out into the country to enquire whether his master had authorised the outrage. No, he would punish and remove the aggressor, and proceed on his journey, leaving the circumstance of orders, or no orders, to be settled between himself and the master afterwards. Besides, in this instance, the person inflicting the injury declares he has no right to the country. If so, why make enquiry whether he has orders? No orders could give him authority to interfere with your unquestionable right, where his master pretends to no right

himself.

Under this head of aggression and spoliation, the senator from New York, (Mr. CLINTON) in a tone and manner little decorous in debate, had declared it to be within his (Mr. Ross's) knowlege, that indemnity had been provided by Spain for the spoliations committed upon our trade, and yet the assertion had been made, that Spain had refused all redress for injuries of that kind; and the gentleman alluded to documents before the senate, which were under the injunction of secrecy.

Sir, said Mr. Ross, I have seen those documents, and I now repeat and re-assert, that I know nothing to warrant the opinion or belief that Spain will make compensation for all spoliations of our merchants, or for the greater part or mass of them. I certainly never did say that Spain had refused all redress; for it will be recollected by all present, that I expressly stated, the other day, the injury done to us by the Spaniards themselves in every place they had found our flag.... and that our vessels were carried into their ports by French cruisers, condemned without the semblance of a trial, and our citizens thrown into prison. That if we took possession of the country on the Mississippi, we should have an ample fund in our hands to compensate all our merchants who had suffered from the conduct of the Spaniards:....that the merchants would willingly accept such an advantageous offer :....and that otherwise there was no reason to hope that they would all be indemnified: and I now return to that gentleman his own words, that he does know, and must be sensible, from the very documents he has alluded to, that there is little, if any hope, that the great body of injuries and losses sustained by our merchants from the Spaniards in different quarters of the world, and the conduct of the French in Spanish ports, will ever be compensated or paid by Spain, unless in the mode that I had suggested.

་

The same gentleman had said, that we have no facts respecting Spanish spoliation authenticated and reported to us, and offers this as a further reason for delay and negociation. The facts of spoliation, and vexatious, oppressive conduct towards our merchants, and seamen, as well on the sea as within the jurisdiction of the Spanish government, both in Europe and America, were so notorious, and of such extent and continuance, that no man could doubt, or deny the aggravated series of outrage and oppression which we had experienced. Although the executive, or other officers of government may not have collected and reported these complaints to this house, yet this forms no excuse for the aggressors, much less a reason why we should abstain from giving attention to them, while considering indignities of another description. But, that the gentleman might never again be able to say that he had met with no authenticated case of spoliation by the Spaniards, he would now produce and read one to the senate, which had been delivered to him for the purpose of obtaining the aid of our government to get reparation. The men who had been robbed were industrious inhabitants of the western country, who lived near Pittsburg. They descended the Mississippi with a cargo of flour, and finding but a low market at New Orleans, shipped their flour on board of an American vessel, and after being two or three days at sea, were taken by Spanish vessels, carried into Campeachy, their flour sold, their captain cast into prison, themselves restrained of their liberty; several died in this captivity; and those who returned home had no allowance made to them by the Spaniards for their property thus unjustly captured; and of course they only returned to witness the ruin of their families by a loss of property which they had not the means of paying for, having purchased on credit. There could be no excuse for the capture; these men lived in the interior country, they were cleared out from a Spanish port, in an American vessel: yet all these circumstances could not save them from the rapacity of the Spaniards.

[Here Mr. R. read the protest of several American citizens before Mr. Morton, the American consul at Havannah, stating the capture of their vessel, their captivity at Campeachy, the loss of all their property, and that they lived in the western country, from which they had gone down the Ohio with this flour to New-Orleans.]*

*This case proved to be of a very different character; the captain in question appears to have been engaged in transactions of a grossly illegal cha

racter,

Mr. R. said here was a case of prodigious hardship and oppression arising out of the very trade and intercourse which the Spaniards had at last undertaken to obstruct and destroy ; and therefore he thought it proper to be brought forward during this discussion, to shew the temper and the conduct of these people towards us before they had proceeded to the last extremities.

The second position taken by the gentleman from New York, (Mr. CLINTON) and indeed by all who had spoken against the resolutions, amounted to this :.... That every nation was bound to demand satisfaction for an injury before it employed force for redress; and that a refusal of satisfaction must precede the use of force.

However humane or salutary the general principle might be, certainly it did not hold universally, or to the extent that gentleman contended. No book, no writer of authority, had ever contended that this principle should operate when the essential rights, the well-being, or the peace of the country. were exposed to danger, and the rule had no application but to inferior or minor rights of the society, where delay and negociation might be safely resorted to. No man could say, that this rule would hold where an army was marched to your frontier, or landed upon your territory; or a fleet blockaded your harbours, or demanded contribution from your seaports. Such cases admitted not of negociation: the intention of the assailant was manifest, the danger imminent, and immediate use of force and hostility unavoidable by the most peaceable nation. It would be said that these were extreme cases, and formed exceptions to the general rule. They certainly demonstrated that the rule was not so general as gentlemen contended for, and when the case at present under consideration is carefully examined, it will be found among those essential and all important rights of the nation, which, when attacked, immediate force should be employed to repel the assailant. In cases of invasion, the mere possession of a small portion of your soil, is not the primary consideration; you are impressed with the approach of further and more serious injury. The hostile intention is manifest, the act such as to leave no doubt, and your right such as can never be abandoned. So here, though there be no actual aggression within the limits of your territory, yet you have a territorial right attached to your soil, constituting its only value, which is directly attacked and destroyed. Of what value is the territory when stripped of this right? Where is your independence?

Where is your sovereignty in that country without the unrestrained exercise of this right? Without it the mere soil is of no value. It is an attribute inseparable from the substance. To attack it, is to attack your very existence, for it is the great artery of the western country, the circulation through which, when stopped, endangers convulsion and political death. The destruction of this right is a greater calamity, than a blockade of a seaport, or even a landing on the Atlantic coast. The mischief is incurable. Can it then be said when this vital part of the nation is assailed, you will wait for information of the intent? You will enquire into the motives? You will not employ force to resist the attack, although you may be undone before you can receive an answer? You will hazard convulsion and dissolution, because possibly the aggressor has reasons for the outrage, that you do not yet know! This cannot be wise, it cannot be the course which national honor or safety calls upon us to pursue; because you never can abandon the right now denied and wrested out of hands; your you can no more abandon it, than any other portion of country within your territorial limits, when invaded by an enemy.

But in whose favour is this delay asked? With whom are you going to negociate for reparation of the injury? Why with those, who, by their own confession, have no right in the country from which they exclude you. When you enquire of the court of Spain what has led them to this outrage, they may reply, we know and care nothing about it; that country is no longer ours; we have abandoned all claim to it, and ordered our officers to withdraw. The title is now in another. Will this satisfy you? Will it redress the injury? Where will you go next? Or how long will you wait for an answer to the question of who turned us out of doors and keeps us out? You have the same reasons for a second as for the first delay; and in the meanwhile you are out of actual possession; the wrongdoer is in.

But, sir, we are triumphantly told, that it has been the practice of all civilized nations to negociate before they go to war. Round assertions, like general rules, are to be received with exceptions and great allowance. I dispute the fact; although my argument does not need this kind of aid; for I am persuaded there is no precedent of an independent nation relying upon negociation alone, in such circumstances. If you go to books, or to the example of other countries, you will find no dictum of a writer, nor instance of a state, that will justify the course now held by gentlemen on the other

side. For wherever the nation has been invaded, its vital interests attacked, its existence drawn into hazard, its essen tial rights exposed to immediate destruction, every writer and every state will bear you out in resorting without delay, to the strongest means in your power for repelling the aggressor.

The conduct of the Romans has been more than once mentioned.... Their history is handed down to us by themselves, and even in that we shall too often find, that while their ministers of peace were affecting to demand reparation, the consul had advanced with his eagles to the frontier, and was ready to enter the country where the negociation was pending; we shall find that they negociated often and long, when it did not suit them to commence an immediate attack; and the negociations, especially when at a distance, were protracted, until their armies had been recruited; wars nearer home ended; and every thing ready to strike a decisive blow. But you have no instance of negociation without military preparation, where the Roman territory was invaded, or a Roman treaty violated.

Leaving antiquity, the honorable gentleman (Mr. CLINTON) has adduced and extolled the example of England in modern times, and traced her through many scenes both of negociation and war. But he did not dwell upon her conduct in the beginning of the war of 1756, when all the commerce of France was destroyed by a general sweep, without a previous declaration of war; and yet this was so certainly the case, that the gentleman must well remember it formed a subject of complaint, and was used to protract the negociation for a general peace in 1763. He has also forgotten their conduct towards ihe Dutch, during our revolutionary war; and their late armament against the Danes. His comments also upon the conduct of their ministry in 1762, were peculiarly unfortunate, because we know, that the nation was afterwards actually obliged to declare war against Spain, when she had full notice of their intention, and time to prepare for the attack; whereas, had war been waged when the hostility of Spain and her secret alliance with France, were first ascertained, they would have possessed prodigious advantages, which were lost by ineffectual negociation and delay.

I will not follow the gentleman to Nootka Sound, to the Bay of Honduras, or the Musquito Shore; but I will at once admit, that in cases of minor rights, of spoliation upon commerce in time of war; nay, in all cases that do not involve the well-being, or national independence, negociation and amica