Spain and Portugal. The gentleman from Delaware has undertaken to decide the question according to common sense. Common sense is my guide, sir; and permit me to say that, nine times out of ten, it is the best guide to follow; and though I have heard the opinion of the gentleman from Delaware, I have not changed my opinion on the subject. I believe that the British will now exclude our commerce from those ports, because the act of Parliament making permanent those orders, authorizes the King to modify them, as to His Majesty may appear proper. I asked yesterday whether a proclamation to this effect had been issued by the King of Great Britain? The gentleman says, common sense will give the orders the construction for which he contends. I take the answer of Mr. Canning to the committee of merchants, and bottom my assertion on it. Will the gentleman deny that, before the Orders in Council were issued, we could, under certain restrictions, trade to those countries? Yet, Mr. Canning answers, when asked by these three respectable merchants, who must have had doubts on the subject, or they would not have applied for information, "with American produce they may go." If they were, as the gentleman contends, as free to go now as prior to the Orders in Council, why did not Mr. Canning answer that they might go without restriction, instead of limiting the commerce to the carriage of American produce? When Mr. S. SMITH had concluded, the Senate adjourned.

NOVEMBER, 1808.

represent. It was always the duty of a Representative to examine whether the effects expected from any given measure, had or had not been produced. If this were a general duty, how much more imperiously was it their duty at this time! Every one admitted that considerable sufferings have been undergone, and much more was now to be borne.

Gentlemen have considered this subject, generally, in a two-fold view, (said Mr. C..) as to its effects on ourselves, and as to its effects on foreign nations. I think this a proper and correct division of the subject because we are certainly more interested in the effects of this measure on ourseives than on other nations. I shall therefore thus pursue the subject.

It is in vain to deny that this is not a prosperous time in the United States; that our situation is neither promising nor flattering. It is imposible to say that we have suffered no privations in the year 1808, or that there is a general spirit of content throughout the United States; but I am very far from believing that there is a general spirit of discontent. Whenever the measures of the Government immediately affect the interest of any considerable portion of its citizens, discontents will arise, however great the benefits which are expected from such measures. One discontented man excites more attention than a thousand contented men, and hence the number of discontented is always overrated. In the country which I represent, I believe no measure is more applauded or more cheerfully submitted to than the embargo. It has been viewed there as the only alternative to avoid war. It is a measure which is enforced in that country at every sacriThe Senate resumed the consideration of the fice. At the same time that I make this declaramotion of Mr. HILLHOUSE, made on the 11th in- tion. I am justified in asserting that there is no stant, for repealing the "Act laying an embargo section of the Union whose interests are more imon all ships and vessels in the ports and harbors mediately affected by the measure than the Southof the United States, and the several acts supple-ern States-than the State of Georgia. mentay thereto."

WEDNESDAY, November 23.

THE EMBARGO.

We have been told by an honorable gentleman, Mr. CRAWFORD said that one of the objects of who has declaimed with great force and eloquence the gentleman from Connecticut was, no doubt, against this measure, that great part of the proto obtain information of the effects of the embar-duce of the Eastern country has found its way go system from every part of the United States. into market; that new ways have been cut open, This information was very desirable at the pres- and produce has found its way out. Not so with ent time, to assist the Councils of the nation in us; we raise no provisions, except a small quanan opinion of the course proper to be pursued tity of rice, for exportation. The production of in relation to it. A Government founded, like our lands lies on our hands. We have suffered, and ours, on the principle of the will of the nation, now suffer; yet we have not complained. which subsisted but by it, should be attentive as The fears of the Southern States particularly far as possible to the feelings and wishes of the have been addressed by the gentleman from Conpeople over whom they presided. He did not necticut, by a declaration that Great Britain, say that the Representatives of a free people whose fleets cover the ocean, will certainly find ought to yield implicit obedience to any portion a source from which to procure supplies of those of the people who may believe them to act erro- raw materials which she has heretofore been in neously; but their will, when fairly expressed, the habit of receiving from us; and that having ought to have great weight on a Government thus found another market, when we have found like ours. The Senate had received several de- the evil of our ways, she will turn a deaf ear to scriptions of the effects produced by the embargo us. By way of exemplification, the gentlemen in the eastern section of the Union. As the Rep-cited a familiar example of a man buying butter resentative of another extreme of this nation, Mr. C. said he conceived it his duty to give a fair, faithful, and candid representation of the sentiments of the people whom he had the honor to

from his neighbors. It did not appear to me that this butter story received a very happy elucidation. In the country in which he lives there are so many buyers and so may sellers of butter,

SENATE.

The Embargo.

NOVEMBER, 1808.

the gentleman from Massachusetts cannot therefore be correct.

would commence the attack could she believe this of money necessary to pay, clothe, and feed these country under the influence of France. I would people. Sir, we affect them vitally by affecting just as much believe in the sincerity of that exposé, their manufactures; for by the export duty on as Mr. Canning's sincerity, when he says that his these, and imports on their returns, they obtain Majesty would gladly make any sacrifice to restore great part of their revenue. If they export nothto the commerce of the United States its wonteding they can import nothing. This conclusion of activity. No man in the nation is silly enough to be gulled by these declarations; but, from the use made of them, we should be led to think otherwise, were it not for the exercise of our whole stock of charity. Now I cannot believe that any man in this nation does believe in the sincerity of Mr. Canning's expressions, or that Bonaparte believes that the embargo was laid to promote his interest. I cannot believe that there is any man in this nation who does candidly and seriously entertain such an opinion.

The gentleman from Massachusetts says, it is true that a considerable alarm was excited in England when the news of the embargo arrived there; that they had been led to believe, from their writers and speakers, that a discontinuance of their intercourse with this country would be productive of most injurious consequences; but that they were now convinced that all their writers and statesmen were mistaken, and that she can suffer When we advance to the second proposition, a discontinuance of intercourse without being we are told in the most positive terms, by the gentle convulsed or suffering at all. To believe this men from Delaware and Connecticut, that this requires a considerable portion of credulity, esmeasure has produced no effect on foreign na-pecially when the most intelligent men affirm to tions. The gentleman from Massachusetts barely the contrary. In the last of March or the first of admits that at first it had excited some small de- April last, we find, on an examination of merchants gree of alarm in Great Britain for a short time. at the bar of the British House of Commons, that I cannot believe that gentlemen wish to be under- the most positive injury must result from a constood literally when they tell us this. It can tinuance of non-intercourse. It is not possible that be nothing more than a figure of rhetoric. It can- our merchants on this side of the water, however not really be meant that the embargo has produced intelligent they may be, can be as well acquainted no effect. The gentleman from Massachusetts with the interests of Great Britain as her most gets over it by saying that insurrections among intelligent merchants. This alarm however, the her manufacturers were familiar to him; he had gentleman has told us, continued through the always heard of them. But, sir, I do not recol- Spring and dissipated in the Summer. It is very lect to have heard of any insurrection, of the kind easy to discover the cause of the dissipation of to which I allude, having taken place. They this alarm. It was not because the loss of interhave at times heretofore been disorderly indeed, but course was not calulated to produce an effect, but in the late case it was a peaceable assemblage of it proceeded from an adventitious cause, which laborers, not intending to overthrow the Govern- could not have been anticipated-the revolution ment or to resist the laws, but to show the abso- in Spain; and there is no intelligent man who lute state of starvation with which they were will not acknowledge its injurious effects on our threatened. There has been nothing of this kind concerns. No sooner did the British Ministers within my recollection before. We have heard see a probability that the struggle between the of mobs and riotous tumults; but in the present Spanish patriots and France would be maintained, case no movement was made by these unfortunate than they conceived hopes that they might find people to disturb the Government. With a de- other supplies; and then they thought they might gree of facility which excited my astonishment, give to the people an impulse by interesting the the gentlemen tells us that if 100 principal man- nation in the affairs of Spain, which would render ufacturers should be reduced to bankruptcy, and lighter the effects of our embargo. This is the 50,000 mechanics should be turned out of em- cause of the change in Mr. Canning's language; ploy, this would but strengthen the army and navy for every gentleman in the House knows that a of the British nation; that, when you affect Great very material change took place in it in the latter Britain most seriously, you do her a benefit. Pur- part of the Summer. If then the embargo has suing this argument a little farther, suppose 500,- not produced the effects calculated from it, we 000 should be unemployed, the arm of the nation have every reason to believe that its failure to prowould be so much the more strengthened, and the duce these effects has been connected with causes more it would enable her to enforce her arbitrary wholly adventitious, and which may give way if maritime regulations. I see no conclusion to the nation adheres to the measure. If however which this argument would lead us, but to this; there be any probability that these causes will be that as you destroy her manufactures you make continued for a long time, we ought to abandon her powerful. If the effect of destroying her man- it. I am not in favor of continuing any measure ufactures was to be simply that which the gentle of this kind, except there be a probability of its man conceives, of arming her vessels and filling producing some effect on those who make it nethe ranks of her armies, it possibly might promote cessary for us to exercise this act of self-denial. her strength. But these people must be clothed When I first saw the account of the revolution in and fed, whether in the sea or land service, and Spain, my fears were excited lest it should promust also have a little pay. If all her manufac- duce the effect which it has done. As soon as I tures are destroyed, where is she to obtain the sum saw the stand made by the Spanish patriots, I was

apprehensive that it might buoy up the British nation under the sufferings arising from the effects of their iniquitous orders, which, compared with the sufferings which we ourselves have borne, have been as an hundred to one. If there be evidence that the effects of this measure will yet be counteracted by recent events in Spain, I will abandon it, but its substitute should be war, and no ordinary war-I say this notwithstanding the petitions in the other branch of the Legislature, and the resolutions of a State Legislature which have lately been published. When I read the resolutions, called emphatically the Essex resolutions, I blush for the disgrace they reflect on my country. We are told there that this nation has no just cause of complaint against Great Britain; and that all our complaints are a mere pretext for war. I blush that any man belonging to the great American family should be so debased, so degraded, so lost to every generous and national feeling, as to make a declaration of this kind. It is debasing to the national character.

SENATE.

but by war, except we keep without their reach? If the embargo produces a repeal of these edicts, we effect it without going to war. Whenever we repeal the embargo we are at war, or we abandon our neutral rights. It is impossible to take the middle ground, and say that we do not abandon them by trading with Great Britain alone. You must submit, or oppose force to force. Can arming our merchant vessels, by resisting the whole navy of Great Britain, oppose force to force? It is impossible. The idea is absurd.

By way of ridiculing the embargo, the gentleman from Connecticut, in his familiar way, has attempted to expose this measure. He elucidated it by one of those familiar examples by which he generally exempliñes his precepts. He says your neighbor tells you that you shall not trade with another neighbor, and you say you will not trade at all. Now this, he says, is very magnanimous, but it is a kind of magnanimity with which he is not acquainted. Now let us see the magnanimity of that gentleman, and see if it savors more of true magnanimity than our course. Great Britain and France each say that we shall not trade with the other. We say we will not trade with either of them, because we believe our trade will be important to both of them. The gentleman says it is a poor way of defending the national rights. Suppose we pursue his course. Great Britain says we shall not trade to France; we say we will not, but will obey her. We will trade upon such terms as she may impose. "This will be magnanimity indeed; this will be defending commerce with a witness!" It will be bowing the neck to the yoke. The opposition to taxation against our consent, at the commencement of the Revolution, was not more meritorious than the opposition to tribute and imposition at the preseni day. I cannot, for my soul, see the difference between paying tribute and a tacit acquiescence in the British Orders in Council. True, every gentleman revolts at paying tribute. But where is the difference between that and suffering yourself to be controlled by the arbitrary act of another nation? If you raise the embargo you must carry your produce to Great Britain and pay an arbitrary sum before you can carry it elsewhere. If it remains there, the markets will be glutted and it will produce nothing. For it appears, from the very evidence to which I have before alluded. that at least four-fifths of our whole exports of tobacco must go to England and pay a tax before we could look for a market elsewhere, and that out of seventy-five thousand hogsheads raised in this country, not more than fifteen thousand are consumed in Great Britain. Where does the re

We are told by the gentleman from Connecticut, not, to be sure, in language equally strong with that of the Essex resolutions, that the repeal of the embargo will not involve us in war, unless indeed Bonaparte makes war on us; that we are not driven to that alternative; that we have yet an honorable and lucrative trade left open to us. The same gentleman has said that he will not consent to go to war for rights not well established, but that he will never abandon a neutral right which is clearly established. From this it would appear that the gentleman thinks that the British Orders in Council are no infringement on the rights of neutral nations. [Mr. HILLHOUSE said he did not say so.] I did not say that the gentleman said so; but I drew the inference from the gentleman's position. [Mr. HILLHOUSE observed that he had said that he was doubtful whether the nation should go to war for doubtful rights; but for rights clearly indisputable he would permit the arming of our merchant vessels.] The gentleman's explanations, Mr. CRAWFORD said, did not change the inference he had before stated. He admits that he said that a repeal of the embargo would not involve the nation in war; and that in support of rights not clearly established, he is not prepared to say whether he would go to war or not. I here understood the gentleman to allude to that portion of trade carried on by exporting the produce of enemies' colonies to foreign countries. I had thought that the right of an independent nation to trade with the whole world, except in ports absolutely blockaded, or in articles contraband of war, was a right which could not be denied, a right in which no nation had hereto-mainder usually go? Why, to the ports of the fore attempted to control another. The gentleman from Connecticut says he will not go to war for doubtful rights; and, that he will not go to war against the Orders in Council. I can draw no other inference from these observations, than that the gentleman conceives that the Orders in Council do not infringe our neutral rights; or, that all our rights are doubtful.

How are these orders and decrees to be opposed

Continent. I ask, then, if the whole consumption of Great Britain be but fifteen thousand hogsheads, if an annual addition of sixty thousand hogsheads be thrown into that market, would it sell for the costs of freight? Certainly not The same would be the situation of our other produce.

But the gentleman says that he is not prepared to go to war for doubtful rights! What are these doubtful rights? Has the law of nations ever in

"While your memorialists have witnessed, with mingled feelings of indignation towards the perpetrators and of commiseration of their unfortunate countrymen, the insults and barbarities which the commerce of these States have sustained from the cruisers of France and Spain, it is their object, in the present memorial, to confine their animadversions to the more alarming, because more numerous and extensive detentions and condemnations of American vessels by Great Britain; and to advert to the principles recently avowed, and adopted by her courts, relative to neutral trade in articles of colonial produce. Principles which, if admitted or practised upon in all the latitude which may fairly be inferred to be intended, would be destructive of the navigation, and radically impair the most lucrative commerce of our country."

NOVEMBER, 1808.

terdicted the trade with enemies' colonies, against of our domestic exports is shipped ostensibly for the interruption of which the American merchants Great Britain; but it is equally true that a very lately remonstrated with so much force and per-large proportion of these very exports find their spicuity? For the information of the Senate I way into the continental ports. For the British will read a part of the memorial presented by the merchants in their examination before the House merchants of Boston. For my own part, I have of Commons, already alluded to, say that threenever considered it a matter of much importance fourths of their receipts for exportation to the whether we have suffered more from France or United States have been usually drawn from the Great Britain. I have long been convinced that Continent; and that even if the embargo was reboth nations intended to do us all the evil they moved and the Orders in Council were continued, could; and where there is a difference in the they must stop their exportation, because the con quantum, it only results from an inability in the tinental ports would be closed against American least mischievous to do more. But it is attempted vessels; because their coasts swarm with Engto be shown by the gentleman from Massachusetts lish cruisers, the French must know that the Amerthat there is a great difference between the inju-ican vessels attempting to enter have come from ries received from one Power, and those which an English port. That they had facilities of conwe have received from another: veyance to the Continent prior to the Orders in Council, the merchants acknowledged; and when requested to explain the mode of conveyance, they begged to be excused. No doubt every gentleman has seen these depositions, or might have seen them, for they have been published in almost every paper on the Continent. They have opened to me and to my constituents a scene perfectly new. They tell you that the Berlin decree was nothing. Notwithstanding that decree, they had a facility of conveying produce into the continental ports; but the Orders of Council completely shut the ports of the Continent against the entrance of American vessels. On this point there was 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 exports must be fallacious, and that probably conclusion to be drawn from the gross amount of 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.

After going into a train of reasoning to show that the pretensions of Great Britain are a manifest violation of the neutral rights of this nation, they conclude by saying:

"But whatever may have been the motives for the proceedings on the part of Great Britain, the effect is notorious. From her recent conduct great losses have been sustained, our commerce has been checked and embarrassed, and large quantities of produce are now remaining locked up in this country which were purchased for foreign markets, because our merchants cannot send it abroad, without taking risks on themselves which prudence would not justify, or without paying such rates for insurance as the trade of the country

cannot afford."

This memorial is in support of the very trade which the gentleman from Connecticut says he would not go to war for. Now a different language is held by the signers of this petition, under the increased injuries we have sustained; and I am only sorry for the character of the United States that this difference of language has taken place.

The gentleman from Delaware, (Mr. WHITE) has said, that, by repealing the embargo, we can now carry on a safe and secure trade to the extent of nearly four-fifths of the amount of our domestic productions. There is nothing more delusive, and better calculated to impose on those who do not investigate subjects, than these calculations in gross. If the gentleman will take the trouble to make the necessary inquiries, he will find that instead of Great Britain taking to the amount he supposes of our domestic productions, she takes nothing like it. It is true that a large proportion

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