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This charge is strictly applicable to the conduct of America. Since the accession of Mr. Jefferson to the Presidency of the United States, we have received from that country nothing but abuse, insult, and wrongs, perpetrated under the mask of neutrality. It is true, that the government of America has taken no ostensible * part in the questions which have animated the belligerent powers against each other;" but its enmity to this country has been sufficiently manifested by the countenance it has given to the frauds of its people, by its covert evasion of that " good faith," which ought to have characterized the conduct of an honest neutral; by its wilful oversight of the insults, outrages, and depredations, which it has received from the public enemy, and by its testy and blustering violence at every act of our government, or its agents, which could be interpreted by pettifogging sophistry, and perverted representations, into an aggression upon the rights of neutrality. Can Mr. Jefferson shew, that America is innocent, when he imputes guilt against England? Can he come before the solemn tribunal of public conscience, with clean hands, and a conduct void of offence?----By no means. England has been too long a passive, but not an unconscious sufferer by the treachery of the American states. Engaged in a war of dreadful interest, of extensive operations, and of awfully uncertain consequence, she has hitherto suspended her resentments against many enormous acts of American injustice. Availing itself of the difficulties in which we were involved, and of the higher considerations which engrossed our attention, the government of the United States, actuated by a mercenary spirit, contrived to extort certain concessions from us, derogatory from those just maritime principles, which, rigorously enforced, had consolidated our national power upon the basis of naval superiority. These concessions were not suffered to pass unnoticed; and several eminent politicians, both by their speeches in parliament, and by their spirited remonstrances in writing, deprecated them at the time, and prognosticated the evils which would result from them at a future day. By the Americans, the concessions were regarded as the acknowledgment, on our part, of political rights inherent in them, and, as attributes of that country becoming a maritime power, of which they could never afterwards be dispossessed, without a palpable violation of the laws of nations. Thus, while we strove to conciliate the good will, and to secure the good faith of these republicans, they received with surly satisfaction the spoils of our navigation system, and repayed our over-weening confidence with insolence and ingratitude. We vainly flattered ourselves, that in the time of our necessity, the rights which we had consented should lay dormant, might be resumed; little reflecting that one concession encouraged an insatiate cupidity to demand another, and to become obstreperous whenever it was refused. In this manner, the demands of America were reduced into a system of periodical complaint, and we successively placed in the hands of the treacherous, the weapons which they now brandish against us; nor shall we ever be able to recover them, unless we resume our ancient tone of vigour, and convince the world, that the relaxation of a system does not necessarily imply its abandonment; that a title is not the less legitimate for being dormant ; and that the duty of self-preservation warrants the abrogation of concessions, which are incompatible with the safety of our country.

When America started into a separate existence, and had been recognized as an independent state by every government in Europe; it might have been foreseen, from her geographical position, the convenience of her ports, and the habits of her people, that her introduction into the society of nations, as an independent state, would occasion, before the lapse of half a century, a material alteration in the politics of all the maritime powers. Soon after their government had assumed a settled form, the Americans devoted the greatest part of their wealth and industry to the pursuit of foreign commerce; and when we embarked in the general war against France, as the supplies we drew from the United States for the consumption of our colonies, and the use of our military expeditions, which had been sent against the colonies of

See the writings of lord Sheffield, and a late useful publication printed by order of the Society of Ship Owners of Great Britain, entitled "Collection of Interesting and Important Reports, and Papers on the Navigation and Trade of Great Britain, Ireland, and the British colonies in the West Indies, and America.",

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coffers a portion of the wealth of the timid and the opulent, to the prejudice of our
national revenue, at a time of great national difficulties, and has thereby identified
the interests of our capitalists with those of America. Lastly, she has contrived to
be represented in the British House of Commons, and to raise an interest even in that
sanctuary of the laws in support of her encroachments upon the rights and prosperity
of Great Britain. Such has been, in the short space of twenty years, the rapid pro-
gression of America, from a state of fraudulent bankruptcy to a state of fraudulent
opulence, from a state of rebellion to a state of independence, from weakness to
importance, from the condition of an artful supplicant to the condition of an impor
tunate upstart. And yet, in the face of all these glaring facts, Mr. Jefferson expects
that we shall still hearken to and respect his interpretation of the principles of "
faith, justice, and the rule of social intercourse," If it be asked why these evils that
we endure have swoln to such a gigantic magnitude? I answer, that they have grown
up and flourished only during our intervals of supineness and imagined security. But,
let the sleeping lion, for once, awake to vengeance, and we shall see this race of
reptiles, which have exulted and taken advantage of its quiescent docility, skulk
trembling into the inmost recesses of their deep forests, to avoid the power which
knows, when roused, how to make a spirited assertion of its rights!

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Having thus endeavoured to put my readers in possession of the real grounds of our difference with America, from which, it is apparent, that Great Britain, and not America, ought to demand the redress of wrongs; it will not be difficult for them to set a proper value upon the message of the American president. What constitutes the principal ground of complaint in this message? the attack upon the Chesapeake frigate, in consequence of the refusal of its commander to acquiesce in a civil request of a British officer, to search for deserters from our service! The presi dent calls this act an outrage, committed " by one of the vessels which had been lying in their harbours under the indulgences of hospitality." But, I should be glad to know whether Mr. Jefferson would esteem it an indulgence of hospitality," if, while I was his guest, he should take it into his head to pick my pocket? or whether, knowing him to be a pickpocket, I should not be justified in suspecting and searching him on the highway for my lost purse? Every honest man would execrate such an heinous abuse of the rites of hospitality, as the stealing of the purse of a visitor: what difference is there between a pickpocket and a kidnapper of men, " under such circumstances? My purse, which his excellency might have stolen, I could have dispensed with perhaps,

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'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands ;

but the seduction of men who had voluntarily entered into our service, who had received in consequence the bounty of the state, and who were in the habit of receiving its bounty, is a crine of a greater magnitude, because it strikes at the root of all subordination and allegiance. The crime is greatly aggravated by the subsequent protection afforded to the deserters when reclaimed, and by the sanction of their insolence while recruiting for seamen under the American flag, in the presence of their former officers. If this be not an outrage on the rites of hospitality, the character of a neutral is merely a cloak for the practice of villainy. But Mr. President does not confine himself to a single misrepresentation, he has had the courage to follow it up with a denial of our right to punish our own subjects, convicted of desertion. "The aggression," says he, thus begun, has been continued by putting to death one of the persons whom they (the British) had forcibly taken from on board the Chesapeake!" I now rejoice that I laid before my readers, in a former number, a full and authentic account of the proceedings of the court martial at Halifax, on the trial of Jenkin Ratford, because it is a memorable record that will eternally convict the unsocial behaviour of the American government toward this country. This man, after a fair and impartial trial, acknowledged, that the evidence brought against him was so strong, there was little left for him to say. He then plainly confessed, that he, with all the men who had deserted from the Halifax, were persuaded by the boatswain of the American frigate, Chesapeake, to enter on board that vessel, and that one of the American recruiting officers, lieut. Sinclair, suggested to them to pass under false names. In consequence of this infamous suggestion, one of Mr. Jefferson's indulgences of hospitality," Ratford actually did enter into the American service

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under the assumed name of Wilson, though he was a British subject born in London. Upon the strength of this evidence, admitted to be correct by the prisoner himself, he was found guilty, and adjudged to suffer death, which sentence was executed five days after his trial.*

It is against this punishment that the president exclaims with asperity, and even goes so far as to call the just exercise of our jurisdiction, an aggravation of an aggres sion previously begun. This is a most barefaced and insulting interference in the domestic concerns of another people. Nor can the indecency of this conduct be explained away, by alleging that Mr. Jefferson had heard that the seaman so executed was an American citizen. Such an apology might be offered at the bar of the Old Bailey, by a petty-fogging attorney accused of perjury, but it is unbecoming the dignity of the first magistrate of a nation, whose public declarations ought never to rest on hearsay evidence. Of the five deserters who were tried and found guilty upon this occasion, William Hill was the only native American. He had entered into our service voluntarily at Antigua, and had received the usual bounty; so that he was fiable to suffer death, as a deserter, according to the established usages sanctioned by the laws of nations. Notwithstanding, he did not suffer, for we hanged our fellowsubject, and spared the swindling American. In whatever light, therefore, we consider this imputation of the president, it will appear as a weighty aggravation of the crimes of America, unless it be admitted, that a deserter from our service, whether British or American, having once taken shelter on board of an American ship of war, is entitled thereby to the benefit of sanctuary during the rest of his life.

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The motives of these unwarrantable insinuations against our country, are too palpable to be misunderstood. Under the guise of an affected moderation, the president has pronounced an angry philippic against Great Britain, calculated to inflame, instead of allaying those heats which broke out at the commencement of our misunderstandings; for, upon what other principle can we explain his motives, when we find him deducing inferences from false premises, and justifying their unfairness, by the vapid testimony of the passions and violence of a fermented population. "On this outrage," says he, "no commentaries are necessary. Its character has been pronounced by the indignant voice of our citizens with an emphasis, an unanimity, never exceeded." Thus, while he affects to chaunt a doleful lamentation over the love of peace, so much cherished in their bosoms, he irritates their feelings, and provokes them to war. marshals against Great Britain, the whole artillery of special pleading; he deals also in inuendoes unsupported by any collateral proofs; but when he speaks of the aggressions of Spain, he employs the language of affectionate moderation, and when he mentions France, it is only in the style of fulsome compliment. I call this message a brief of American special pleading, because it is full of quirks, sophistry, unautho rized distinctions, and even misrepresentations. With equal justice, I affirm that it contains inuendos not sustained by facts, because it insinuates without the least shadow of evidence, that the Indians in the north-western quarters, were excited to commotion by the intrigues of England: and I call it a breach of the rule of national equity, because, while it is lavish in its censures of our conduct, it treats the violent depredations of France upon the commerce of America, with the silent deference of timidity to unreproved despotism. "With the other nations of Europe," quoth the president, "our harmony has been uninterrupted, and commerce and friendly intercourse have been maintained on their usual footing."+

These reflections must suggest themselves to the mind of every one who reads with attention the message of the American president. He calls for a revision of our navigation laws, and makes our compliance with his desire, the condition of the future pacific conduct of the United States. I have shewn, that hitherto, this pacific conduct is no other than WAR IN DISGUISE. Whatever may be the principles which may be adopted henceforth, one point is indispensible to our existence as a nation, namely, that America must be stripped of this disguise. Let not England be in

For further particulars relative to these proceedings, see No. 18 of this volume. + It is not improbable that the term "usual footing," is here employed as a stroke of special pleading; the usual footing of intercourse between France and America, consisting in theft, depredation, and swindling.

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timidated at the number or power of her foes. If her people be but united at home, and confident in their government; and if that government will persevere in the courage, fortitude, and ability, which it has hitherto nobly displayed, we shall then realize the spirited prediction of our national poet, who thoroughly understood the genius and resources of his country:

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them: Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

CONDUCT OF RUSSIA.

I now resume the consideration of the Russian manifesto, upon which, on account of the lateness of the hour at which I received it, I was able to offer only a few hasty comments in our last number. Upon a more rigorous scrutiny of its contents, I have discovered fresh absurdities, which, however glaring, had escaped my observation on the first cursory perusal of it.

In the first place, it is a most singular circumstance, that a declaration which the subjects of Russia, are doomed to consider as the justifying motives for the termination of all intercourse between the two nations, should be ushered into the world, with a rank, and self-evident UNTRUTH! The first paragraph of the declaration states, that his Britannic majesty," had altogether separated himself from him," the emperor, whereas, the fact is directly the contrary, every effort having been exhausted, consis tently. with the maintenance of our public security, to conciliate his mind, and to draw closer the bonds of harmony which once united the two nations together. It is also evident, that our seizure of the Danish fleet is but a subordinate ground of the emperor's present hostility; for, if that politic measure had never taken place, it is equally certain that the emperor would have been inimical to this country, from the other pretexts for offence, which he has adduced in his declaration. Whether these pretexts be well-founded or not, is of little consequence to the general argument: they are the best which were in his power to allege; and if a pretext had been wanting, the professors of law at Fontainbleau would have easily supplied him with one, together with a glossary and notis variorum. The capture of the Danish fleet must, therefore, be considered as an accident, to use a metaphysical phrase, of which the emperor's advisers knew well how to avail themselves; and accordingly they have given to that transaction, a gloss, which rivals the ingenuity of the Morning Chronicle itself. Had the Danish fleet been left undisturbed until taken quiet possession of by the French and Russians, the emperor's declaration would have been defective in one essential particular, as it would not have been furnished with an opportunity of casting a reflection upon the sudden abandonment of that apparent lethargy which we quitted when the peace between Russia and France was to prepare a general peace." In that case, his imperial majesty would have been reduced to the puny grounds of complaint recorded in other parts of his declaration, and confined his displeasure of our military conduct solely to our neglect of co-operation. But our prompt, vigorous, and decisive anticipation of the designs of the two imperial autocrats, so completely blasted the scheme projected in the secret articles of the treaty of Tilsit, that, incensed at our foresight, he now imputes our neglect of causing a diversion in his favour to a premeditated plan for the attack upon the Danish navy; an event which would never have happened, had he not separated himself from the common league against France, and abandoned the independence of continental Europe to the mercy of that usurped

power.

Is it not also extremely curious, that this Russian declaration should appear on the the very same day, Oct. 31, as the infamous article in the Moniteur directed against this country? This shews, that the one publication was not the echo of the other, but that there was a previous communication between the parties respecting the reproaches which they should mutually cast upon our government. The coincidence is so striking, that it is worthy of the attention of the public; I shall therefore collate the passages contained in the Russian declaration and the French article.

"He did not demand that her troops should be united with his; he desired only that they should effect a diversion. He was astonished that in her cause she did not act in union with him; but coolly contemplating a bloody spectacle, in a war which

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