Commons Sitting of 6 March 1809

AMERICA, AND THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL.
Mr. Whitbreadrose, and spoke in
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substance as follows:—America, Sir, is a name, which, if it were destined by Providence that the British government should ever learn wisdom from experience, ought to carry admonition along with it. Such a name opens to the recollection such a volume of events, revives such humiliating remembrances of obstinacy, rashness, and infatuation, that one would have thought a considerable time must have elapsed before it would have been necessary to have warned the ministers of this country, against the fatal consequences of pursuing the same measures, and acting with the same rashness, obstinacy, and infatuation, which in a never-to-be-forgotten instance visited our government with disgrace, and our empire with dismemberment. One would have thought that the history of the American War would have inculcated such a salutary moral, as all living statesmen would have known how to have applied and improved, and that now, when that memorable struggle has gone by, they would at least be cautious how far they assumed to themselves the responsibility of scouting the lessons of experience, of refusing to profit by the errors of those who went before them, of persisting in following their example, and volunteering in courting their disgrace. Surely, if the history of that War could have taught us any thing (and never was there history more pregnant with instruction) it must at least have taught us this, that in all our future intercourse with that country, we should not pursue the very same steps, nor resort to the very same efforts, which, in our attempt at that time to oppress, led to nothing but national disaster and ignominy.—In that contest America used her strength, and nobly used it, to resist injustice and oppression: She rose with gigantic force; she broke the fetters prepared for her by this country; and in the end obliged us to recognize her independance. After a result worthy of the cause in which she had embarked, when this country and America became distinct and amicable governments, she used her strength in our behalf. England flourished greatly as unexpectedly, on the separation of her colonies, to such a degree as proved the commercial means of America, and the extent of those means in promoting the commercial prosperity of G. Britain. In short, the relations of the two countries were such, their resources of that sort, and their mutual intercourse of that character, that to any unprejudiced man,

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who looked without political bias or jealousy at America, it must appear, that cordially united with her, we might together cope with the living world, were it against us; and, with the exception of America, might I not say that the living world is against us! And yet the statesmen of the present day, unwarned by past events and uninstructed by recent experience, are rushing blindly into that fatal system which has already separated America from the British empire. She has now spoken first, and offered you her co-operation. You have, or rather your government has, refused her offer; foolishly refused it, because they refused it at all, and rashly refused it, because they added insult to refusal; and this we are to be told, perhaps to night, is to be pertinaciously persisted in, on the groundless pretence of some false point of honour. This would be to refer back to that fatal arrogance that in the beginning of our contest with America made our government so obstinate, and kept it so till the colonies were independent. We weakly thought that America was too humble for England to be unjust. America was indeed humble, weak in power, but strong in justice. Weak as she was, she stood against the strength of her oppressor, and Heaven aided her efforts to assert her independence. "Non sine Diis, animosus infans." America then found what it was to fight in a good cause, and we found that all our means were incompetent to the maintenance of a bad one. I would bring, then, the two countries before the house, and appeal to their justice and their candour to decide between them. I mean no narrow reference to any one measure; but I wish to afford the house an opportunity of considering the question on the largest scale, and with a view to prospective measures; and in such a point of view, at a period like the present, every man must admit the importance of the question to be transcendant. I know the influence which all questions respecting our external relations have upon our internal interests; I admit the importance of the subjects, which have been brought under the consideration of the house by my noble and right hon. friends (lord H. Petty and Mr. Ponsonby), but still I must contend, that the question to which I propose this night to call the attention of parliament is of higher concern and paramount importance to the interests of this country. We see what is to be expected from his majesty's
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ministers, and it becomes, therefore, the more incumbent upon this house to do, what it has hitherto abstained from doing, to arrest by its timely interference the ruinous career of their policy, because the right: hon. gent. over against me (Mr. Secretary Canning) aided by his colleagues, has closed the door against conciliation with America, so far at least as they are concerned, and there remains now no hope of an amicable adjustment of the unhappy differences between the two countries, without the authority of parliament. In arguing a question like the present, that goes to involve the consideration of the principles of the law of nations, I am sensible that I shall have great authorities in this house against me. One hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Stephen) I see in his place; another I perceive just entering the house; and, when I consider the talents, the learning, and attainments of those hon. and learned gentlemen; I cannot but feel the unequal terms upon which I come to argue the question; because, whilst the opposite host appears in full strength, unhappily our force on this side of the house has been diminished. I have to lament on this occasion the want of the sanction and authority of that great and distinguished civilian, the late Dr. Laurence; because, though his speeches may not have been enlivened with those merry conceits, that coarse humour, those fanciful witticisms and broad jests, which too often excite the mirth and keep alive the attention of popular assemblies, they were always remarkable for sound reasoning and just principles, containing the result of deep research and profound learning, and developed the enlarged views of his capacious and comprehensive mind, upon any subject to which he applied his great powers, in an instructive chain of accurate deduction and conclusive arguments. Now that Dr. Laurence is no more, I trust I shall be excused for paying this humble tribute to the memory of his exalted talents and unbounded knowledge, and I am certain, that, whatever might have been their past differences, the right hon. gentlemen opposite will concur with me as to his merits, and admit, that, however distinguished the individuals who remain, either in his particular department, or in the more extended branches of the legal profession, this house and the country have, in Dr. Laurence, lost a vast fund of knowledge, an exemplary instance of public and private virtue, and a larger propor-

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tion of pure principles, and political integrity, than perhaps have ever been united in any one individual. (Hear! hear!)—We, Sir, in common, regret his loss; but on this question how much shall I feel it? I wish, since he is irrecoverably gone, his mantle had been left among us; but knowing, as I do, what he was, and feeling, as I do, what I am, I will yet go forth armed with but my scrip and sling; and knowing that my cause is righteous, I will not fear for my weakness, though a host of Goliaths be brought against me. Before, however, I enter the lists, I would wish to premise some preliminary stipulations according to the practice of the chivalrous times. I would beg leave, then, in the first instance, to prescribe, that the right hon. gentlemen would, upon the present question, be more sparing of their reflections upon me as the uniform advocate for our enemies, and against England. These gentlemen have been too liberal in dealing out such reflections against me: in any question where England is right, I will support her; where she is wrong, I will oppose her injustice: and in advocating the just cause of America, or of any other power, against the injustice of England, I say I am advocating the cause of my country. I am not the advocate of America. I am not the advocate of France, but the advocate of my country, because I am the advocate of justice. I have pledges as dear, and affections as strong, as any gentleman who hears me, to bind me to my country, and, though I plead the cause of America, when, in my conscience, I believe she has justice on her side, I can confidently say, that I shall never be found the last to vindicate the real honour of my country.—There is another topic, in which the mind of the right hon. gent. opposite possesses no very ordinary fertility, I mean recrimination. I do trust that, upon this night, he will endeavour to refrain from its introduction; if from no better reason, at least as a matter of taste; for, surely, this house ought to be fatigued in hearing from the other side no better argument for the different acts of their government, than that their predecessors had been equally criminal. At all events, the objection, even futile as it is, cannot apply to me. With every respect for the principles, and every confidence in the enlightened views of the hon. friends who surround me, and with whom it is my pride generally to act, I still wish this house to recollect that even
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with them I differed on the issuing of the Decree of the 7th of Jan. 1807; when, with the knowledge that I possessed, of their determination relative to the extent of that order, I still felt it my duty to differ, how much more aggravated must my objections have been to the Order issued by the present servants of the crown, on the 11th of Nov. of the same year. Indeed, Sir, to the system which at that period those gentlemen opposite thought proper to adopt, we cannot apply the mere enaction of a trifling theoretical proposition. It has been felt in all its evils, and the experience of every day has proved its hostility to the vital interests of this empire. The right hon. gentlemen fancied, nay, they predicted, that in their Orders of Council they erected a monument to their own foresight and political sagacity. A monument they certainly did rear, but it was a monument of their arrogance, of their imbecility, and their lamentable perverseness. My object is not to propose any theoretic or speculative propositions, but to endeavour, by calling the attention of this house to the state of our relations with America, to remove the obstacles to reconciliation with her, which the conduct of his majesty's ministers has created; because, in place of considering the confederacy against this country, "as broken and frittered into fragments utterly harmless and contemptible," I look upon it as extended and continued beyond the example of any former time. The snake has been "scotched not killed." She appears now more erect, dilated, extended, and continued than ever, with accumulated fury in her crest, and tenfold venom in her sting. When such effects have followed from the course that has been adopted, surely I, as the friend to conciliation with America, may fairly call upon this house not to persevere in a system which, if persevered in, must add that country to the catalogue of the enemies of G. Britain.—And here allow me, Sir, to recall to the attention of this house the particular predictions of the right hon. gentlemen opposite. True it is, that the right hon. the Secretary of Slate (Mr. Canning) did not on this subject join frequently in the discussions of this house. Still the learned gent., who was considered an oracle on such subjects (sir Win. Scott) did predict that the Orders in Council would in their operation prove fully correspondent with their professed object. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told you to have no appre-

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hensions of any hostile feeling in America on such account, because he was convinced, from the most conclusive considerations, that the issuing of such Orders could give no umbrage to the American people. That in them they could see no causes for discontent, neither would their government make them the grounds for either remonstrance or hostility. A learned gent., not now in his place (sir John Nichols), told us, that our Orders would lead to an efficacious and glorious issue of the system of neutral aggression, introduced by the government of France, and terminate in peace. But the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Rose) exceeded all the other panegyrists of this redoubted policy, by telling us, that in consequence of adopting it, G. Britain would become the emporium of the trade of the world, although at the same moment he protested and 'vowed to his God' (a laugh), that there was nothing he so much deprecated as hostility with America, and that nothing in his support of those Orders, was so distant from his thought as such a disastrous event; and yet he added, that the neutrality of America was of no use to this country. Indeed, both numerous and various were the benefits, the enjoyments of which we were too vainly promised. Our manufactures were to flourish by the monopoly of the raw materials; our revenue was to be increased in G. Britain by the duties of transit. Others assured us, that the effect of this system would be to deprive the European world of colonial produce, and consequently to force Buonaparté to rescind his Decrees, As a worthy pinnacle to such a pyramid, the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer brought forward his Bark Bill, and declared, that by depriving the continent of a supply of that medicine, we hit upon a most decisive means of assailing the army of France (hear! hear!).—Such were the predictions of the servants of the crown. Let us now compare them with the effects which have resulted. And first, I beg leave to remark, that it appears not a little wonderful that the right lion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer did, in this house in the month of July last, solemnly state his decided opinion, that the Orders in Council of and subsequent to the previous November, did not produce any irritation in America, although at the moment that he delivered such an opinion to parliament he must have known, as we now know, that Mr. Pinkney in a communication, dated the February before, addressed
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to the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs, did, on the part of the American government, strongly remonstrate against the injustice of these very Orders. I say, that at the moment he thus informed this house, he was conscious that he had excited a flame in America, which instead of taking any means to extinguish he had added fuel to aggravate. The Papers on the table are full of instances of the irritation excited by these Orders in America. But from one learn all. In a letter from Mr. Madison to Mr. Pinkney, dated March 22, 1808, that gentleman says, "that Mr. Pinkney had, in his remonstrance to the British government, anticipated the answer of the American government, and that the Orders in Council were a violation of neutral rights, and a stab at the independence of the United States." This then was the measure, which the Secretary of State represented as not likely to excite any irritation in America, and which the other right hon. gent. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, asserted, would not have made any impression in America, if it had not been for the speeches of members in that house. But will the right hon. gent. now make the same assertion; will he catch at such a broken reed? Does he not know that an irritation has been excited in America? And if he be still of the same opinion, will not the certainty of dates and distances confound him? In fact, if such observations are to prevent gentlemen from giving their opinions sincerely upon public measures in this house, lest it should be said that they supplied arguments or reasons to other nations, it would put an end to the freedom of debate.—Another prediction as to the benefits arising from those Orders, has also falsified itself. The prospect was held out of a consequent increase of exports and imports. But, without attempting to grovel into Custom House details, and well knowing that such accounts have been swelled out into an artificial magnitude, for the purposes of public delusion, I am still ready to prove, that, even upon the face of the returns thus made up, there appears a considerable diminution in your Imports and Exports: I will say to the amount of 11 millions. But suppose such a diminution did not amount to more than 7, 8, or 9 millions, still, it is sufficient to prove that the effect has completely contradicted every boasted promise with which the right hon. gentlemen opposite deluded the house and the country. Equally futile and inefficien

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was the hope of an unlimited supply of law materials for our manufacture. From America, previous to these Orders, Great Britain imported of cotton wool 32 millions of pounds. Since that part of the world was closed against our commerce, what has been our supply of that article? Why, sir, from Asia, and the Portuguese settlements in South America, we imported five millions. Thus the illustration which this system affords of the total command of the raw material, for our manufactures, is by furnishing us with a deficiency of 27 millions of pounds, in an article essential to their prosperity. But then it is affirmed, that all such effects are attributable to the Berlin Decree. Really, it is inconsistent with every principle of common reasoning, to find men laying such a stress upon a measure which never had, and scarce ever could have, operation.—The Berlin Decree, Sir, was, in this respect, but a mere Castle of Otranto spectre, an idle unsubstantial phantom conjured up to affright by its imaginary terrors, and scare au administration out of their senses. The fact is, that notwithstanding the Berlin Decree the commerce of this country continued more flourishing than ever, until your own Orders in Council accomplished what the enemy had not the means to effect.—I come now to the prediction, that in consequence of your Orders preventing the continent from being supplied with colonial produce, we should see all the various people under the dominion of Napoleon throughout his vast empire, in a state of insurrection: That he would be totally unable to force his numerous armies to march where he ordered them, for the want of coffee or tea for breakfast—(a laugh)! Have the people of Europe risen in rebellion? Have his armies refused to march? Has not Spain, though protected by those all-powerful Orders, which raised so many impediments to French aggrandizement, been invaded by the armies of Buonaparté? Has he suspended his operations in Spain? Has he rescinded his Decrees? and has he not been able fully to supply, by chemical processes, which surprise us, the wants of the numerous legions which were marched from such different parts of Europe? Yes, unfortunately we have witnessed such occurrences, notwithstanding the other expedient of that pious, humane, and philanthropic gentleman opposite, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose Bill against the exportation of Bark to any part of the
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continent, was, in his opinion, like the destructive Upas, to go forth to spread its poison, and annihilate the armies of France. Another prediction of the right hon. gentlemen, that the American people would not submit to the embargo, has proved equally false with all the rest. The embargo continues, and the spirit of the population of the United Slates is greatly exasperated against this country. Thus have these right hon. gentlemen placed themselves in a situation of shame, and, by the groundlessness of their most confident predictions, exhibited themselves to their country and to the world in the odious and despicable character of false prophets. Let us hope therefore that they will not persevere in their blindness, that this good consequence at least will result from their failure, that they will no longer set themselves up as oracles of wisdom or the arbiters of Europe, nor continue to pursue the same road in which they have so fatally floundered, and been so completely swamped, be-mired and be-grimed, but pay some little attention to the predictions from this side of the house. We predicted that the subjects of France would not rise in insurrection in consequence of being deprived of all supply of colonial produce;—and they have not risen. We predicted that America would be irritated by our Orders in Council,—and she is irritated. We predicted that our manufactures would decline and our exports and imports be diminished—and the result has verified the prediction, as is but too obvious from the papers on the table. We predicted that our manufacturers would be destitute of employment and reduced to extreme distress—and unhappily the prediction is true, as appears from the numbers of your starving manufacturers, reduced to that state which the hon. baronet (sir R. Peele) on the Irish Distillery Bill so justly and so feelingly described, when he entreated this house not to aggravate their distresses, by depriving them of the very scanty meal which was left. I do admit, that by such a system some will be found obtaining a profit even from the general calamity, in the same manner as we know that by the late conflagrations, though many are thrown out of bread and employment, others are receiving from the very occurrence, support and additional earnings. But that can be no compensation for the suffering endured. If you wish to ascertain, the extent of the injury inflicted on

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this country by these Orders, I call upon you to reflect upon the condition of the extensive town of Manchester, where the poors rates have risen within the last year from 24,000 l. to 49,000 l., in consequence of the number of manufacturers thrown out of bread; where of the numerous Cotton mills which were formerly employed, 32 are now idle, and six only at work. Cast your eyes to Ireland and behold the state of its linen manufacture for the want of flax-seed. Whence can it be supplied? Not from America or from the Baltic. There is not, I understand, seed for a twentieth part of the land usually sown with flax in Ireland this year, and the consequence will and must necessarily be, that in the course of next year a vast multitude of persons must be thrown out of employment in that country. These are some of the extensive operations of the Orders in Council which it behoves this house particularly to attend to, and if possible to prevent before it be too late. The right hon. gent. (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) holds out the prospect of great benefit from the trade with the Brazils. But as to the probability of any great advantages from our commercial intercourse with Portuguese America, I confess, that I am not so sanguine as to expect any in the course, not alone of my life, but of many persons in this house younger than myself. Yet suppose that such advantages should arrive much sooner than I am induced to believe, what, I ask, is to be done for the supply of the passing year, or of the year that succeeds? Unhappily the evils, of which my friends who sit round me forewarned the right hon. gentlemen opposite, have arrived, without convincing them of the absolute necessity of retracing their disastrous progress. Was it not natural to expect that when every prediction of ours was fulfilled, and every promise of theirs falsified, they, without apparently yielding to the opinions of their political antagonists, would have embraced some plan of extricating the country from the dangers in which it was involved by their conduct? No such thing. Unwarned by experience, unappalled by the horrors of their own creation, which surrounded them, and vainly elated by the transient gleam of temporary success, they disdained to take advantage of the moment of that success, or to profit by the concessions which the American government offered. Indeed, under any circumstances, the present servants of the
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crown could not divest themselves of that political rancour against America which seems to foster in their breasts. From the period of their appointment to office, this seems to have been the prevailing feeling which characterised their conduct towards that nation. America has had various causes of complaint against this country—as to the impressment of the seamen—the depredations committed upon her commerce—the violation of her territory by boats crews belonging to British ships going ashore there and insulting the peaceable inhabitants, and by the burning, within her waters, of vessels which may have escaped from the French islands. At last these causes of complaint were greatly aggravated by the insult offered to America in the illegal, unauthorised, unjust, and aggravated attack made by the Leopard upon the Chesapeake by the order of admiral Berkeley. Upon this occasion however, the right hon. Secretary (Mr. Canning) acted as he ought, when upon a representation of the transaction having been made to him by Mr. Pinckney, he assured that gentleman, that if it should turn out, that the act was such as he had represented it, it would be disavowed by his majesty's government. In the Notes that were afterwards exchanged with the American ambassador on this subject, I admit that a demand had been coupled by that gentleman with the demand of reparation, which had no connection with it, and could not consequently have been complied with by his majesty's government. The right hon. gent. then sent out a special minister, now in my eye, to offer reparation, and with this mission of Mr. Rose, ended the propriety of the right hon. gent.'s conduct relative to this affair. It was obvious, from the time at which Mr. Rose sailed; from the manner in which he executed his mission, and the circumstances of his leaving America, that any thing but conciliation was meant by his majesty's ministers. Though he sailed from this country on the 12th of Nov., the day after the Orders issued, no intimation was given by him to the American government of such Orders having been issued by his majesty's government; whilst the direct object of his mission was unaccountably coupled with the Proclamation of the American government, relative to the interdiction of British ships of war from her domestic waters. Great Britain, the aggressor in an aggravated attack upon a

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neutral power, refuses to enter into a discussion of those means of reparation which were due for such an attack, unless as a preliminary America consented to withdraw the very measure of defence to which that power had resorted in her own defence against that very aggression Gentlemen will find by the Papers, that Mr. Rose refused, on the request of Mr. Maddison to communicate the terms of the reparation, though assured by that gentleman, that if the reparation should appear to be satisfactory, the revocation of the President's Proclamation, and the act of reparation should proceed pari passu, and bear the same date. Could ministers seriously expect that any independent power would have submitted to such a degrading proposition as they made? Did the right hon. gent. fancy that he could call on the American government to crouch at his feet, in the same manner as we read of Louis the lull calling upon the Doge of Venice? In adjusting the intricate relation of empires, are we to regulate our conduct by a studied attention to etiquette? Are nations, in their adjustment of differences, to advance with measured foot-steps, as you, Sir, in moving at the head of this house in company with the lord chancellor when going to the throne, whilst each is attentive that the other should not precede him? Methinks if such be the views of present statesmen, it would be but proper to revive that system which prevailed under the See of Rome, when four different folding doors for different ambassadors to enter at the same time were provided, that one should not complain of the precedence of the others.—I dismiss this subject with one observation, that although for that aggravated and wanton attack upon the Chesapeake, admiral Berkeley was not only not brought to trial, but immediately dispatched on another and delicate command, still we find the secretary of foreign affairs, in that master-piece of diplomacy of the 23d of September, 1808, finding-fault that no overture was made to repeal an interdiction which was the very effect of this unauthorized and cruel attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake. The American government could not in the actual state of the transaction make any proposition upon the subject, it was from the British government alone that such a Proposition could with propriety come.—I now proceed to the Orders in Council of the 11th of Nov.; this disowned child, which seems
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to have no father. The gentlemen opposite will probably answer by referring to the Order of the 7th of January preceding. I tell them, that it is they who have raised the superstructure, where no edifice was necessary. But the house must recollect, that at the time I opposed that very Order of the 7th of Jan. as both improper and nugatory, though it had been preceded immediately by the Berlin Decree. In the last session we told you from this side of the house that to contend that America acquiesced in that Decree, was a false and untrue assumption; that it was false and untrue is now fully proved. It is now proved that on the issuing of that Decree by the Emperor of France, America did all that; she ought to do in defence of her independent rights, and in answer to a demand for explanation made by general Armstrong, M. Decrét stated that the Berlin Decree was not intended to infringe the treaty of 1800. She did every thing necessary for her object, without being so foolish and insane as this country has proved itself on this very subject. America took no notice of the idle menace, so long as she felt it ineffectual. She knew the same object had been frequently held out to inveigle her into hostility with either of the Belligerents. But the moment that Decree was put in force against her neutral rights, which was in the case of the Horizon, general Armstrong immediately demanded a full explanation of its intention from the government, and accompanied this demand with a remonstrance against the decision in the case of the Horizon. But such decision could be no motive for the Orders of the 11th of Nov. inasmuch as at the period of their being issued, no such event was known to his majesty's ministers. What course did the American government pursue, when acquainted with the decision respecting the Horizon? It immediately ordered its minister at Paris to renew his remonstrance, and at the same time put in force its embargo law against France. Then followed your Orders in Council. It will not now, I believe, be argued, that the American government was not in possession of your Orders in Council, before the embargo against Great Britain was passed into a law. That knowledge it had; and the immediate consequence was the adoption of the latter measure. But what was the most extraordinary feature in this transaction was, that Mr. Rose, sent out as on a mission of conciliation, after you had

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issued these Orders, was totally silent upon them in his various communications with the government for the purpose of adjusting our differences with America. What other feeling could such a circumstance provoke in the breast of any government, when it-learned what had taken place here, but that it was the object of this country, by a specific mission for conciliation, artfully concealing other measures which vitally affected the independence of America, to insult and to deceive them? Added to this, although an official notice was delivered on the 20th of January by the President to Congress, that such Orders were issued by the British government, yet it was not until the 23d of the following February that his majesty's minister to the United States (Mr. Erskine) officially communicated the existence of such Orders, to the neutral government most interested in their operation. There may, perhaps, exist in the minds of the great statesmen opposite, some good grounds for the delay; but in every plain view in which I have considered the subject, I can find no other motives than a desire to deceive, to insult, and to irritate America; and this was the course of policy which Ministers thought proper to adopt towards that country at a moment when America was irritated against France. An irritation of which the French government was aware; as we find, in the note of Mr. Champagny to general Armstrong, a strong complaint of the inclination and partiality of America to Great Britain. A partiality to either belligerent was peremptorily denied by the American government; and perhaps the very best proof it could afford of its impartiality was its being accused by both at the same time of being subject to an undue influence to its antagonist. This was not the first time that such charges were brought against America. Similar complaints were made during the presidency of the immortal Washington. That enlightened patriot however disregarded such accusations; he scouted every partial influence, and solely looked to the interest of his own country.—I now proceed to the offer of America, as made by Mr. Pinkney, to suspend the embargo law, and its supplements, as regards Great Britain, provided you repealed your Orders in Council, as far as they regarded the United States. She had continued her embargo with firmness and with moderation. She did however avail herself of a proper opportunity to make
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to Great Britain a concession—a concession, which the right hon. gent. (Mr. Canning) has plumply refused, although one of its most salutary consequences would have been to arm the merchant ships of America against France. What, in God's name, would you have? What do you want of America? Have you any defined object in your policy with that country, and what is it? The blockade of this country by the enemy is raised, as the right hon. gent. asserts; the system is "broken up into fragments harmless and contemptible;" the evil on which your Orders were to retaliate its own injustice has disappeared, as the foreign secretary has assured us; yet, in the same breath, he avows the determination of adhering to this unjust and disastrous system of retaliation. Whatever consequences may result from the perseverance, I am convinced that such a system will descend to posterity as a striking illustration of arrogance, imbecility, and political folly on the part of the advisers. When the right hon. gentlemen insist, that America shall make France rescind her Decrees, are they not aware that Buonaparté is as obstinate as themselves, or can they suppose that America could march an army or send a fleet to force Buonaparté to comply with their request? The matter is quite impossible. America can do nothing; yet ministers have been so absurd as to slate the compliance with an impossibility, as the only terms upon which they would remain at peace with her. Was it not obvious, that the decrees of France had proved wholly nugatory against our commerce, and had been intended by the enemy as a mere ruse de guerre, a lure to entrap this country into such a course, as would produce the very effects by your retaliating decrees, which he had vainly and ineffectually hoped to produce by his own? The artifice succeeded, and, I am afraid, from the consequences to our manufactures, that we shall have a whole nation calling for bread. If the offer of America had been accepted, the commerce of this country would be in a better situation than if the demands of our government had been complied with. We should then have the monopoly of the whole trade of America; whereas, if the Berlin Decree had been rescinded and our Orders in Council revoked in consequence, France would share with us that trade. If we had accepted the offers of America, there was no reason why we should not have the ports of

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America now open to us, why we should not have the wheat from her stores, and the cotton for our manufactures, no reason why we should not have that country for our ally in the present war. But, the right lion, gent., elevated by temporary prosperity, disdained this, conciliatory proposal of America, and expressed the refusal of his sovereign in a Note, which certainly savoured much of himself (a laugh); for whether he is employed in discussions in this house; whether engaged in pacific overtures with hostile, or in adjusting differences with neutral, nations; in every sentence and in every point, you are sure to see the author. The right hon. gent.'s eloquence is of a stormy description, full of bursts of genius and confiscations of talent, but it has all the other ingredients of a storm; vapour, cloud, and wind. But there is one expression in a note of the right hon. gent. that surprizes me, I mean where he complains of the tone of Mr. Pinkney's note; like a joker, who dislikes to be joked with in return, particularly when the joke is against him, he feels uneasy under the tone of a firm communication. With sir Anthony Absolute in the comedy, the right hon. gent. cries, "What "the devil are you in a passion for; why "are you not as cool as I am?" (Loud laughing.) And here, sir, I must remark upon the manner in which the right hon. gent. after having had several friendly conversations with Mr. Pinkney upon the subject of the late offer of the American, government, suddenly and without any apparent ground, insisted upon the indispensible necessity of having the proposition formally conveyed to him in an official note. It could not be the object of the right hon. gent. in this change of the mode of communication to be put more fully into possession of the terms of the American offer, for he had thorough information upon that head in his various conversations with Mr. Pinkney. Consequently, when asked by Mr. Pinkney what his reason was for this demand, the right hon. gent. replied, that it was in order to guard against misrepresentation. Would not one suppose, that this precaution was intended in an official communication with an American ambassador, to guard against misrepresentation on the part of the President, or of some member of the legislature of the United States? But it was no such thing. The right hon. gent. wanted to guard against the misrepresentations of the American
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news-papers. Why, Sir, we are all liable to be misrepresented in the news-papers. I dare say I shall be misrepresented to-morrow, and, if the right hon. gent. will do me the honour to reply to me, that he will not fare better in the news-papers. It had been asserted that the arguments of the right hon. gent. in his official papers, would convince the people of America, of the amicable disposition of the British government. The reverse, however, was the case, for the effect which had been produced by his letter on its arrival in America, was, to alienate all those, who had previously felt amicably towards this country, and to insure the election of a President, whose views are supposed not to be favourable to the interests of this country. Indeed, Sir, I must declare, however mortifying it may be to the right hon. gent. that, with every deference to his talents and acquirements, I must still, in estimating the abilities of statesmen by their political communications, express my preference for the solid and able reasoning contained in the official notes of Mr. Maddison, the American minister. I have only to refer to the right hon. secretary's letter of the 23rd of September, to prove by an extract that the strain of irony is not best suited to the ends of political deliberation. The words are,—"That in this attempt almost all the powers of the European continent have been compelled more or less to cooperate; and that the American Embargo, though most assuredly not intended to that end, (for America can have no real interest in the subversion of the British power, and her rulers are too enlightened to act from any impulse against the real interests of their country), but by some unfortunate concurrence of circumstances, without any hostile intention, the American Embargo did come in aid of the blockade of the European continent, precisely at the very moment, when, if that blockade could have succeeded at all, this interposition of the American government would have most effectually contributed to its success." In this extract there is a sarcasm conveyed not becoming a statesman even were it just. This tone is not to be tolerated even to individuals, much less to a great and independent nation. But I will beg the gentlemen opposite to state, what benefits they propose to obtain from continuing in this system of retaliation? It is an extraordinary way to retaliate upon an enemy by trampling upon a neutral. What hopes do they now hold out to our manufactures,

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to Ireland, to our colonies? Do they execute their Orders in Council? Are they playing fair with the country? Are they not following a trade they dare not own? Are they not at this moment carrying on by means of licenses a trade with Holland and France in those articles, at the exportation of which the French government connives, and is it not by such a species of smuggling that they are enabled to support appearances and keep themselves afloat?—There has been a report that some conciliatory measures are in progress between this country and America, and I have on that account been asked by several members whether I intended to bring forward this motion? If it be so, then, I would willingly make a bonfire of rejoicing of my papers, and say, "proceed—conciliate America—let her, at all events, be your friend—and for that important object make every concession that may become a great nation." But I have seen nothing that can warrant, such a conclusion. In spite of all the predictions to the contrary the Embargo has been continued. There have been some who have derived hopes from the commotions which have taken place in America; the question is, however, whether these commotions express the sense of the American people? But suppose there could be any just ground of hope of a repeal of the Embargo from these commotions, nothing is gained unless the Americans can force Napoleon to rescind his Decrees—unless they could perform an impossibility—unless they could heap mountain on mountain—place Pelion on Ossa—scale the heavens, and thus accomplish an enterprize which transcended the power of the giants. But then we shall be told of what has been done by the Embargo-breakers. What have they brought to this country? Some cotton wool. But have they brought flax seed? Have they brought turpentine, and many other articles of essential importance to the trade and manufactures of Great Britain? I can see little ground of consolation in this system of Embargo-breaking.—But if the Embargo were raised; if Mr. Jefferson's authority should be overturned; would the Americans ever bring their goods here to be taxed? This odious tax has been paid only in one instance, and the ship has been burnt by the hands of the populace. A report was brought to this country that the Federal party was likely to prevail. The very reverse of this turned out to be the fact: Mr. Maddison was elected President, and
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there exists no hope that the government of America will relax in its measures—If the Americans raise the embargo, they cannot come here to be taxed, and if this country shall enforce the tax, the consequence must be war. But if a war breaks out, what becomes of the scheme of the gentlemen opposite, to make the enemy contribute to our resources for carrying on the war? And I certainly entertain the most serious apprehensions that a war between this country and America will be the result. I am aware that there may be some who wish for such a war. The Americans are not popular in this country; and the American character is not regarded with favour or respect. Of this I can state a remarkable instance. The health of Mr. Jefferson was proposed at a meeting last summer, and was received with great disapprobation, although at that moment America was not a hostile nation; and though we professed to be anxious for more intimate relations with that country. That there are some interests which must flourish by a war with America I allow. That our own possessions in America may derive some temporary advantage from it is very probable. But what will be the state of the West Indies in the event of a war; what the state of many other valuable interests; and how are you sure that you could retain your American possessions? The probability is, that we could not retain them; and for this reason, that the whole world would then be united against us. And yet under such circumstances we are endeavouring to extend our possessions. A force has been brought together to reconnoitre Martinique; and whatever opinion may be entertained of the propriety of prosecuting the object, this system of reconnoitering must be very creditable. I recollect another instance of this reconnoitering, under the hon. general opposite (sir J. Pulteney) at Ferrol. The hon. general landed; he astonished the governor and the townsmen, who wondered what he had come for; but finding that the place was fortified, he embarked again. The mention of Ferrol brings to my recollection another most important feature of this case. The enemy are now in possession of Ferrol, where they have found several ships of war, and you have been refused admission into Cadiz; have you not? The navy of Spain may be brought against you; all the arsenals of the Continent are in the hands of the enemy, and

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the thousand arms of your navy may soon have work enough. Yet under these circumstances you are to go to war with America upon a point of honour; and that too not to be satisfied unless America compel Napoleon to rescind his Decrees—a thing entirely out of her power. Recollect to what the greatness of this country is owing; recollect the debts due from America to your merchants, who are anxiously waiting for the result of this night's proceeding; recollect the state of your manufactures; recollect that the greatness of your country is in a great measure factitious. That, this country would be great independent of commerce, I believe; but it would not by any means be so great; recollect that its greatness depends essentially upon that commerce, which your measures are about to destroy. Throw France back again into the situation in which it stood before its commerce commenced, throw America back again, and they can still do without you; but Great Britain has risen through her commerce, to a degree of consideration among the nations of the world which it could never otherwise have attained; your resources, your population, your navy, essentially depend upon your commerce. Destroy that, and you lose your right arm; an hon. baronet has this night presented a petition from certain merchants, complaining of the injustice of the American government in the exercise of a mere municipal act. They might have heard of ships having come into this country from Holland; of their having been detained here in contemplation of a war, and afterwards condemned as prize. Might not the Dutch merchants have, upon similar grounds, complained of the injustice of our government? But the hon. baronet has an opportunity of contributing to the relief of these petitioners, by voting for the proposition which I shall have the honour of submitting to the house. When we undervalue the American character, have we forgot general Washington, one of the greatest men that ever existed, but who was here so often traduced by one party as partial to Great Britain, and by another as partial to France? Have we forgot Dr. Franklin, who was so much traduced at this bar?—I do not mean to move at present for the revocation of these Orders in Council. I am willing that this should be done in the way least revolting to ministers. I do not desire them to do it openly, non coram populo, let them get rid
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of them behind the scenes. Let them proceed in their own way, only let the thing be done. I cannot better close these, observations than by reading an extract from the valedictory address of the great Washington upon his retiring from office: "Observe good faith with all nations; cultivate peace; attend to the dictates of morality and religion in your intercourse with other states; for it is impossible that things should be so constituted as to render these inconsistent with sound policy. The experiment is worth trying at least, and the high character for probity which you must thus acquire, will more than repay any temporary advantage which might result from a contrary line of conduct."—Then be at peace with America, and with America by your side you may defy the rest of the world.—The hon. gent. then moved, "That an humble Address be presented to his majesty, humbly to represent to his majesty, that in consequence of certain Decrees made by his majesty's enemies, contrary to the usages of war and to the rights of neutral nations, and also in consequence of the alledged acquiescence of neutral nations in the said Decrees, his majesty was advised to issue certain Orders in Council respecting the trade of neutrals to and from the ports and countries of his majesty's enemies; And that the said Orders were further enforced by certain acts passed in the last session of parliament.—But that both in the said Orders, and in the acts passed thereon, a power was reserved to his majesty of annulling the same, whenever such revocation should appear expedient.—That the Congress of the United States of America, alarmed at the dangers to which neutral commerce was exposed by the practical operation of the said Decrees, and by the system then known to be in the contemplation of his majesty's government, and actually carried into effect by the said Orders, passed laws for laying an immediate embargo on all American ships and exports; and that by the operation of such laws, all trade of export from the said states into this kingdom or its dependencies has been prohibited, and the commercial intercourse of his majesty's subjects with the said States has been in other respects essentially impeded.—That in the month of August last, the minister of the United States, resident at this court, made to his majesty's government an authorized and explicit offer of re-establishing the said intercourse; proposing, that if his

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majesty's Orders in Council should be repealed, as far as regarded the United States, the embargo imposed in the said States should he removed, as far as regarded his majesty's dominions; and adding, that if his majesty's enemies should not rescind their Decrees, the said embargo should be continued as with respect to them.—That this offer on the part of the United States appears to us just in principle, and in its tendency highly advantageous to the best interests of this country: just, inasmuch as it removed all pretence of the acquiescence of the United States in the French Decrees; which acquiescence was the only ground on which any right could accrue to his majesty to interrupt the innocent commerce of a neutral power: and advantageous to Great Britain, inasmuch as, though it should not have produced the repeal of the French Decrees (the avowed purpose of his majesty's Orders), it would have secured to this country the exclusive commerce of America, and her alliance against a power which would thus have been the common enemy of both.—That we believe and hope that it is still open to his majesty's government to renew, on the basis of this proposal, the commercial intercourse between this country and the United States; every interruption of which we consider as manifestly injurious to the interest of both countries, and calculated to assist the designs of our enemies, and to weaken our own resources.—That we therefore most humbly pray his majesty to adopt, without delay, such measures as may best tend to the immediate re-establishment of the commercial intercourse between his majesty's dominions and the United States of America; and to bring, by temperate and conciliatory negociation, all other points to a just and amicable conclusion, assuring his majesty of our firm and invariable support, in maintaining against every unjust aggression, and every novel claim, the antient and essential maritime rights of his majesty's crown."
Mr. Stephen*acknowledged the difficulty and disadvantage under which he laboured, in rising to answer the arguments of the hon. gent. who had just sat down; such was the eloquence with which they were enforced; still, however, he conld
*Since the above was prepared for the press, the Editor has been favoured with a full Report of Mr. Stephen's Speech; it will be given at the end of vol. xiii.
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not resist the zeal that prompted him to undertake it. There were many arguments and practical conclusions, in the course of that able, fair, and eloquent speech, from which he differed, yet there were also many points that had his entire assent. He most heartily concurred in the general principles contained in the extract which he had read from the farewell Address of general Washington. The hon. gent. had applied himself to those who were actuated by considerations of morality in national transactions. He hoped that this included the whole house; he hoped that all who were then present, believed national morality to be inseparable from good policy; and if he ever acted in violation of that principle, it ought to be attributed, not to intention, but to a defect of judgment. The hon. gent. had said, that it might be alledged as a charge against him, that he was not sufficiently zealous in the cause of his country, because he undertook to advocate the cause of America against his country, when justice was on the side of the former. He assured him that his conduct should meet no such illiberal construction from him, and that he completely joined with him in believing, that the cause of justice ought to be advocated wherever it was found. The hon. gent. had said, that though he defended the cause of America when he thought it just, he would always be ready to fight for his country if matters came to that extremity. He believed there did not exist a heart more truly British than that of the hon. gent., who was an ornament to the democracy, as a noble lord (Grenville) in the other house, who adopted the same course, was an ornament to the aristocracy. When he, therefore, was in opposition to them, he felt it incumbent upon him to state his reasons. The difference between them was, as to the facts of the case, and when these were correctly understood, he had a right to range their opinions on his side. The hon. gent. had said, that a war with America would be popular with some persons in this country. He was sorry that that hon. gent. had said what might produce an effect in America very different from what he intended; he was very sorry to be obliged to believe, that there could be any so forgetful of all the feelings which a similarity of language, of origin and political freedom, were calculated to produce, as to wish for a war with America; but if there existed a monster of that description,

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he assured the hon. gent. that he felt very differently from such a person upon this question. A war between this country and America, would be a far greater triumph for the enemy of liberty, than any he had ever gained. The great usurper had already subverted thrones and ancient dynasties; he feared he might add, he was about to accomplish a triumph over the amor patriæ itself; but he had not yet, nor, he hoped, ever would, obtain a victory over the sentiments and the honour of England. If in popular assemblies, if in America, ruled by a popular government, there could exist a feeling amicable to French tyranny, it would almost furnish an excuse for the destruction of such governments, as could be deluded with a friendship so hostile to their true interests, and so opposite to their ruling principle. The hon. gent. had talked of a point of honour, which he represented as the ground of difference between this country and America; and for his own part he could say, that he would be willing to yield much, he would practically yield much of the point in contention, for the purpose of promoting the ends of peace. At the same time it could not be said, that we now had a threat hanging over our heads to frighten us into the concession; the experiment had been tried, it was put in force against us, and completely failed. The hon. gent. seemed to think that it was a point of false honour for which this government was contending; in that he could not agree; he was willing, however, as he had already stated, to yield something, though not as much as the hon. gent. The hon. gent. would give America diamonds for the purpose of conciliation, because he thought them counterfeits and pebbles; but he (Mr. S.) would give them a portion of the same precious articles, under a due impression of their value. On other questions the house was called upon to decide before the necessary papers were laid before the house; in this instance the necessary papers were long before them, though the hon. gent. did not take the trouble of assisting himself by an appeal to their contents; nor had quoted a line of that Evidence the house had been collecting last session. It seemed as if it were the system of the opposite side to reject information altogether, and stand upon the ground of their own views and their own surmises. Information to them was what sand was to a balloon, taken in
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to be thrown out again, that the machine might ascend without obstruction; they were sometimes in such haste that they would hunt before the hounds, and always had an objection to the incumbrance of any information which might make against the cause they wished to be successful. Instead of availing himself of the information on the table, the hon. gent. had adverted to certain prophecies which he stated to have been falsified. Before he came to the evidence, he would glance at these prophecies. Some of them he would leave to those who heard them. But when it was said that it had been prophecied that our trade would increase after the Orders in Council, he must say, that this prophecy, instead of being falsified, had been most amply fulfilled. The hon. gent hid not condescended to look at the situation in which our trade was before the Orders in Council had been issued. He said that our Commerce had flourished in spite of the Berlin Decree; but it was to be wished that the hon. gent. had looked at the evidence in order to see how it stood before and after the Berlin Decree. He was sorry that, by omitting this, the hon. gent. had imposed on him the task of trying the patience of the house.—Mr. Stephen then proceeded to read several extracts from the testimony of Mr. Wm. Hall, Mr. Molling, and other witnesses, to shew the mischief which had been done to our Commerce, and that of neutrals, by the Berlin Decree, which was represented as never having been acted upon at all. These passages went to prove, that our trade with the continent was at a stand subsequent to the Decree, and previous to the issuing of the Orders in Council. This part of the case was most important, because, from the gross misrepresentations that had been circulated on the subject, an impression seemed to have been produced in America, that our commerce had not suffered any material diminution from the operation of the Berlin Decree. Owing to this circumstance the Americans were not properly aware of the strength of the ground upon which our Orders rested. The whole reliance of America was on the non-execution of the Berlin Decree, and the argument was, that as the Decree had not been executed with regard to America, we ought not to retaliate upon her. This was a complete mistake, as to the fact. As a proof of this, he referred to the evidence, where it appeared, that in consequence of

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the Berlin Decree, even in the direct trade between this country and America, the insurance had experienced a considerable advance,—of from 30 to 40 per cent, that the insurance upon American ships to the Continent, if they happened to touch at this infected country, was still higher—and that the insurance upon the direct trade to the Continent was so high as to amount to a stoppage. Here was a convincing proof that our commerce had received a fatal check, previous to the issuing of the Orders in Council. It was unnecessary for him to go over the whole of the testimony, as it was well-known that many of the most respectable and best informed witnesses had deposed to the same effect. But the matter did not rest there, for, from the returns laid upon the table from the Customhouse, it appeared that in consequence of the strict execution of this Decree, no less than 65 ships had, in the space of two months from the 1st of Sept. to the 30th of Oct. desired permission to reland their cargoes. Was any further proof necessary to establish the melancholy truth that our trade was laid prostrate by the Berlin Decrees, and effectually obstructed before the adoption of the Orders in Council! It might appear to some, that he had occupied too much time on the point to which he had applied himself, but it was so essential to the question before the house, and was likely to produce, and had produced, such an effect upon the opinions and the policy of America, that he thought it of the greatest consequence to dwell upon it; he would, therefore, beg leave to notice a periodical publication of great notoriety and character, in which the principle was asserted, that there was no interruption to the trade of neutral vessels, until the Orders in Council took place, in which it was also avowed, that until that moment the insurance was not raised. Those statements, so contrary to the truth, had gone forth in a publication known to be favourable to the other side of the house, and they had made their way to America, and made their impression. The publication to which he alluded was the Edinburgh Review, which was constantly hostile to the Antigallican measures of this country. The hon. member here read an extract from the work, wherein it was stated, as he contended, in the teeth of the evidence, that the trade of neutrals bad not been interrupted by the Berlin Decree; that the rate of insurance had remained as before;
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that the Decrees had neither been enforced nor acceded to, till our Orders had appeared, which had produced all the mischief; and that we were answerable for all the distress which had resulted from the obstruction of commerce. The same line had been taken by the daily prints attached to the party on the other side. America had made use of this argument, and alledged that our trade had suffered no damage from the Berlin Decrees; and even the British party in America had not been bold enough, in the face of such open and continued misrepresentation, to state how the fact really was; Mr. Pickering, who had so ably and so justly defended the British cause, had not stated it. The misrepresentations were so bold that the friends of truth had been afraid to advance it. These misrepresentations he compared to the audacious impostures of the profligate usurper, who had represented the defeat of the French at Trafalgar as a victory; who had represented the brave and illustrious Palafox as a fool and a coward; and -who had represented the defeat of the French at Corunna as a victory gained over the British army by one fourth of its numbers. These falsehoods were published for the sake of a temporary effect; but they were so gross, and so often repeated, that they began to lose all credit. But the British press had not as yet been reduced to this degraded state and character: and, consequently, when the misrepresentations from that source arrived in America, they misled the people of that country. And even the government of that country appeared to have fallen into the same error; for though they had the evidence in their hands, yet they could scarcely bring themselves to imagine that such audacious misrepresentations could have been made in the place where their falsehood was so open to detection.—He admitted, that, if the fact had been as represented by the hon. gent., that the commerce of this country had been untouched by the Berlin Decree, we would not have acted with that friendship and good understanding towards America, which ought to have animated our conduct, in issuing our Orders in Council. The foundation of the hon. gent.'s reasoning however, being done away, his whole superstructure fell to the ground, and all his arguments dropt. The Berlin Decree did not operate during the whole of the nine months argued on by the hon. gent. but only during forty days of that period,

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namely during the month of September, and the 10 first days of October, within which period our trade had been annihilated, and actually amounted to nothing. The hon. gent. had regretted the circumstance of his being opposed to professional men: but the way to argue was, to get premises before they came to conclusions, and the house needed no lawyer to tell them that. Having established the fundamental point, which was the great point of difference between the hon. gent. and himself, he thought the subject was relieved from much of its difficulty. It might be asked what we had gained by the Orders in Council?—To which he would answer, all that we had not lost. In this way, the question was not how much our trade had encreased under the operation of the Orders in Council, but that in reality all we had; all that was now left to us, was owing to them. If he saw a man drowning in the Thames, and were to take him up in a boat, and restore suspended animation, would that person be entitled to reproach him next day, because he was not more strong and healthy than he had been the day before he fell into the river? Would it not rather be esteemed sufficient that he was not in that miserable state in which he found him, but that his condition, though not so strong as before, had been somewhat improved through his means? He was astonished to hear it contended that through our Orders in Council, we bad lost the trade of America. The non-importation act, and the embargo, and not our Orders in Council, had excluded us from this trade. Gentlemen who had used this argument, were at length driven to the desperate plea that our Orders in Council had produced both of these steps on the part of the American government. To prove, the fallacy of this idea, he read the evidence of Mr. Inglis, the East India director, who stated, that but for the Orders in Council, the Berlin Decree must have had the effect of depriving us of the commerce, not of the continent, and of North America alone, but of that of the New World also. The question, therefore, was to be considered as between what we now were, and our utter annihilation as a mercantile country. This being so, he would frankly own, great as his desire was to continue on amicable terms with America, that he would rather see the country engaged in a contest with America than be reduced to such a state as this. He agreed with the hon. gent. that the greatness of this country depend-
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ed in a considerable degree on external causes. He did not like the term factitious, but if to be used, he must agree that not its greatness only but its safety was factitious. The depression of our marine superiority was not consistent with our existence. This was a state of things to which we were not to submit, even to purchase amity with America.—The hon. and learned gent. expressed his surprize at hearing the hon. gent. say, that we had no right, by our Orders in Council, to liberate ourselves from any novel and unjustifiable situation to which our enemy might attempt to reduce us. If our enemy aimed a vital blow at our commerce, were we not entitled by the law of nations to stand on our own defence? He felt pride and consolation in echoing back the testimony of admiration of the worth and learning of the great Civilian to whom the hon. gent. had alluded so affectingly in his speech. It was impossible fur him to find terms adequate to the eulogy of his late hon. and learned friend, whose learning and knowledge were only equalled by the generosity with which he allowed his friends to draw upon his superior stores. He could state, however, with boldness, that were that learned gent. now in that house, he would not go the length of the hon. gent. in saying that we were not entitled to retaliate. Nothing could equal the insolence practised towards us by a power, who while she could not shew a single flag on the ocean, dared to declare the ports of so superior a maritime power in a state of blockade. Such an insult, and the evils it was calculated to produce, we were warranted by the law of nations in resenting, and also in retaliating. He should refer for a precedent to a book, not merely of law, but of history. In the struggle between Philip the Second and the Dutch, who were then the principal carriers for the different powers of Europe, a Decree had been issued by Philip for restraining their commerce. This Decree was afterwards revived, and all the Dutch ships sailing under neutral colours which were found in the harbours of Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, were seized. The Dutch immediately retaliated, by issuing a Decree, prohibiting all intercourse, and ordering the seizure of all ships bound for the ports of Spain, Portugal or Flanders. No answer, complaint, or remonstrance was made against this Decree. So much the reverse of it, the French king issued a Decree, stating, that if his subjects should trade with Spain, &c. for the next

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six months, they must do so at their own risk. England, too, acquiesced in the justice of the Decree. So much, therefore, for the unprecedented nature of the right now exercised by the British government. He called upon any gentleman on the other side to point out to him an instance in which retaliation was found to be against the law of nations. It was reserved for the present governor of France to conceive any thing so out of nature against us as this; and then to contend that our resisting it was to be objected to, as an act against the law of nations. It was impossible that we could be surprized that our conduct should be questioned in America, when we ourselves in that house differed from each other upon the subject. He did not object to the hon. member for supporting what lie esteemed the cause of justice, he only begged that he would not carry that amiable quality to excess, and that he would not without proof suspect or accuse his own country of being guilty of injustice. He trusted that he himself held the cause of justice in equal respect as he was convinced the hon. gent. did; but he could not go the length of taking everything for granted, that went to militate against this country and its most essential interests. He could not conceive that it was possible to say, that America, in the last proposition made to this country, had made any thing like a declaration, that if France adhered to the Berlin Decree, the consequence would lead to a war between the two countries, or that she would arm her merchantmen to protect them against the Decrees of France. He maintained, that, instead of being an offer to this effect, it rather went to exclude the idea of such a course being at all in the contemplation of America. It only went to declare that, in the event alluded to taking place, the embargo against France should be continued. This seemed to him to be totally unintelligible. The moment the ports, whence vessels were to proceed, were opened, there ceased to be an embargo. There might be a prohibition against their proceeding to certain particular ports, but this was not in the nature of an embargo, but of a prohibitory decree. What security would such an Order hold out to Great Britain that these vessels the moment they left the ports of America would not proceed direct for France? Would America pretend to tell us that her prohibitory decree, after the vessels had left her ports, would have more effect in preventing an intercourse with France, than
1190
the vigilance of our maritime power? There was no point more firmly established in our prize courts than this, that we have no right to give effect to the law of another country: That we had no jurisdiction in the municipal law of another nation. The only tendency therefore of the propotion made by America, would be to annul our Orders in Council, in consequence of which our cruizers would no longer have any power to make seizures of any neutral vessels proceeding to France, in lieu of which America would give us a mockery instead of a reality of security against such intercourse with the territories of our enemies. There could, the learned gent. submitted, be no better proof, that the prohibitory law would be evaded, than that, which had actually been proved, that the embargo had been evaded. He proceeded to read evidence in proof of this assertion, and asked what then would be the case when there would be no embargo, and the Americans would have it in their power to go to the ports of France and Spain, as well as of England; America, therefore, neither proposed to restrain the unjust Decrees of France, nor even to say, she would not trade with her. That America should go to war with France, the learned gent. was far from desiring. All he asked was, that she should not trade with France and the other enemies of G. Britain; and this he asked of her only so long as they interdicted her from trading with us. The American Note did not even offer the assurance that she would continue the embargo against France until France rescinded her Decrees. Such was not even the meaning of the words.—The learned gent. then proceeded to consider the terms of the offers of the American government to France, and asked, would any man say, that to confiscate a vessel for touching at England was a municipal regulation agreeable to the law of nations? Yet Mr. Armstrong, the American Minister, slates at Paris that this would not be any violation of the law of nations. France obtained her municipal legislation over Hamburgh, by marching an army into that territory. She obtained a similar power over Portugal, by compelling its lawful Sovereign to abandon his country, because he would not submit to the unjust Decrees of a despot. Yet, these now, America allows to be all sacred legislations. England had not acknowledged any municipal authority of France in Spain, Portugal, or Naples. But,

1191
upon the same principle as that already acted upon by America, if France were to make an attack on Ireland, America might say she was entitled to trade with Ireland, as under the rule of Buonaparté, and to call it municipal legislation. If that case could not be justifiable with respect to us, neither could it be defended as applied to our allies. The house of Braganza had done nothing to forfeit its rights, and therefore they must be supposed still to exist.—The learned gent. proceeded to comment upon the instructions on which Mr. Pinkney acted, and shewed from their obvious import that he bad no authority to say when the non-importation Act or the embargo were to terminate. All, therefore, that he seamed to have in view was, that our Orders in Council should be rescinded, in the mean time leaving to the President of the United Slates to consider when it might be agreeable to him to discontinue the non-importation act and embargo, at the distance probably of six or eight months after our Orders in Council should have been rescinded. There was one omen, however, from which he drew consolation. He hoped the new government of America would shew more attention to the legitimate rights of other nations, and to the real and essential interests of the United States, also, than the former government had evinced. This he was induced to hope from the speech of the President to the house of representatives, in which it was more unequivocally declared than formerly, that if Great Britain would rescind her Orders in Council, the American government would rescind their Non-Importation Act and Embargo, and would continue both as to France. He hoped that this would lead to a proposition not so objectionable as the former. The rejection of the offer formerly made under such circumstances, seemed to him to be a duty which ministers owed to the country. The acceptance of it would have been parricidal. But the hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Whitbread) was dissatisfied with the terms in which the Answer had been conveyed. He considered it as too sarcastic and satirical, and too much resembling the speeches in that house of the right hon. Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Whether that right hon. gent. used his tongue or his pen in his defence or justification, he could well suppose that his opponents did not much like his Stile. He admitted that if the Paper alluded to was sarcastic, it was out of place; but still
1192
he had not viewed it in that light. He was not surprised that the hon. gent. and others who acted with him, thought the paper satirical, viewing it as they did. They might think the paper conveyed a joke, but it was no joke to the commerce of this country. The hon. gent. had stated, that on its arrival in America the paper in question had given offence. He understood that there was a violent speech made against it by one of the French party; but he had seen letters of a very contrary tendency, which even went the length of stating that this very paper had had the effect of turning the tide of public opinion in that country. The hon. and learned gent. then read a letter which he held in his hand from a respectable person in America, stating, that the people of that country were prepared to abuse the English with words, but that they would never go farther, nor proceed to blows; that the English ministers acted wisely in leaving them to themselves, and that Mr. Canning's Note had produced a good effect. What effect the speech of the hon. gent. (Mr. Whitbread) might produce, when it got to the other side of the Atlantic, he should not pretend to say. The honourable gentleman had, besides, said, that the Orders in Council were the cause of the Embargo. This the hon. and learned gent. by various able and judicious arguments endeavoured to shew was not the case. To prove this he alluded to a communication from the President, which was stated to contain an account of the policy and causes which produced that measure, and in which no allusion is made to the Orders in Council of the 11th Nov.; but reference is had to the Order of the 7th Jan. 1807, and to the correspondence between Mr. Armstrong and M. Champagny. He also maintained that on the 17th December, the existence of the Orders in Council was unknown in America; and that on the 18th of that month, at the Central City of Washington, the measure of the Embargo was recommended by the President to the American Legislature. He was, on the whole, of opinion, that America had not acted that even part the hon. gent. gave her credit for; but, still hostility with America was the farthest thing from his wishes. He had no doubt matters would be amicably adjusted, not by America going to war with the Ruler of France, but by abstaining from commercial intercourse with him. The hon. gent. had,

1193
however, in his strictures on the prophecies of last session, forgot the prophecies on his side of the house, that our colonics, without the assistance of America, would be ruined, and our colonists starved. America had continued her Embargo; but still our colonies had not been ruined, nor our colonists starved. On the contrary, by comparing the stale of our colonies with what it was previous to the Orders in Council, it would be found to be greatly improved. He could not agree to the Address which had been moved, and which was calculated, in an indirect manner, to rescind the Orders in Council. Such an address would not promote but defeat the end in view. If he entertained any doubt as to the sentiments of ministers on this subject, he should vote against them. But he had none. He knew they were anxious, as he was, for peace on any terms not inconsistent with the maritime rights of the country. But he would never agree to purchase a peace by consenting to any measure calculated to ruin our commerce, and to starve our manufactures, and our navy. The motion of the hon. gent. would go in substance to the repeal of the Orders in Council, and should therefore be opposed by him: it would even go further, for it would frustrate the very object, which the hon. gent. himself professed to have in view, and ought therefore to be negatived by those, who wished well to that object.
Mr. Alexander Baringspoke in support of the motion, and in reprobation of the Orders in Council, which he contended, had by their operation materially injured the commerce of this country. He thought, in determining upon the impolicy of the measures adopted towards America, we were sufficiently justified by the experience of the last 16 months. At the same time, he was not inclined to enter into an examination of all that mass of evidence which lay upon the table, because it was so various, that almost any argument might be drawn from it; and the same observation would apply to any conclusion put upon indifferent or, private letters transmitted to this country from America.—In opposition to what had been advanced by the last speaker, on the authority of a private letter, he could assert, that such a change as he had mentioned was not speedily expected to take place in the public opinion in America. Any gentleman, possessing a correspondence in America, might produce one or two letters to sup-
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port his own opinion, whatever it might be. He could not say whether the Embargo was resorted to altogether in consequence of our Orders in Council; but it must be evident to every man that it was in consequence of our conduct, and of that of France, in the present war. The ruinous effect of the Orders in Council might be estimated by the amount of the loss sustained by the commerce of this country within the last year; which upon the Imports of England exceeded six millions, whilst the defalcation in her Exports was upwards of five millions, so that if the deficiency for Ireland and Scotland were taken at two millions and a half, which he did not suppose to be an unreasonable estimate, the whole amount would be but little short of 14 millions. This loss, he said, had undoubtedly been felt more or less in every corner of the empire, but it had fallen with dreadful weight on our manufacturers in particular. Thousands, of those unfortunate persons must inevitably have been in a state of starvation, had it not been for the generosity and humanity of their employers, who at the time they were deprived of their best market, gave them half employment rather than suffer them to be wholly without the means of subsistence, and thereby to become so many burthens on their several parishes. But even this liberal conduct of the master manufacturers was in a great measure checked; for whilst they by the loss of our exports were deprived of a market for the manufactures they had on hand, they suffered in almost an equal proportion from the deficiency in our imports from America; for the raw material had become so scarce, and in consequence so high in price, that in many places it was not to be procured. This had been felt with peculiar hardship and severity in Manchester, where there had been during the last year, or the greatest part of it, only 9 cotton mills in full employment: about 31 had half work: and 44 had been without any at all, and totally useless either to their owners or those dependent on them for bread.—The hon. gent. then combated a great many of the arguments of the last speaker, relative to the effects which the Orders in Council had produced upon our commercial interests, upon most of which, he appeared to differ completely from the deductions he had drawn. He (Mr. Baring), contended that with respect to our trade, the Berlin Decree had been a mere dead letter, and he would not allow

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that the hon. gent. who had just sat down, was warranted in the results which he had inferred from such parts of the evidence as he had then read, and which were unquestionably selected from the mass that had been laid before the house last session for the purpose of diverting its attention from the chief point of the case which was this night intended to be submitted to the consideration of the house.—The hon. gent. who spoke last, had strenuously contended that the embargo had not taken place in consequence of the Orders in Council, because it appeared from the Message of the president, Mr. Jefferson, to the Congress, that the Orders in Council were not at all mentioned or alluded to. He thought, however, that hon. gent. and others might be misled, by not attending to the difference between official communications and those which were not so. The president of America might not have received official notice of the issuing the Orders in Council, but it was well known that an American newspaper had actually published the substance of those Orders, before the Meeting of Congress, and that, notwithstanding there might be no mention of them in the Message, both the President, the members of Congress, and the people of Washington, were perfectly acquainted with their existence, and they were generally supposed to be the incitement to, and the cause of the embargo. This would be corroborated, if reference were had to what had been stated in Congress, and the explanation given by Mr. Pinkney. Be that as it might, however, it was a certain fact, that both countries had already been great sufferers, and in his opinion, the sooner the olive branch was held out, the better it would be for both. He was afraid there would with many be a considerable impediment in the way, on the score of what was called concession; he could not but agree with his hon. friend who brought forward the present motion, that there appeared to be among the people of this country, somewhat too harsh and unfavourable a sentiment and feeling towards those of the western continent. He lamented that such should be the case, but entertained a hope that the time was near at hand; when each country, viewing its respective interests through a dispassionate medium, would be willing and desirous to shake off all unfavourable prejudices, and mutually extend the hand of amity and reconciliation. He was of opinion that the present motion was, as a pre-
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liminary step, well calculated to produce that desirable event, and as such it had his most cordial support.
Mr. Rosesaid, the measures which had been adopted by the American government, and which we had reason to complain of as directly hostile to this country alone, were two; viz. the Non-Importation Act and the Embargo. The former had been passed in Nov. 1800, and was positively directed against the merchandize and manufactures of this country only; and it could not therefore be occasioned by the Orders in Council, for they were not then dreamt of. The hon. gent. who had just sat down had said, that an American newspaper, which contained the substance of the Orders in Council, had been published at Washington, previous to the meeting of Congress, when the President sent the Message to them, recommending the embargo. He had in his hand the Message which had been referred to by his hon. friend (Mr. Stephen) in which there was not one word or syllable even hinting at the Orders in Council. That was on the 1st of Dec. 1807; and, a week after that, a letter was written by Mr. Madison to Mr. Pinkney, in which also there was no mention of these Orders, but in which Mr. Madison distinctly said, the policy and causes of the embargo are contained in the Message; so that it was evident the Orders in Council had not at that time entered into the President's head. As to what had been said respecting the overstocked state of the Brazil markets, he could suppose, that there might be some few articles there, which were superfluous at present; but to such an amount as the hon. gent. had stated he could not lend his belief. But the hon. gent.'s memory must deceive him with respect to what he had stated him (Mr. Rose) to have said concerning the Brazils.—He then proved, by various arguments, the Non-Importation Act to be hostile to this country, and this only; and combated the assertions made by the hon. member, respecting the decline of our commerce, by laying the following statement before the house:

£.

Exports to American States, from England, for the years ending March 1806 and 1807

11,774,000

Ditto in 1808

5,784,000

Decrease in 1808

5,990,000

£.

Exports to all parts of America, exclusive of the American States, but inclusive of the British and French West Indies, in 1808

12,8.59,000

Ditto in 1806 and 1807

8,629,000

Increase in 1808

4,230,000

Leaving on the whole a decrease of

1,760,000

But to set against that decrease, should be taken into the account the mercantile profit on the 4,230,000 l. which, in the way the trade was before carried into these countries, was entirely to the profit of the Americans; and the profit (with all the consequences attending it) on the British shipping employed, instead of the American shipping.

£.

The British goods exported to America in 1808

5,784,000

The consumption in America from accounts from thence in 1808

5,153,000

So that under all the embarrassments of Non-Importation and Embargo imposed in America, we did in fact, last year, send goods there to the value of their consumption; and we had the profit of the increased trade to other parts of America, which the United States had before. We deprived the enemy of the whole of the colonial produce to the amount of more than nine millions. Thus, instead of the impending ruin, which it had been declared hung over our heads, it appeared our trade had sustained but a very inconsiderable diminution. Dreadful prognostications had been delivered of the suffering which our West India islands were likely to experience; he was happy, however, to state that these fears had been groundless. He then read two letters from Jamaica, the purport of which was, that, except in the article of white oak staves, they had, in that island, suffered very little by the interruption of their intercourse with America; that the West India planters had turned their attention to the raising various articles of provision for the supply of which they had formerly depended on America: and they had proved by experience, that from what they were enabled to raise themselves, added to what they obtained from our other American possessions, they had little to fear from the want of supplies, which, till then, had been furnished by the United States.
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One permanent consequence of this, was that it had been found, that Canada alone could furnish all Europe, as well as our West India islands, with that article which they most wanted, viz. white oak staves. In 1807, we had 8,000 tons of shipping in our trade with the United States, and we had increased it tenfold with our own colonies. No man could more sincerely wish for conciliation with America than he did, for he was certain that America could not suffer without our suffering also.—The right hon. gent. concluded by stating, that considering the aggravation which this country had received from America, he should vote against the Address.
Mr. Grattanrose and said, that it was in the common phraseology of every member rising to speak upon almost any subject to say, that that subject was important. The question now before them was indeed of that character. There could be none, perhaps of greater importance, except that by which we lost America. The same temper that then broke the connexion between England and her colonics seemed to be revived again, and to be now studiously busy in effecting the connexion between America and France; and yet the success that crowned our policy at that time, should make us now rather industrious to avoid, than ambitious of retracing its disasters. I would, said Mr. Grattan, anxiously direct your observations to that eventful time, not to incite you to an imitation of those who went before you, but to deter you by their example—that we may profit by their errors and their failures, and that thus their disgrace may be made of use to their posterity. I recollect the history of that day when America stood up against us, and resisted England and oppression. What in that day was the language of this house? It was the language of complaint; complaint that our colonies were worked up into unnatural rebellion by the speeches delivered in this place. The Opposition was the cause of all, and the Opposition only. The Americans took their instinct of resistance, not from their charters; not from the spirit that because it will, must be free, not from their condition as the colonists of a free people, not from their right of birth as the descendants of a British people, but from the mouths of a faction in this house. This was the language then, and what are we told now? That America is angry, not because she feels the effects of your in-

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injustice, but because there are men in this house who complain of that injustice, and that such language opens her eyes to injuries that would otherwise escape her notice. Though this goes to attack the privilege of speech in this place, it shall not deter me from speaking what I think; for sure I am, that the fate of America depends on that of England, and that of England is nearly, most, nearly, interested in the welfare of America. The right lion, secretary has himself admitted this in the conclusion of one of his Letters to Mr. Pinkney. I was happy to sec that admission; but should have been more so if the letter had been consonant with the principle of that admission. The hon. gent. who was second in debate, argued, that America acquiesced in the maritime restrictions imposed by France. I deny it. She resisted the Orders of Berlin. She resisted the Decrees of France. Gen. Armstrong remonstrated repeatedly and spiritedly.—Here Mr. Grattan went into a detailed statement of the conduct of gen. Armstrong at Paris, and commented on it as he went along. He next proceeded to argue, that the Embargo was the effect of our Orders in Council. But, said Mr. Grattan, if they are not the cause of that Embargo, why is that Embargo continued? What continues that Embargo? America otters to take off her Embargo if you will rescind your Orders: do you doubt the sincerity of the otter? for one gentleman seems to point out as much. If you do, I ask then, will you go off upon that, will you rest upon that, and say that if America is sincere in the offer, you will accede to it; will yon say this? If you will not, again I ask, what continues the Embargo? Who is now the cause of the Embargo, when you yourselves refuse to do that which, if done, would remove it? (Hear! hear!) Is it so? Then how does the country stand in point of right? Do you join with an unoffending neutral, and visit France with the consequences of her own insolence and injustice? No; but you join yourselves to France against that neutral. It is the bad retaliation of a worse principle; it is a sort of wicked emulation in injustice; and if it be warrantable in us in this instance, then extend the argument, and what will it amount to? Why, to this; that if France, instead of declaring against the commerce of neutrals, should declare against their liberties, against their lives, you, in the spirit of this retaliation, losing the spirit that
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made you what you are, are to trace the footsteps of the same atrocities, making the measure of French wrong the measure of British right. The application appears monstrous, but the principle is the same, extended perhaps, but certainly not changed, and whether less or greater, in every shape a monster! for, qualify it as you may, it goes to the root of the law of nations; it goes to build up a system of wrong retaliating wrong, and injustice combating injustice, that can only end in an undefined suspension of the dominion of right (Hear! hear!). Taking as it were the laws of nations theoretically from God, but at the same time learning their practical application from the enemy. And in pursuing such conduct, whose work is England doing? Who now enforces the Orders of Berlin? England. Who now enforces the Decrees of France? England. Who created, who continues the Embargo? England. She does more, she repels America from her: she does still more, she drives her into the very arms of France. But to all this you say, "we will fight France with her own weapons," as if her principles could be your weapons! No, no; we have fought too long and too nobly to begin now to light away our national character against the well-practiced iniquity of France. Let us fight in no cause we do not believe to be an honest one; and let our weapons be as honest as our cause. So much for our justice.—Look to the principle now as it affects our trade. The avowed object of those measures is the sustenance of our commerce. Is America—our own America—our colonized America—our solitary neutral, to be injured, that our commerce may be improved? Are you quite sure that injustice to the one would not be injury to the other?—Commerce, applied to us, includes America; and yet is one to be promoted by the industrious subjugation of the other? We know our strength is our navy; we know our navy is identified with our commerce, and who will say our commerce is not improved by our intercourse with America? America is naturally your friend; she is your descendent; she is the fountain of the staple commodity of Ireland; she is the great Western barrier, and little disposed or calculated to be your rival. Before those restrictions, I mean the year before the operation of the Orders in Council, your exports to America were more than twelve millions, your imports upwards of six. How is Ireland now with

1201
respect to flax-seed? How is this country as to cotton? Consider well before you give up a growing country, adding abundantly to her population, that was increasing your wealth by the consumption of your manufactures; a country where the tyrant mace of Buonaparté never strayed. To give up such a country requires great countervailing advantages: Where are they to be found, if you do? Can you coerce the continent of Europe by the exclusion of all colonial commerce? Impossible! You may banish luxury from Europe; you may abolish the refinements that enervate your enemy; you may convince him, that superfluities are not necessaries: you may prove to him how many things he can live without; you may make Europe an univeral soldier; you may barbarize Europe, and in a degree martialize her, and England will fare the worse for it. Buonaparté knows this well: that superior man of mischief is glad to see you resort to his own weapons, for he calculates that as yet, and for a long season, your iniquities must be too shabby to affect him seriously. The hon. gent. who was second in this debate says, that America is indisposed towards us. I lament it and would remedy it. Abolish that repulsive policy towards her that you have used too much, and that you have been glad to use towards her. You have gradually chilled her into a state of frozen alienation, and then you charge her with the ingratitude of coldness; and what have you done it for? To compel her to come over to this country, and pay a tax to us for allowing an independent country the privilege to trade! to pay us a tax for carrying on her own trade! But what effect must this have upon America? You will send her in quest of those resources that will ultimately make her independent of your manufactures. So that you make the enemy a nation of soldiers, and America a nation of manufacturers; and thus do all you can to enable the one to beat you, and the other to starve you (Hear! hear!). I say again, I lament the feeling of America towards this country. I lament that you have provoked that feeling. With a sort of tedious pertinacity in ill offices—a teizing restlessness,—a kind of incapacity to be quiet, you have fidgetted yourselves out of the affections of America. You have not acted with wisdom, you have not acted with dignity; your strength lies in the entirety of your commerce. There has been too much of a meddling
1202
spirit of envy, that should have been foreign to so great a people. Why should we have been so jealous of the little trade of comparatively an infant state? You should have pot such thoughts far from you: in entertaining such views you descended from the grand elevation that was peculiarly your own, to meddle in a little game with which your dignity should not have suffered you to interfere; you have lost much by dealing in small games. You have long been too great to profit by them; look back to the time when you possessed one continent and influenced another; you lost the one in a wanton effort to put about 100,000 l. into your treasury! You call this pride; it is the reverse; it is the want of pride; for if you bad a just pride, you would know how to pause in your own greatness, and not descend to trifle in a rivalry that would betray rather the craving of monopoly than the spirit of emulation. Let England be to America what she ought to be, and America will be to England all that we could wish her. Be warned by the infatuation that once lost you America, and let not the same infatuation drive her now into the arms of France.
Mr. Secretary Canningsaid, that in rising at that late hour in the morning it was not his intention to trespass long upon the patience of the house; but he must beg leave to observe, that most of what had been urged upon the subject before the house, led to no practical conclusion; led to no recommendation of measures which it might be thought safe and politic to adopt. Almost all he had heard was lost in vagueness of conjecture or splendour of declamation. The question really was between England and France; not between England and America; and, if the question involved matters of a delicate nature, which were not inconsiderately, or prematurely, to be exposed, the fault was with those who called for the Papers, and provoked the discussion; not with those, who, while they deemed it their duty to shrink from no inquiry into their conduct, still felt the impropriety of being forced into explanations, which it were more prudent to postpone. He most certainly should have opposed the production of those Papers, had they not already appeared in print in. another country, because he was sensible that the discussion of them was premature, and that they were not in a shape for fit and seasonable discussion. The blame, as he had already observed, must rest with

1203
those who recommended, and would enforce a parliamentary consideration of an incomplete and undecided question. An hon. gent. who had condemned the course pursued by his majesty's ministers had argued, that there was no necessity to take a retrospective view of the subject, and that the case was clearly laid open. He thought it impossible, on the contrary, fairly to consider the question, without seeing in what state it was when his majesty's ministers came into power. The hon. gent. seemed to consider himself as some great planet surrounded by satellites, to which he gave motion; if so, he fancied he was not within his power of attraction.—When the hon. gent. brought forward a motion, he certainly should not have pointed out the course others were to pursue; and, for his own part, he was free to own, that he particularly would not wish to be guided by him. The question before the house, however, resolved itself into three prominent points; the justice of the cause; its policy and expediency; and its management.—It was a statement between belligerent France and belligerent England, in which unfortunately America was involved, owing to our avowing a right of retaliation upon our enemy. The right of retaliation, or self-defence, was that which gave the means of resisting an attack from whatever quarter or source it might come. If the enemy attack you through commerce, you must resist him; if he seize on neutral territory to attack you, you have a right to pursue him through that neutral territory; if through a neutral fortress, you have a right to destroy that fortress. It was upon this principle of self-defence we had acted towards America; which principle, if not true, might subject us to censure. If we are attacked through neutral nations, we must retaliate; and this doctrine had been distinctly acted upon, not only by his majesty's present ministers, but by their predecessors. The Order of the 7th of Jan. laid the foundation of a broad general principle, which had only been acted upon in the subsequent Orders, so much the subject of animadversion with the hon. gent. opposite. And here he begged leave to appeal to the principles and the language laid down by his noble and able predecessor (lord Grey), whose authority he did not imagine the gentlemen opposite him would dispute. Much was said about observance of the law of nations. He was willing to admit that it was not upon the poor pre-
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tence of the existing law of nations, but upon the extension of that law, an extension just and necessary, that his majesty's ministers were to rely in the present instance for justification. The Order of the 7th of Jan. asserted the principle of retaliation, but limited and restrained its application; the old rule of 1756 was admitted, though contrary to his expectation; and when France knew no distinction between slave and slave, he thought England was justified in refusing to recognize any distinction between port and port.—It should not be supposed, he said, that the Order of the 7th of January was one jot more conformable to the ancient law of nations, than those for which the present government was responsible.—Any deviation from law was as much a deviation as if it had been made to any larger extent. The Orders in Council were to be defended upon this ground, that the present state of the world required the application of new principles, or the extension of old ones. When he and his colleagues came into power, they had found that the principle of retaliation was acted upon by their predecessors, mitigated in its extent, and limited and corrected in its degree, but manifestly and expressly intended to be farther enforced when circumstances and occasions should challenge the enforcement. But while he went so far with the former ministry as to admit the justice of the principle upon which they had acted, he confessed that he could not understand one part of their conduct in the negociation with America. He did not understand why, on the 30th of Dec. they should appear to entertain doubts, and hold forth expectations as to the policy they should adopt; and on the 7th of Jan. all of a sudden, acquire such new lights upon the subject, as to determine, without farther hesitation, upon the adoption of the principle upon which that Order was founded. He did not understand why, after a promise of waiting the result of certain contingencies, they should in about a week decide without waiting for that result. It was a point in their conduct which he hoped the noble lord (H. Petty) could explain; he owed the explanation to America; he owed it to his friends, and to his country.—It seemed to be a question, whether the act of the Berlin Decrees was an act of hostility or not. He was much surprised how any one could consider it a question. It was said to be a mere municipal regulation, instituted by France for her own

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convenience; but what was that municipal regulation, and where was its pretence to the character it had thus assumed? It was urged in support of its title to that character, that the Navigation Act of England was considered a municipal regulation; and it was asked, where was the distinction that should exclude the latter from the same class? The distinction was manifest, the regulation of the Navigation Act was a permanent one; it was one of long standing; it was known to all the world, and acquiesced in by all nations; it was not a regulation adapted to a particular exigency, arising out of the circumstances of the moment, and partaking of the partial and fleeting stamp of the occasion out of which it originated. Such was the distinction, which was obvious to his understanding, and he hoped would appear equally clear to that of the house. There was a principle which said that no right should be pressed by a neutral during war, but such as neutrals had a right to press during peace. America had said, in effect, that if France had omitted part of the declaration, she might still have retained her hostility to England, and America would be assisting her measures of depression towards this country. This was a justification of the principle upon which ministers had acted.—As to whether France was or was not the aggressor, he thought that question would obviously be decided by a slight review of the ease. He was willing to allow, that if G. Britain had departed from the law of nations, if she had violated those principles that must ever be held sacred among nations as among individuals, and that the Berlin Decrees were justly deemed are taliation for that conduct; if this was the case, he admitted, that even the severity of the retaliation, could not justify the conduct of G. Britain, or afford the slightest palliation of the crime of which she would thus have been guilty. But in the papers transmitted from America upon this question, there appeared an anxious solicitude to give to Great Britain the priority in wrong; there was a sedulous endeavour to establish what never could be established—that there were violations on her part, previous to the Berlin Decrees, and that it was as a reprisal upon those violations, the Decrees were resorted to. Among these violations were enumerated the orders for impressing American seamen, founded upon the rule of 1756, and the proclamation of a nominal blockade. With respect to the former, it
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was justified by the rule upon which it was founded. And as to the latter, he could state, that there was force sufficient for the conducting of the blockade; which being the case, the charge of America against this country must fall to the ground. He was happy to have it in his power to vindicate the character of G. Britain; but it was a reflection, that interfered to moderate and depress his exultation, when he saw, that that vindication must involve the conduct of America in this censure, that she had brought a false charge, and persisted in it. The hon. gent. opposite had expressed a love for his country, in which he was certain that he was sincere; that hon. gent. must think favourably even of the prejudices that attached us to our native land, and therefore he was of opinion that he would join him in preferring the exculpation of his own country, and agree even to admit the operation of his prejudices towards it; that he would let them act to the influence of his judgment in a case where there was a doubt as to the justice, much more in a case where that justice was distinctly marked and unequivocally ascertained.—If it were true that France was the aggressor, and that the Berlin Decrees were acts of an hostile nature, the case of ministers was established. When the Order of the 7th of Jan. was made out, the preamble that accompanied it, avowed the principle of retaliation, at the same time distinctly reserving the full extension of that principle to another period. In Nov. it appeared to government that the Order of the 7th of Jan. had not, nor was not producing its proper effect, and that the extension of the principle recognized in it, was called for at that moment. The hon. gent., to prove that they were wrong, must shew that there was a distinction between the principle of the two Orders, which he would find impossible. As to the offer respecting the embargo, he thought that enough -appeared from the Papers, to put it out of all doubt that the Orders had not produced the embargo. The hon. gent. had quoted Mr. Pinkney's letter; but Mr. Pinkney's expressions were such, as, if he' had been anxious to select words to prevent such misapprehension on this subject, he could not have been more successful; he had done all that the language could do, to pronounce it a precaution against an anticipated measure. In the letter of the 30th of April, addressed to Mr. Pinkney from his government, he was desired, if G. Britain complied

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with his request of rescinding the Orders in Council, to give her to understand that the embargo might in some time be withdrawn.—Could there, he asked, be a greater degree of difference than between the positive offer ascribed to the American government, and this expression of a possible expectation, this doubtful holding out of an indefinite promise? And was it wonderful that he should desire a distinct official statement, rather than trust to his own memory, and be satisfied with a statement that seemed studiously loose? Mr. Pinkney, he admitted, did go very far in his conversation with him; but when he referred him to the ground on which he rested those promises and terms, it was to u document bearing no such instructions, but only proffering those vague assurances of which he had already expressed his disapprobation. As to the notice that he was censured for having taken of some newspaper misrepresentations, he could assure the hon. gent. and the house, that the sentiments of news-papers in that country were not to be regarded so lightly as in this; the fact was, they were a kind of document upon which the government itself acted, and by which it frequently transmitted its orders and sentiments to ministers resident in other countries. This made a misrepresentation from them more serious than it might first appear to be, and, even then, it was Mr. Pinkney who volunteered to explain, not he who called for explanation.—But when the proposition was made to Great Britain that the Embargo should be withdrawn, it was upon the stipulation that she should withdraw all her Orders, including that of the 7th of Jan. and abandon the rule of 1756; the inevitable consequence of which would be to exclude our armed ships from the ports in which we carried on our trade, while the armed ships of the enemy had access to them; thus exposing to capture and to ruin what it should be our endeavour, and was our dearest interest to defend. But if the Embargo with respect to England was raised, how could America put it in force against France? with what effect could she expect to do so? Did America know nothing at all of false papers? If the Embargo was raised with respect to England to-morrow, he would lay a wager, if it was consistent with parliamentary decorum, that, in the course of the next week, he would ascertain at Lloyd's the terms of a policy to France. The proposal was illusory; he might add, in the language of Mr. Maddison, it was insult-
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ing. Those who accused ministers of a disinclination to adopt pacific measures respecting America, must surely have lost sight of the line, temper, and manner in which his majesty's government had acted towards America since differences had unfortunately arisen between the two governments. Had they not sent a special mission to explain and apologize for the affair of the Chesapeake; and was not the mere sending of a special mission to such an effect ever deemed a sufficient atonement even by the proudest nations? Yet even then, was not the vessel that carried out our minister compelled to submit to the degrading ceremonial imposed by the Embargo? In short, we had rather gone too far, than done too little. We twice offered to negociate; yet the Non-Importation Act was not revoked. Would the late administration have done more? The present discussion, however, was imprudent, at a time when negociation was pending for the adjustment of differences.
Lord H. Pettysupported the Address, and declared himself a decided friend to measures of conciliation towards America, lie said his majesty's ministers, instead of acting upon the Order in Council as issued on the 7th of Jan. 1807, which merely interdicted the neutral trade of American ships between port and port, in the countries of Europe under the domination of France, extended it to all the seas of the world, and thus forced America to the Embargo. The American government in the late negociation, as was obvious from the papers on the table, evinced a friendly disposition towards this country, and a contrary one towards France. She offered to take off her Embargo in respect to this country, if we would rescind towards her our Orders in Council. And if we were disposed to this proposition, and only hesitated from a doubt of her sincerity, why was not some endeavour made in the course of negociation, to secure the exclusion of American ships from French ports; and obtain the consent of the American government for ourselves to secure that point, by making prize of all vessels of that nation, found approaching the ports of the enemy. It was the obvious policy of this country to excite hostility between France and America, and this would be the almost inevitable consequence of a cessation of the Embargo in favour of England, while it was continued towards France.—The noble lord then commented upon the spirit of the communication, and the effect produced in

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America by the letter of Mr. Canning to Mr. Pinkney, dated the 23rd Sept. 1808. That communication reached America previous to the election—a time in a democratic country of great heat and political zeal. What was its effect? It was to be traced in the following circumstance: It was well understood that in the various states, previous to the election of a President, each state elected an Inspector, to whom was delegated the vote of that state for the election of a chief magistrate. It was well known that on the appointment of the Inspectors, previous to the late election for a President, persons from the federal, otherwise the English interest, were almost universally returned. But such was the effect of the able and well-timed communication of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that the whole public mind of America was insulted by his ill-placed irony; and the consequence was, that a revolution of public opinion took place, by which the party in America presumed not most friendly to English influence, was intrusted with the sovereignty of that growing and extensive nation. Concurring, therefore, as he did, in all the sentiments of his hon. friends, and wholly disapproving of the conduct of his majesty's ministers towards America, he felt himself bound to vote for the Address.
Mr. G. H. Roseentered into some explanation upon the business of his diplomatic mission to America, and said, that notwithstanding the sole object of his embassy was to make satisfaction in the affair of the Chesapeake, he found it impracticable to conclude the business without leading to protracted discussions, the nature of which were incompatible with the honour of this country. And even the very vessel on board of which he went, was not suffered to remain in an American port, but under the direction of the commissioner of customs, and in such station as he should point out. This was so totally incompatible with the nature of the situation he held, as to induce his departure.
Mr. Whitbreadthen rose and said, that in consequence of the anxiety expressed from all parts of the house for the question, he should not detain them longer, but
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wave that privilege of reply, to which, by the courtesy of Parliament, he was entitled as the original mover of the Address. However, he could more freely dispense with the exercise of the right, inasmuch as every argument that was used by his opponents was ably met by the hon. friends who supported him; and where there was such a manifest deficiency in meeting his observations, he could not, at that hour, trespass on the house, even for the purpose of exposing the absurdity of such attempts. The only point on which he meant to remark was that on which so much stress had been put by the hon. and learned gent. who followed him in the debate, respecting the evidence taken at the bar of the house last session upon the effects of the Orders in Council. He had not lately perused that evidence, or he believed he might have produced as strong testimony in support of his opinions as the hon. gent. produced to the contrary; but he recollected perfectly well the manner in which Mr. Maling gave his testimony, and that he was admonished by the chair to be less extravagant in giving his opinions; which circumstance, together with the whole tenor of his evidence, rendered his testimony of very little consequence, on whichever side it was given.
The Question was then put, when there appeared,

For the Address

83

Against it

145

Majority

62

Adjourned at 7 o'clock on Tuesday morning.