to France of two per cent., to be paid into our own treasury. This regulation of benefit to the government, by the duty which it gave to it, was of little prejudice to the trade, and there is no room to doubt, that the trade, thus secured from the spoliations to which it was before subject, would have flourished beyond its former limits.

Our differences, therefore, as to the carrying trade so much harassed by the British rule of 1756, not only admitted of compromise, but was actually settled by an arrangement in the treaty of 1806, with which the nation would have been perfectly satisfied.

The second head of dispute regards the practice of constructive blockade. The complaint on this subject was, that blockades were formed by proclamations, and that neutrals were compelled to consider ports as blockaded, before which no force was stationed. That the principle of blockades was extended to unwarrantable limits, is most certainly true; and there is no question as to our having just cause to complain of the vexatious interruptions to which it exposed our trade. The present war between France and England is without a parallel between civilized nations; it is not a struggle for renown or for ordinary conquest, but on the part of Britain, for her independence and existence. Principles of neutrality or of right have been little regarded upon the land or upon the ocean; and the question with the belligerents has been less, what the law of nations permitted them to do, than what their strength enabled them to accomplish. It is unlawful for a neutral to attempt to enter a blockaded port; but a port cannot be considered as blockaded, unless a force adequate to the end is stationed before it. The blockades, therefore, which England created, simply by a proclamation, were an abuse, of which neutrals had just cause to complain.

The United States did complain, and these com

plaints were listened to by the British government. The tenth article of the treaty of 1806, has made provision on the subject; and though England has not renounced the principle of which we complain, yet it is qualified by the notice which is required to be given to the vessel attempting to enter a blockaded port, before she is exposed to seizure and confiscation. The provision in the treaty, would no doubt have corrected, in a considerable degree, the abuse from which we had suffered, and it was our policy to have waited for better times for a completer remedy for the evil.

But, sir, the last head of dispute, which I enumerated, was made the chief and most important ground of complaint against the British government; I mean the searching American vessels for British seamen. The right claimed by England was to seize her own seamen on board our private vessels. The right to search a public vessel, or to seize an American sailor, was never asserted by the government. The claim, however, which was insisted on, involved a point of equal interest and delicacy to both countries. There is nothing novel in the pretension, that a nation, engaged in war, has a right to recall her subjects from for eign countries or from foreign service to assist her in the war.

Every nation in Europe has claimed and exercised the right. Our government has not denied it; but the consequences of the manner of exercising it have formed the ground of our complaint. Has a belligerent a right to search a neutral vessel for her seamen? I should suppose not. This question between other nations is of small importance between the United States and Britain, it is of great magnitude.

The sameness of manners, habits, language and appearance render it always difficult and sometimes impossible to distinguish between an English and an American sailor. If the right to search for British scamen were admitted, there would no longer be security for the American sailor: the right admitted, I have no