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her hopes were blasted. This is the reason why the blow was aimed, and your commerce sacrificed. The remonstrances of our Minister could not keep pace with new aggressions. This temporizing policy of England, and the destruction of our commerce, buried party spirit in America for the moment, and produced an indignant protest against her conduct from the great commercial cities in the Union, in which their lives and their property were pledged to support the Government in measures of just retaliation. And on this occasion the merchants of Boston requested the President to send a special Envoy to England, to give a greater solemnity to our claims of indemnity and future security. The cause of the merchants became a common cause, and the non-importation law was enacted, and Mr. Pinkney sent as a special Minister, agreeably to request. Let the commercial interest cease to complain. It is for them principally that we now suffer. These deeply-inflicted wounds upon the commerce of America, ingulfed for a moment the consideration of the primary object of Mr. Monroe's mission – the impressment of seamen – and it would seem, that when our Minister pressed one great subject of complaint, some greater outrage was committed to draw our attention from the former injury. Thus the unavailing exertions of our Minister for upwards of two years at the Court of St. James, eventuated in an extraordinary mission, and the non-importation law; a measure of retaliation, and which rendered us less dependent upon a foreign Government for such articles as can be manufactured at home. To bring further evidence of British hostility, let us attend a little to the Administration of Mr. Fox. He came into office about the 1st of February. On the 31st of May, information was received in London of the extra mission of Mr. Pinkney. Mr. Monroe, therefore, had an opportunity of about four months with Mr. Fox to settle our differences, without any interruption, not even the ideal one which has been suggested, as giving a temporary stay to the negotiation, viz: the waiting the arrival of Mr. Pinkney. The United States had a right to expect something like justice from this able Minister, because he entertained a sincere desire to conciliate the friendship of this nation by acts of justice. But in this just expectation we were disappointed. The hostility of other members of the Cabinet with whom he was associated, was the real cause of difficulty, joined perhaps with his sudden indisposition and death. Mr. Fox acknowledged our right to the colonial trade; he promised to stop the capture and condemnation of our merchant vessels; but when pressed to answer our complaints in writing, he promised, but broke that promise, and ultimately refused to give any orders with respect to the capture and condemnation of our vessels. Thus the golden apple was presented to our grasp, and then snatched forever from our sight.
Now let the committee attend to the chapter of negotiation, which produced the rejected treaty. First, the subject of blockade is proposed, and a definition demanded. We denied the doctrine of paper breastworks, spurious and illegitimate blockades, to be executed in every sea by the British Navy, of which our neutral rights were the victims. Such as the blockade of the coast of Europe from the Elbe to Brest, of the Elbe, the Weiser and Ems. The whole coast of Old Spain, of the Dardanelles, and Smyrna, and of Curaçoa. Upon this subject, Great Britain would yield nothing.
2. No duty can be laid upon American exports, but Great Britain imposes a duty of four per cent. upon her exports to the United States, under the name of a convoy duty; by which duty the citizens of the United States pay to Great Britain an annual amount of $1,300,000; but upon this unfriendly discrimination she will yield nothing.
3. Upon the search of merchant vessels she would yield nothing.
4. Upon the colonial trade she imposed new restrictions. She would yield nothing; a trade which produced the United States revenue to the amount of $1,300,000 per annum; and furnished exports from the United States of $50,000,000 annually.
5. Upon the West India trade she would yield nothing, and upon the East India trade she imposed new restrictions.
6. Upon the impressment of seamen, the subject was too delicate; she was fighting for her existence; she would yield nothing.
7. Upon the mutual navigation of the St. Lawrence, so important to the Northern States, they would yield nothing; but would demand a monopoly of the fur trade, and influence over the Indians within our own limits. Thus ended the chapter of negotiation.
I turn with indignation from this to a new species of injury, involving the events connected with and preceding the President's proclamation interdicting the armed vessels of Great Britain from our waters. I allude to the conduct of the officers of the British navy, and the evident connivance of the British Government. I will only mention three prominent cases:
1st. The Cambrian, and other British cruisers, commanded by Captain Bradley, who entered the port of New York, and in defiance of the Government arrested a merchant vessel, and impressed into the ships of war a number of seamen and passengers, refused to surrender them upon demand, and resisted the officers, served with regular process of law for the purpose of arresting the offenders.
2d. The case of the Leander, Capt. Whitby, with other British armed vessels, hovering about New York, vexing the trade of that port, arresting a coasting vessel of the United States by firing a cannon, which entered the vessel and killed John Pierce. The murder of Pierce, a fact so notorious, could not be proved in a sham trial in England, though the most unexceptionable characters are sent as witnesses from the United States; and not even an explanation is made to satisfy this country for the murder of a citizen. Call upon the citizens of New York, who saw the body of their slaughtered countryman; ask the mourning relatives of the murdered Pierce, whether he was slain or not! But from this tragic scene we must turn to one of a deeper hue.
3d. The attack upon the Chesapeake. This vessel had just left the shores of Virginia, leaving the British ship of war, the Leopard, enjoying the hospitalities of our laws. The Chesapeake was bound to the Mediterranean in defence of our rights. One hundred and seventy American tars were on board, who had undertaken this honorable enterprise. Unsuspicious of harm, while their rough cheeks were bedewed with tears in parting from their friends and country, their powder-horns empty, rods mislaid, wads too large, guns not primed – all was confusion. In this unhappy moment the messenger of death comes. The unfortunate Barron refuses to permit his men to be mustered by any but an American officer. His Government had given the command. This is the provocation. The vessel is attacked, and, without resistance, eight are wounded, three are killed, and four taken and carried into British service, one of whom has been hung as a malefactor in Nova Scotia. It has been said that the Goddess of Liberty was born of the ocean. At this solemn crisis, when the blood of these American seamen mingled with the waves, then this sea nymph arose indignant from the angry billows, and, like a redeeming spirit, kindled in every bosom indignation and resentment. A nation of patriots have expressed their resentment, and the sound has reached the utmost bounds of the habitable world. Let a reasoning world judge whether the President's proclamation was too strong for this state of things, and whether it should be rescinded without atonement.
Do the wrongs of this nation end with this outrage? No. Clouds thicken upon us; our wrongs are still increased; during the sensibility of this nation, and without atonement for the attack upon the Chesapeake, on the 16th October, 1807, a proclamation issues from the British Cabinet respecting seafaring persons, enlarging the principles of former encroachments upon the practice of impressment. This proclamation makes it the indispensable duty of her naval officers to enter the unarmed merchant vessels of the United States, and impress as many of the crew as a petty and interested naval officer may without trial point out as British subjects. The pretension is not confined to the search after deserters, but extended to masters, carpenters, and naturalized citizens of the United States – thus extending their municipal laws to our merchant vessels and this country, and denying us the right of making laws upon the subject of naturalization. The partners of British and Scotch merchants can cover their property and their merchandise from other nations under the neutral flag of the United States to Leghorn, Amsterdam, Hamburg, &c. But the patriotic Irishman or Englishman who has sought this protecting asylum of liberty, are not secured by our flag from the ruthless fangs of a British press-gang. And at this very moment our native citizens and adopted brethren, to a considerable number, are doomed to the most intolerable thraldom in the British navy by this degrading practice. There the freedom of our citizens depends upon the mercy of naval officers of Great Britain; and, upon this subject, every proposition for arrangement is trampled down by these unjust pretensions. Information was just received of the execution of the Berlin Decree, when the papers from every