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

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СКАЧАТЬ no contrariety of opinion; and several of these merchants declared that they had sent vessels to the Continent a very few days before the date of the Orders of Council. This clearly shows that any conclusion to be drawn from the gross amount of exports must be fallacious, and that probably three-fourths ought to be deducted from the gross amount. This statement of the gentleman from Delaware, which holds out to the public the prospect of a lucrative trade in four-fifths of their exports, will certainly have a tendency to render them uneasy under the privations which they are called upon to suffer by the iniquitous measures of foreign nations. Although the statement was extremely delusive, I do not say that the gentleman meant to delude by it. This, however, being the effect of the gentleman's assertion, I am certainly warranted in saying that the evidence of the British merchants who carry on this trade, is better authority than the gentleman's statements.

      But admit, for the sake of argument, and on no other ground would I admit it, that these gross statements are correct; and that, at the time the embargo was adopted, these Orders in Council notwithstanding, the trade of the United States could have been carried on to this extent. What security have we, if the embargo had not been laid, after submitting and compromitting the national dignity and independence, that the British aggressions and Orders in Council would have stopped at the point at which we find them? Have we not conclusive evidence to the contrary? Are we not officially notified that the French leeward islands are declared by proclamation in a state of blockade? And do we not know that this is but carrying into effect a report of the committee of the British House of Commons on the West India Islands, in which this measure is recommended, and in which it is stated that His Britannic Majesty's West India subjects ought to receive further aid by placing these islands in a state of blockade? I can see in this measure nothing but a continuation of the system recommended last winter in this report, and published – for the information of the United States, I suppose.

      If the embargo should be repealed, and our vessels suffered to go out in the face of the present orders in Council and blockading decrees and proclamations, Mr. C. said, they would but expose us to new insults and aggressions. It was in vain to talk about the magnanimity of nations. It was not that magnanimity which induced nations as well as men to act honestly; and that was the best kind of magnanimity. The very magnanimity which had induced them to distress our commerce, would equally induce them to cut off the pitiful portion they had left to us. In a general point of view, there was now no lawful commerce. No vessel could sail from the United States without being liable to condemnation in Britain or France. If they sailed to France, Mr. C. said, they were carried into Britain; if they sailed to Britain, they were carried into France. Now, he asked, whether men who had any regard to national honor would consent to navigate the ocean on terms so disgraceful? We must be cool calculators, indeed, if we could submit to disgrace like this!

      The last reason offered by the supporters of the present resolution, Mr. C. said, may properly be said to be an argument in terrorem. The gentleman from Massachusetts says, by way of abstract proposition, that a perseverance in a measure opposed to the feelings and interests of the people may lead to opposition and insurrection; but the gentleman from Connecticut uses the same expressions as applicable to the embargo. It may be a forcible argument with some gentlemen, and most likely may have had its effect on those who intended it to produce an effect on others. But I trust that this House and this nation are not to be addressed in this way. Our understandings may be convinced by reason, but an address to our fears ought to be treated with contempt. If I were capable of being actuated by motives of fear, I should be unworthy of the seat which I hold on this floor. If the nation be satisfied that any course is proper, it would be base and degrading to be driven from it by the discordant murmurs of a minority. We are cautioned to beware how we execute a measure with which the feelings of the people are at war. I should be the last to persist in a measure which injuriously affected the interest of the United States; but no man feels more imperiously the duty of persevering in a course which is right, notwithstanding the contrary opinion of a few; and though I may regret and respect the feelings of these few, I will persist in the course which I believe to be right, at the expense even of the Government itself.

      Mr. Mitchill said he was not prepared to vote on the question of repealing the embargo laws, in the precise form in which it had been brought before the Senate. There was as yet a want of information; for certain additional documents, expected from the Executive, had not yet been communicated, and the select committee to which the part of the Message concerning the foreign relations of the country was lately referred, had not brought forward a report. He would have been better pleased if the proposition had been so framed as to have expressed indignation at the injuries our Government had received from foreign nations. Then he would cheerfully have given it his concurrence. But now, when those who are willing to do something, though not exactly what the motion proposes, are made to vote directly against a removal of the existing restrictions upon our commerce, their situation is rather unpleasant; indeed, it is unfair, inasmuch as they must either give their assent to a measure, to the time and manner of which they may be averse, or they must vote negatively in a case which, but for some incidental or formal matter, would have met their hearty approbation. He could, therefore, have wished that the question had been presented to the House in such terms as to afford an opportunity of expressing their sense of the wrongs our nation had endured from foreign Sovereigns, and of the restrictions laid upon American commerce by their unjust regulations, as well as on the further restrictions that, under the pressure of events, it had been thought necessary for our own Legislature to impose.

      I now come to the year 1806, an eventful year to the foreign commerce of our people. An extravagant and armed trade had for a considerable time been carried on by some of our citizens with the emancipated or revolted blacks of Hayti. The French Minister, conformably to the instructions of his Government, remonstrated against this traffic as ungracious and improper; and under an impression that our citizens ought to be restrained from intercourse with the negroes of Hispaniola, Congress passed an act forbidding that altogether. This was the second time that our Government circumscribed the commercial conduct of its citizens. It was also during this year that memorials were forwarded to the Executive and legislative branches of our Government by the merchants of our principal seaports, stating the vexations of their foreign commerce to be intolerable, and calling in the most earnest terms for relief or redress. These addresses were mostly composed with great ability; it seemed as if the merchants were in danger of total ruin. Their situation was depicted as being deplorable in the extreme. The interposition of their Government was asked in the most strenuous and pressing terms; and your table, Mr. President, was literally loaded with petitions. The chief cause of this distress was briefly this: These citizens of the United States were engaged during the war in Europe, in a commerce with enemies' colonies not open in time of peace; by this means, the produce of the French West Indies was conveyed under the neutral flag to the mother country. Great Britain opposed the direct commerce from the colony to France through the neutral bottom. The neutral then evaded the attempt against him by landing the colonial produce in his own country, and after having thus neutralized or naturalized it, exported it under drawback for Bordeaux or Marseilles; this proceeding was also opposed by the British, and much property was captured and condemned in executing their orders against it. Their writers justified their conduct by charging fraud upon the neutral flag, and declaring that under cover of them a "war in disguise" was carried on, while on our side the rights of neutrals were defended with great learning and ability in a most profound investigation of the subject.

      This same year was ushered in by a proclamation of General Ferrand, the French commandant at St. Domingo, imposing vexations on the trade of our citizens; and a partial non-importation law was enacted against Great Britain by Congress about the middle of April. But these were not all the impediments which arose. Notices were given to the American Minister in London of several blockades. The chief of these was that of the coast, from the Elbe to Brest inclusive, in May. And here, as it occurs to me, may I mention the spurious blockade of Curaçoa, under which numerous captures were made. And lastly, to complete the catalogue of disasters for 1806, and to close the woful climax, the French decree of Berlin came forth in November, and, as if sporting with the interests and feelings of Americans, proclaimed Great Britain and her progeny of isles to be in a state of blockade.

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