Abridgement of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856 (4 of 16 vol.). United States. Congress

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СКАЧАТЬ consumption. Will gentlemen tell us from whence they are to procure the principal articles of provisions and lumber? I might rest the argument in safety on these articles alone; these are essential, and of our produce. All the evasions of the embargo have been made with a view to that supply; enforce it, and from whence will they procure the article of lumber? It bears a higher price and is more scarce in Great Britain, even in ordinary times, than in the West Indies. The opinion that Nova Scotia and Canada were adequate to that supply, has been long since abandoned. The articles of their produce require a constant supply of our materials, some of them cannot be procured from any other part of the world; of the lumber received, we have heretofore furnished ninety-nine parts out of one hundred. But we are told they can raise corn. Who denies it? I will grant to gentlemen all they ask on that point, and add, too, that their corn is actually more valuable per bushel than that of this country; but when their labor and industry is directed to that object, what becomes of their cotton, sugar, and coffee cultivation? What becomes of the immense revenues derived from those sources? Gentlemen must not forget that at least one-third of her revenue accruing from commerce, is derived from the West India trade alone. I do not know that I should be wrong, if I were to say from coffee and sugar only. If you drive them to the cultivation of corn for subsistence, they must necessarily abandon the cultivation of their most valuable staples. And do gentlemen believe Great Britain is willing to sacrifice all these considerations to a refusal to do you justice? We do not require justice, for all we ask of her is to abstain from plundering us. We say to her "hands off;" we wish not to come into collision with you; let us alone. These sacrifices will not be much longer hazarded, unless indeed she is deluded into a belief that she has sufficient influence, in this country, to excite disaffection and insurrection, and thereby remove the cause of pressure.

      Another objection with me to removing the embargo is, it will betray a timid, wavering, indecisive policy. If you will study the sentiments contained in Mr. Canning's note, you will find they afford a lesson of instruction which you ought to learn and practise upon: "To this universal combination His Majesty has opposed a temperate, but a determined retaliation upon the enemy; trusting that a firm resistance would defeat their project; but knowing that the smallest concession would infallibly encourage a perseverance in it." I beg the House to draw instruction from this otherwise detestable paper – it preaches a doctrine to which I hope we shall become proselytes. A steady perseverance in our measures will assist us almost as much as the strength of them.

      I conceive the supplies necessary for the maintenance of the war with Spain and Portugal will fairly come into the calculation. It has become the duty and interest of Great Britain to maintain the cause of Spain and Portugal – she has made it so. Where will those supplies be drawn from? Does she produce them at home? Certainly not; for it cannot be forgotten that the average importation of flour alone at Liverpool is ninety thousand barrels annually. The Baltic is closed against her. The demand must be great; for Spain and Portugal in times of peace have regularly imported grain for their own consumption. And here I will observe, there is no attribute in my nature which induces me to take sides with those who contend for a choice of masters. So far as they are fighting for the right of self-government, God send them speed; but at this peculiar crisis I think it extremely important that our sympathies should not be enlisted on the side of either of the contending parties. I would, therefore, from Spain and Portugal withhold our supplies, because through them we coerce Great Britain.

      But that pressure which Great Britain feels most, is most alive to, is at home. The last crop is short, and injured in harvesting; wheat is fourteen shillings the bushel, and rising. Her millions of poor must be supplied with bread, and what has become almost equally important, she must furnish employment for her laborers and manufacturers. Where can the necessary supply of cotton be procured? For, thank God! while we are making a sacrifice of that article, it goes to the injury of Great Britain who oppresses us, and whose present importation is not equal to one-half her ordinary consumption. If the manufacturer is to be thrown out of employ, till that raw material which is now the hypothesis of the day, is produced from Africa, the ministry who are the cause of it will not long rule the destinies of that nation. No, sir, I am not alarmed about supplies of cotton from Africa. Nor am I to be frightened out of the embargo by a fear of being supplanted in the market, from that quarter; they must be but little read indeed in political economy, who can dread a competition with barbarians, in the cultivation of the earth.

      Another strong inducement with this House to continue and enforce the embargo is, that while it presses those who injure us, it preserves the nation in peace. I see no other honorable course in which peace can be maintained. Take whatever other project has been hinted at, and war inevitably results. While we can procrastinate the miseries of war, I am for procrastinating; we thereby gain the additional advantage of waiting the events in Europe. The true interests of this country can be found only in peace. Among many other important considerations, remember, that moment you go to war, you may bid adieu to every prospect of discharging the national debt. The present war of all others should be avoided; being without an object, no man can conjecture its termination; for as was most correctly observed by my friend, (Mr. Macon,) the belligerents fight everybody but one another. Every object for which the war was originally begun and continued to 1806, has since that time become extinct. The rupture in the negotiations of that day was made not on points affecting directly the British interest, but grew out of the indirect concern she felt in maintaining those urged by Russia, which Power, having since declared war against Great Britain, has obliterated the then only existing object of the war. Embark in it when you please, it will not procure you indemnity for the past; and your security for the future must ultimately depend on the same promises, which you can obtain by peaceable means. I have no disposition, sir, to hazard the interest of my country in a conflict so undefined, so interminable!

      But, say gentlemen, it is certainly not submission to trade to those ports which the edicts of the belligerents have not prohibited us from trading with. Granted – I will not enter into a calculation on the subject, as to how much importance the trade would be of to us. The chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means has told you it would be contemptible in amount; but, sir, I say this, because I consider it expedient to continue the embargo, to withhold our supplies from those who need them, I will not permit you to go to those countries. Repeal the embargo in part! No, sir. Give merchants one single spot anywhere out of the jurisdiction of your own country, as large as the square of this House, and they would carry away the whole of our surplus produce. Give them a little island on which to place the fulcrum of their lever, and Archimedes-like, they will move your whole trade. Let them go to Demarara, to Gottenburg, or any other burg, and it is to the whole world. But the trade to Spain and Portugal has been held up as highly profitable to the merchants of the United States. The gentlemen who venture this opinion have not, perhaps, considered the subject with all the attention it is entitled to. It appears to me to be demonstrable from the documents, and the knowledge of circumstances which we possess, that Great Britain, with the extension of plunder the Orders in Council warranted, is not satisfied. She was not content that she had laid a snare whereby she intercepted our whole commerce to Europe. She then permitted us (no doubt from extreme moderation) to trade with the French colonies, taking care, at the same time, to force a direction of that trade in a channel which could not fail to yield a tributary supply to her exchequer. She has now interdicted, by orders secretly issued, that commerce also. The language of Cochrane's proclamation cannot be misunderstood. What a harvest he would have reaped from the robbery of your merchantmen, had the embargo been raised, as was expected by the British Cabinet, at the commencement of the session. The Orders in Council would have taken all your property going to continental Europe, and those of the Admiralty would have swept the West India traders. I believe the idea of enjoying a free trade to Spain and Portugal is altogether illusory. Mr. Canning has told us, not in totidem verbis, but certainly in effect, that we should be permitted to trade with those countries, only under the Orders in Council. In answer to the proposition made by Mr. Pinkney to suspend the embargo as to Great Britain, for a suspension of the Orders in Council as to the United States, the British Minister replied in the most peremptory manner possible. Here let me observe, that had that suspension been agreed to, the embargo would have co-operated with the Orders in Council against France. It would have been even much more efficacious than those orders, inasmuch as our own regulations would СКАЧАТЬ