Countrymen was announced to them, because it was atchieved under the auspices of their persecutors? No, sir, they may act over again the rape of the Sabines, but they will form no other connection with our fair countrywomen.

We have received many and repeated assurances from honorable gentlemen on this floor, who represent those states most immediately effected, that their constituents are perfectly satisfied with what has been done by the government in their behalf. They ought, it is true, to be better acquainted than we can be, with the wishes of the people among whom they live, and who have selected them as the guardians of their rights. But I think they will find themselves mistaken. Is it possible that half a million of people will contentedly submit to be cut off from all communication with the rest of the world during the progress of perhaps a tedious negociation? No, sir, such is the pressure of their wrongs....so ruinous is the aggression....they cannot submit....they must....they will....nay, I had almost said, they ought to redress themselves. The serpent which has coiled itself at the very portal of their fair mansion must be destroyed. They will have neither France or Spain to guard the fruit of their delightful garden. They know full well the importance of New Orleans.... They already consider that port as the Thermopylae of their country. It is there they will and ought to make a stand in defence of their liberties, and I pray to God that their struggles may be crowned with victory.

;

Mr. WRIGHT. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Ross) was first about to introduce his resolutions after making very voluminous prefatory remarks, he touched on ground that was conceived to be forbidden; and was, therefore, called to order; and that the subject of order might be decided, without the disclosure of that which we conceived ourselves bound to conceal: a motion was made and seconded to shut the doors, which, by a rule of the senate, was therefore a matter of course, and his resolutions were not then submitted....Afterwards, on the day he presented them, he introduced himself by remarking, that on his previous attempt to present his resolutions, he had been called to order, and stopped from proceeding by a new mode, that of shutting the doors, and insinuated that the senate wished to avoid a public discussion of his resolutions, and to conceal from the people what they ought to know; that we were afraid of the influ ence of his arguments on the public mind; when he well knew, we wished only to conceal what we felt ourselves in honor

bound not to reveal....but if he himsself did not wish to con ceal the truth, why did he not inform the house, or rather the public, for whom his speech was intended, that while the doors were shut, it had been determined," so far as related "to the subject on which he had been called to order, that it "must not be touched on," and that a seal of secrecy had been fixed on his lips? Did he suppose we would suffer his unfounded insinuations to pass unanswered? Or did he feel himself justified in the suppression of this fact, because its relation would have exculpated himself? The solution of this question must rest with him....but thus, inauspiciously he presents himself in the opening of this business; and as we pursue him, we shall find him incorrect in his premises, or illogical in his conclusions; and more impolitic than either....Instead of endeavoring to support the measures of the administration, and to cultivate the arts of peace, he is attempting to excite the western people to revolt against the government, by a seditious appeal to their passions, and to sound the trumpet of war in their ears, by a speech highly inflated with immature wrath, and rash declamation, against the Spanish go

vernment.

1st. That they had captured our vessels and imprisoned our

seamen.

2d. That they had permitted the French to fit out privateers in their ports, to cruise against our commerce. 3d. That they had permitted French consuls in Spanish ports to condemn our vessels captured by French cruisers. 4th. That they had obstructed our navigation of the Mississippi, and denied us the right of deposit at New Orleans.... and to crown the whole, had insultingly issued proclamation upon proclamation, interdicting the exercise of these rights.

The gentleman, however, not content with this phillippic against the Spanish government, rashly charges our own government with a total neglect of, and criminal apathy to the interests of the western people. That no nation, either ancient or modern, had ever suffered such indignities, and that our executive had taken no steps to redress the injury....not a soldier to assert our rights....not a soldier to avenge our wrongs....that the western people would not, that they ought not to submit to it, but ought immediately to take possession, of the mouth of the Mississippi, and for that purpose he submitted his resolutions, now before us.

In considering this subject, he would endeavour to give such an answer to the several parts of the gentleman's obser

vations as appears to him to deserve attention, as well as of those of the gentlemen who have followed him on the same side. He would take up the subject in the gentleman's own order.

1st. That the Spaniards had captured our vessels and imprisoned our seamen. Of this there was no doubt. 2dly. That they had permitted the French to fit out privateers in their ports to cruise against our commerce, was also admitted.

This

3dly. That they had permitted French consuls in Spanish ports to condemn our vessels taken by French cruisers. This was not denied.

But he asked the honorable gentleman, if Spain has refused to make us compensation for the spoliations committed on our commerce, by her own subjects? He asked, if Spain could avoid the acts committed by the citizens of France in her ports, when she herself had been constrained to sue for peace, and to accept it, on such terms as France inclined to impose? And he asked, if these aggressions did not happen during the late administration, when the gentleman and his friends were in full power: and whether it was then proposed to redress them by the sword? These things are well known, and that our minister at Madrid was then charged to sue for redress for these aggressions, and that they were all in a train of adjustment, before the present administration came into power; and he asked, if we have it not now entirely in our power to settle the spoliations on our commerce by the subjects of Spain, in the same manner that former administrations have thought just and honorable, in like cases? And whether we have it not in our power to settle the aggressions of French citizens, in the ports of Spain, for fitting out privateers, and condemning our vessels by French consuls, upon the princi ples of strict morality, if not on the more defined principles of the law of nations?

These complaints ought therefore to have been out of the question, and ought not now to have been brought forward to foment the difference between the two nations; but were no doubt purposely intended to sour the American mind against Spain, and to prepare it to act intemperately on the present occasion.

4thly. That they had obstructed our navigation of the Mississippi. This he denied. But that the intendant at New Orleans has put in force the law of Spain, interdicting the

M

commerce of all nations with the Spaniards at New Orleans, and that he had construed it, to prohibit our right of deposit there....he admitted; but that his construction of that law is by the authority of Spain, he did not believe; and our right being secured by treaty, must be paramount to that law.

That all America would unite in asserting our right of deposit, secured to us by the solemnity of a treaty, he had no doubt, nor had he ever heard any gentleman of either house, express one; on the contrary, they had unequivocally declared their opinion, that the right was all important, and ought to be secured at all hazard: but as to the means of doing this, gentlemen widely differed. He,

for his part, felt it due to Spain, he felt it due to our national character, to know, whether the act was authorized by the Spanish government, or justified by them, before he could ascribe it to them, and in this he was governed by the letter and the spirit of the law of nations, and also by the spirit of our own government.

But, sir, our own government is charged with a want of sensibility to the sufferings, and a total neglect of the violated rights, of the western people....but how justly....the public will decide, on a candid review of their conduct. The moment the President obtained the information of this act of the intendant at New Orleans, in arresting our right of deposit at that place, he applied to the Marquis de Casa Yrujo, the minister of Spain, resident near the government of the U. States, who gave him the most positive assurances, that he had no knowlege of the subject that would induce him to suppose that his Catholic majesty had any intention to violate the treaty, by which that right had been secured; and gave every assurance of his majesty's friendly disposition towards the United States ....he at the same time sent dispatches to his own government on the subject; and in his honest zeal for peace between the two nations, immediately dispatched a boat to the intendant at New Orleans: and also sent dispatches to the governor at Havannah....he also assured our government that the intendant, and the governor at New Orleans, differed in the construction of the orders given to the intendant by the Spanishgovernment, which were, "to put in force the law heretofore in operation in the Spanish territory, prohibiting all kind of commerce with all nations, with that province," which had been suspended during the late war; by virtue of which, the intendant, (although not a word was said about prohibiting our deposit at New Orleans) thought himseif bound to prohi

bit the citizens of the United States from contracting with the Spanish merchants at New Orleans, for the storage of their goods at that place, which had been secured by treaty.

The President immediately gave it in charge to our ministers at Madrid and at Paris, to enquire into the aggression, and whether it was done by the authority of either of those courts. He also enquired of the minister of France, Mr. Pichon, resident near the United States, whether he could give any information on that subject, as it became at least equivo, cal in whom the territorial right of New Orleans then was; and therefore questionable whether the intendant might not be acting under the authority of France; and here also we received assurances of the most friendly disposition, and that the intendant was not acting by the authority of France.

These were the natural, the legitimate, and indeed the only measures he could adopt, till the meeting of Congress. No sooner had Congress convened, than he officially informed us of this aggression on our rights, and was so much alive to the western interest, that he immediately after proposed sending the honorable James Munroe, Esq. a special envoy, to be united with our minister at Paris, or at Madrid, as the case might require, to place our western interests on the most secure basis....who, going immediately from the United States, charged with our sensibilities on this recent violation of this invaluable right, would shew that we were not only alive to the subject, but very much in earnest, and would furnish the best founded hopes of success. This minister had been approved of, and was now on his way. This, sir, has been the conduct of the executive.

But we are told that we have not a soldier to assert our rights....not a soldier to avenge our wrongs; and this also is a charge against the executive. What, sir; has the gentleman forgot that the President has no right to raise a single soldier? Has he forgot that the power of declaring war is vested in Congress alone? No, sir; these things he well knew, and that the President had done every thing he was authorized to do, and that both houses of Congress had approved of every step he had taken. But, sir, it is not difficult to account for gentlemen's extraordinary sensibility to the violated rights of the western people, or their pretended warmth and zeal to avenge their wrongs; it is all to be found in the political history of the times....it is with a design to stir up the western people to a belief that the government is insensible to their sufferings, and inattentive to their interests....it is with a view to a revolution