VOL. XXIII. No. 1.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1813.

During the two years that I was imprisoned in Newgate, for writing and publishing an article upon the flogging of certain English Militia-men, at Ely, in England, under the superintendence of German troops, and for which writing and publishing I, besides, paid your Royal Highness a fine of a thousand pounds, in behalf of your Royal Sire; during that time I endeavoured, in various ways, to expiate my offence, but in no way more strenuously than in trying to dissuade you from yielding to advice, which, as I thought, would, if followed, produce a war with the American States. That consequence, which I so much dreaded, and which I laboured with so much earnestness to prevent, has unhappily taken place; and, though it may be of no service; though my efforts may still be unavailing; nay, though I may receive abuse instead of thanks for my pains, I cannot refrain; the love I bear my own country, and the regard I shall ever bear a great part of the people of America, will not suffer me to refrain from making one more trial to convince your Royal Highness, that the path of peace is still fairly open with that country, and that pacific measures are the only measures which ought even now to be pursued.

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asserted, that America would be totally ruined by six months of war; that the people would not pay the taxes necessary to carry it on; that the President, for only barely talking of war, would be put out of his chair; that the "American Navy," as it was called by way of ridicule, would be "swept from the ocean in a month;" and, that, in short, a war with America was a thing for Englishmen to laugh at ; a subject of jest and mockery.

This was the style and tone of the hireling press in London, and, with very few exceptions, the country prints followed the stupid and insolent example. Events have already shown how false all these assertions were; and now, as is its usual practice, this same corrupt press is pouring forth new falsehoods, with a view of urging on the war, and of reconciling the people to its calamities.

It was my endeavour to show your Royal Highness the real state of the case. I said, that the people of America, though wisely averse from war, as the great source of taxation and loss of liberty, would, neverthe less, submit to its inconveniences rather than submit to the terms which it was recommended, in our hireling prints, to impose upon them. I begged your Royal Highness to disbelieve those, who said that the American Government dared not go to war, and that Mr. Madison would not be re-elected. I besought you to reflect upon the consequences of rushing into a war with that country, amongst which consequences In one of my Letters to your Royal I included the forming of a great Naval Highness, I endeavoured to convince you, force on the other side of the Atlantic, and that it was to the base, the prostituted the not less fearful measure of manning a press, of England, that we were likely to French Fleet with American Sailors. Ŏur owe this war; I pointed out to your Royal hired press affects to turn into jest a propoHighness the means resorted to by that sition said to have been made by the Presi press in order to deceive the people of Eng-dent for the building of twenty frigates. land; and, I expressed my apprehensions, 'that those means would succeed. That press, that vile and infamous press, which is the great enemy of the liberties of Europe and America as well as of England, was incessant in its efforts to cause it to be believed, that, in no case, would the American Government dare to go to war, It

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If he has made that proposition, however, and, if the war continue only a year, your Royal Highness will find that the twenty frigates are launched upon the ocean. The ignorant and saucy writers in London, who live up to their lips in luxury, and whose gains are not at all dependant upon the prosperity of the country; these men care A

none of whom are clad in rags; none of whom are without meat upon their table daily; not one soul of whom would conde

not how the people suffer. Their object is to prolong the war, which suits the views of all those with whom they are connected. They assert whatever presents itself as like-scend to pull off his hat to any human ly to promote this object, and, therefore, being. And this is the nation, a nation, they take no pains to ascertain whether the too, descended from ourselves, that the building of twenty frigates is, or is not, a hirelings of the London press represent as matter of easy execution in America. If destitute of resources! they did, they would find, that the Ameri- Perhaps, Sir, the resources of America cans have the Timber, the Iron, the Pitch, are estimated according to the salaries which the Hemp, all of the produce of their own their public functionaries receive; and, country; all in abundance; all, of course, measured by this standard, our new enemy cheap; and, as to dock-yards, and other must, indeed, appear wholly unable to places to build ships, inquiry would teach contend against us for a single day; for the these ignorant and insolent men, that, in President, the Vice President, the Secretamany cases, the Timber grows upon theries of State, the Treasury, War, Navy, very spot where the ship is to be built, and that to cut it down and convert it into a ship is to do a great benefit to the owner/of

the land.

and all their clerks; that is to say, the whole of the Officers of the Executive Government, do not receive more than about half the amount of Lord Arden's sinecure, as stated in the report to the House of Commons in 1808. Nay, the Apothecary to our Army does, according to the same report, receive, in clear profits, annually, as much as twice the amount of the Salary of the President of the United States. Our Chief Justice, in salary and emoluments, as stated in the Reports laid before Parliament, receives annually a great deal more than Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe, Mr. Gallatin, and the Secretaries of War and the Navy in America, all put together. I shall, per

And, then, as to the pecuniary means: to hear the language of our hirelings, one would imagine, that the people of America were all beggars; that the country contained scarcely a man of property; that there were no such things as money, house goods, cattle, or manufactures. They must, indeed, confess that the country grows corn; but, somehow or other, they would have us believe, that there are, in America, no means; no resources. They cannot disguise from us the fact, that there are fine cities and towns; that there is a commer-haps, be told, that our public functionaries cial marine not far behind our own in point ought to receive more than those in Ameof magnitude; that the exports from the rica. That is a point which I shall leave country amount annually to more than half for others to dispute. I content myself as much as our exports, and that they con- with stating the facts; but, if I am told, sist of articles of first necessity; that the that we ought not to measure the salaries country contains all the articles of useful of our functionaries by the American standmanufactory, and that manufactures are ard, I must beg leave, in my turn, to promaking great progress; nay, that they have test against measuring the expenses of war arrived at great perfection; that the coun- in America by the standard of war expenses try is stocked with sheep, that great source in England. I must insist, too, that the of a nation's wealth, and that to so high a resources of a country are not to be measur degree have these animals succeeded, thated by the standard of the salaries of its pubmany single proprietors have already flocks lic functionaries. I should take quite a of more than a thousand head. These facts different standard for the measuring of the the hired press cannot disguise from us; resources of America. We know, that, or, at least, from those amongst us, who upon a population of ten millions, in Great are not wilfully blind. Upon what ground, Britain, a revenue of about eighty millions then, Sir, would they have us believe, that of pounds is now annually raised; and America is destilule of resources? The that, in these ten millions of people we inthings which I have here spoken of, are clude, at least, two millions of paupers. things of which national riches consist: Now, then, if they raise but a tenth part as they form the means of making national much upon the eight millions of Americans, exertions; of sending forth fleets and ar- who have no paupers amongst them, their mies. And, we ought to bear in mind, eight millions will be four times as much that America, that this new enemy of ours, as was ever yet raised in the country in any has a population of more than eight mil-one year; and, it is, I think, not too much lions of souls; none of whom are paupers; to suppose, that an American will bear a

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tenth part as much taxes as an Englishman, | war with America. I then said, and in the in the prosecution of a war declared by the most distinct terms and without vote of representatives freely chosen by the tion, that America would never be content any hesitapeople at large. Eight millions of pounds without a complete abandonment, on our sterling, raised for three or four successive part, of the practice of seizing persons on years, would build a navy that I should, board her ships upon the high seas. and that I do, contemplate with great un- formed this opinion upon the general tone easiness; for, as I once before had the ho- of the American prints; upon the declaranour to state to your Royal Highness, the tion of the Congress; and especially upon Americans are as good sailors as any that information contained in letters received from the world ever saw. It is notorious that friends in America, in whose hearts, strange, the American merchant ships sail with as it may appear to some, my imprisonment fewer hands, in proportion to their size, in Newgate seems to have revived former, than the merchant ships of any other na- feelings towards me. tion; the Americans are active in their These letters, writę, persons; they are enterprising: they are brave; and, which is of vast consequence, they are, from education and almost from constitution, SOBER, a virtue not at all less valuable in an army or a fleet than it is in domestic life.

This, Sir, is a view of the means and resources of America very different, perhaps, from the views which some persons might be disposed to present to your Royal Highness; and, if this my view of the matter be correct, it surely becomes us to be very cautious how we force these resources into action, and set them in array against us, backed, as they will be, with the implacable hatred of the American people. If, indeed, the honour of England required the setting of these resources at defiance; if England must either confess her disgrace, must basely abandon her known rights; must knuckle down to America, or brave the consequences of what I have been speaking of; I should then say, in the words of the old Norman proverb (adopted by the French in answer to the Duke of Brunswick's proclamation), "let honour be "maintained, happen what will.”

But, Sir, the question is: does the honour of England require the making of this perilous experiment? In my opinion it does not; and I now, with the most anxious hope, that, at last, they may be attended with some effect, proceed respectfully to submit to your Royal Highness the reasons upon which this opinion is founded.

ten by persons (be it observed) strongly attached to England, for no others did I ever number amongst my friends; these letters, assured me, that the people of America; not the government; not "a faction," as, our hirelings have called thein; that the people of America, from one end of the country to the other, cried for war in preference to longer submission to the stopping of their vessels on the high seas, and taking, persons out of them, at the discretion of our officers. Upon this information, coming, in some cases, three hundred miles from the Atlantic coasts, I could safely rely;. and, therefore, I did not hesitate to pronounce, that the repeal of the Orders in Council alone would not preserve peace; nor, was I a little surprised to hear Mr., Brougham declare, that if that measure did not satisfy America, he, for one, would support a war against her." Tag Dus

The question, then, is now reduced to this: Does the honour of England demaud, that she insist upon continuing the practice of which America complains, and agains which she is now making war? To an swer this question, we must ascertain, whether the practice of which America complains be sanctioned by the usages of nutions whether the giving of it up would be to yield any known right of England; because, in the case of the affirmative, to yield would be to make a sacrifice of our honour, rather than which I agree that we ought to continue the war to the last extremity, it being much less disgraceful to submit to actual force, than to submit to menaces.

The dispute with regard to the Orders in Council I look upon as being at an end; My opinion is, however, decidedly in for, though all is not quite clear in that re- the negative; and I will not disguise from spect, an arrangement seems to be matter your Royal Highness, that I never felt surof little difficulty. But, as I am sure your prise more complete (to give my feelings Royal Highness will do me the honour to no stronger appellation) than that which I recollect, I took the liberty to warn the experienced at reading the following paspublic, the very week that the Orders in sage in the letter of Lord Castlereagh to Council were done away, that that measure Mr. Russell of the 29th of August last; alone would do nothing towards preventing I cannot, however, refrain on one

vernment were to attempt to accomplish such an end by war, I am quite sure that it would soon lose the support of the people. But, "the right of search" is not, and never has been, for a moment, by any writer on public law, considered as a right to search for persons, except, indeed, military persons, and those, too, openly employed in the enemy's service.

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single point from expressing my surprise; | impunity in deception, or, rather, encou namely, that, as a condition, preliminary ragement to deceive, which such writers even to a suspension of hostilities, the have so long experienced in England, I "Government of the United States should will not take upon me to determine; but, "have thought fit to demand, that the Bri-I know well, that it is a most audacious ❝ttish Government should desist from its falsehood; I know that America has never "ancient and accustomed practice of im-expressed even a wish to make us give up "pressing British segmen from the mer-"the right of search;" and, if her go"chant ships of a Foreign State, simply on the assurance that a law shall hereafter "be passed, to prohibit the employment "of British seamen in the public or com"mercial service of that State. The "British Government now, as heretofore, " is ready to receive from the Government of the United States, and amicably to "discuss, any proposition which professes "to have in view either to check abuse in" right of search" is a right, possessed by * exercise of the practice of impressment, a belligerent power, to search for and to or to accomplish, by means less liable to seize as good prize, any articles contraband "vexation, the object for which impress- of war, such as guns, powder, and the "ment has hitherto been found necessary, like, which may be on board of a neutral "but they cannot consent to suspend the ship going to an enemy's port; because, "exercise of a right upon which the naval by carrying the said articles, the neutral "strength of the empire mainly depends, does, in fact, aid the enemy in carrying on "until they are fully convinced that means the war. This right has been further ex*can be devised, and will be adopted, by tended to any goods, belonging to an ene"which the object to be obtained by the my, found on board a neutral vessel; be"exercise of that right can be effectually cause, by becoming the carrier of his goods, * secured." the neutral does, in fact, screen his goods, as far as possible, from capture, and does thereby also aid the enemy. This is what is called "the right of search;" a right, however, which, as far as relates to goods, has been often denied by neutral powers, and which we actually gave up to the threats of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, towards the end of the last American war.

Being no Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I shall, I trust, be excused if I am found to underst and less of the "ancient "and accustomed practice" of Great Britain as to this matter; but, Sir, I have never before heard, except from the London news-papers, that Great Britain did ever, until now, attempt to take persons of any description out of neutral vessels sailing upon the high seas; and very certain I am, that such a practice is not warranted, nay, that it never was thought of, by any of those authors who have written upon public law. I do not recollect a single instance in which we have exercised what is here called a right; and, if in the abandonment of the practice, we give up no known right of England, such abandonment can be no dishonour; unless, which would be a monstrous proposition, it be regarded as dishonourable to cease to do any thing, because the doing of it has been the subject of complaint and the object of resistance.

But, of this right, of no part of this right, do the Americans now complain. They yield to the exercise of this right in all its rigour. But, they deny that we have any right at all; they deny that we have a pretence to any right to stop thefr vessels upon the high seas, and to take out of them any persons whatever, unless, indeed, military persons in the service of our enemy; and, I repeat it, Sir, that I know of no usage of nations; that I know of no ancient usage of our own even; that I know of no law, maxim, principle, or practice, to sanction that of which the Americans complain, and in resistance of which they are now armed and at war; and, therefore, I am of opinion, that to abandon this practice would be no dishonour to England.

The men who conduct the London newspapers, and whose lucubrations are a sore affliction to their native country, have long been charging the Americans with a wish to make England give up her "right of "search." Whether this falsehood has arisen from sheer ignorance, or from that"

Lord Castlereagh talks of our right to impress British seamen from the merchant ships of a foreign state.” Im

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