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such persons, in the usual exercise of our rights of sovereignty, and as a necessary consequence of those rights, while they reside in our country and remain on our soil. When they choose to depart, the protection ceases. The general proposition therefore, was to be understood as subject to those two exceptions; one of which indeed, was incorporated into the resolutions themselves, and the other was so obvious, that nothing but a desire to avoid all possibility of being misunderstood, in a matter of so much delicacy, would have induced him to advert to it thus particularly. Indeed, it might be remarked, that this principle of public law was of such universal operation, that persons guilty of the greatest crimes, murder for instance, and even treason, if they could escape from the country where those crimes were committed, into a foreign territory, found protection and immunity: and nothing but special provisions by treaty, could control the operation of this general law. This doctrine was exemplified in the history of every country and every age.

Gen. Harper then proceeded to the second division of the subject, which he observed was by far the most important. He had hitherto considered the resolutions in their tendency to preserve us in peace, by removing one great ground of controversy with foreign powers, and especially with Great Britain, and to unite us at home, in conflicts on such other grounds as we might be unable to avoid. He would now consider them in their tendency to prepare us effectually for war. It would, he presumed, be admitted by all, that we ought to make betimes, the most efficient preparations for those great con

flicts with other powers, to which we were called by our destiny. The United States could not expect to remain always at peace. Perhaps they ought not to desire it; for long continued peace enervates, corrupts, and debases a nation, and prepares it for subjugation, by rendering it too timid, too avaricious, and too effeminate, to defend itself. Be that, however, as it may, continual peace was not in our power, and therefore we ought to look to frequent wars, and prepare for them. They would grow out of our habits, our pur suits, our character, our form of government, and our situation with respect to the great maritime powers of the world. Our people were too enterprizing, too active, too eager in the pursuit of commercial gain, to remain quietly at home. Inhabiting a most extensive sea coast, bred, and almost born on the ocean, they were naturally impelled to maritime enterprize. Their free institutions gave them a bold and adventurous spirit. Their equality of civil and political rights, rendered them eager for the acquisition of wealth, because that acquisition placed them on a footing of absolute equality, with those who possessed the greatest advantages. Commerce and maritime adventure opened to them, to all that numerous part of them at least, that dwelt on the Atlantic shore, the nearest and most flattering prospect of wealth. All these causes impelled us to the ocean, and sent us in quest of gain through every sea, and to the remotest shores. Our free government, while it generated and fostered a spirit of restless and daring adventure, left us unrestrained to the bent of our character and inclinations; for it had no power, except under very

particular circumstances of rare occurrence, to mould and direct the industry and pursuits of the nation. It received its tone and character from public sentiment, which, instead of leading, it must generally follow. Hence arose maritime and commercial pursuits of unexampled activity, ardour and extent; and while we spread our ships over every sea, and eagerly sought every market, which afforded even a distant prospect of gain, we were necessarily and frequently brought into contest and collision with other nations, engaged in similar pursuits, especially that nation, whose character and situation in these respects, were so much like our own. With that nation therefore, we must at every turn, cross and clash.

To these inherent causes of difference, many others might be added, of a peculiar nature, which need not be enumerated, because they would readily occur to every reflecting mind. Some of them were minute and even trivial, though not well suited to produce irritation. Others lay much deeper, and being intimately connected with the great and essential interests of the two nations, real or supposed, could hardly fail to produce the most serious contests, capable of being adjusted only by the sword. Many of the maritime pretensions of that great power, were of this description. They need not be named, because they were in every one's recollection; but, it might safely be said, that they were of a nature, to which this country, in the ordinary state of the world, which was its actual state, never would or could submit. This nation was too proud, too ambitious, too enterprizing, either to consent that its people should VOL. I.

be kept at home, or that their intercourse with other countries should be controled, restrained, or regulated, by any power whatever. Judging from what has happened, and from the principles which we know to be held and asserted by the great power to which he had alluded, we could not but know, that attempts at this restraint and control will be made. Thus we should be driven into the conflict, whatever care we might take to avoid it.

Perhaps we ought not to wish to avoid it; for peace is not always the best thing for a nation: but whatever might be our wishes, it would not be long in our power. Collisions would take place, explanations and reparations would be demanded, perhaps not always in the most conciliatory and moderate tone. They would sometimes be given, as often happens, in such a manner as to make matters worse. Resort would then be had to arms, and thus we should soon be driven ordrawn into every quarrel, among the great maritime powers. We should be impelled to join the weaker side; because on that side our alliance would be courted, our principles acknowledged and our pride flattered. It would also be our interest to unite with the weaker maritime powers, in their efforts to check and restrain the lofty pretensions, and overbearing domination of the strongest. This, he said, was the natural and constant course of things, which had been for a long time suspended by the extraordinary state of the world, but had now returned to its usual channel: and thus, by a destiny which we could not control, we should become parties in every contest among the maritime powers. From being parties, we should gradually become principals, and

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find ourselves at length at the head of the league.

Since then, he said, it was our destiny to fight, it became us to consider in time, how we might fight most advantageously, and best prepare for the struggles which we could not avoid. He had no doubt that our true policy, and the character of our people, led us to the ocean, as the proper field of contest, which was equally pointed out by the nature and genius of our government. That was the natural and most efficacious direction of our force. It was there that the character of the country had been most nobly sustained, that the most brilliant triumphs had been achieved, that the fairest presages of future glory had been given. The mistakes of rulers might sometimes send our brave sons to perish, in fruitless expeditions by land, among the snows and damp and dreary forests of the north, or in the pestilential swamps and morasses of the south; but the irresistible force of circumstances would soon correct their errors, and recal us to the ocean, as the true scene of our power and glory.

Since it was on maritime pow. er, therefore, that we must rely, to maritime exertions that we should be irresistibly impelled, it behoved us to consider what were the best and most efficient means of maritime force, what was its most solid basis. Was it ships? No. Money? No. What then? He would answer, that it was a brave, hardy, and numerous class of native and patriotic seamen, bound to us by the ties of birth, education, carly habit; impelled by the feelings of patriotism, and the love of glory; a class of men without which ships are useless, and which money cannot buy. And can you,

he asked, rely on foreigners, for this all-important aid? On men attracted to your service by the mere desire of wages or of gain, connected with you by no common interests or feelings, united to you by no ties of kindred or affection, mere birds of passage, which flock to your shores in the summer of peace and prosperity, and fly from you when the storm begins to howl. Danger scares them away. These men, thrown on our shores in time of peace, by their own governments, who wish to get rid of the expense of maintaining them, enticed to us, by the hope of high wages and easy service, when we happen to be neutral, and their own governments at war, fly when danger approaches us, and leaves us defenceless, as far as our defence may depend on them. On whom then can the country rely; To whom must it look, in the hour of danger? I answer, to our native citizens, attached to us by birth, education, habit, and domestic ties. These are our sure dependence. They will not leave us in the time of trial; for their affections are with us, their hearts are with us, their parents and their children are with us. On them we may rely, in our greatest extremity.

It was the object of his motion, Gen. Harper said, to foster the growth of this inestimable class of men; and thus to make the best, the most effectual, and extensive preparation, for supporting our rights on the ocean, where alone they would be effectually asserted. He wished to encourage the manufacture of native American seamen, the only production which he was willing to force, by any species of what is called protecting duty. Since there was a sort of rage for encouraging manufactures, he wished to give it a right

direction, by encouraging the growth, not of wool carders and cotton spinners, of deformed, feeble, and diseased labourers in workshops and factories, but of hardy, gallant, and active seamen, to man our navy, and by protecting our commerce on the ocean, to enable us to import from other countries, those articles which could not be produced among ourselves, without forcing them by oppressive taxes, on nine-tenths of the community, for the benefit of the other tenth. This, in his opinion, was the true way of encouraging industry, and promoting the solid and lasting prosperity of the country: to protect all, and leave all to seek the most profitable modes, of employing their skill, labour, and capital. This protection could only be afforded by a powerful marine, which would enable our commerce to seek the most profitable markets for our own productions, and to supply us on the best terms with those of other countries. Every branch of industry would then find and preserve its proper level. To the formation of such a marine, a sufficient supply of native American freemen was essential, and that supply it was the object of his motion to secure. An object, in his opinion, of the greatest importance, in every point of view; which would, he hoped, be deemed a sufficient apology on his part, for having occupied so much of the time of that honourable body, in this feeble, and he feared, ineffectual attempt, to procure the adoption of the measure under consideration.

On the second resolution, for requiring merchant ships to have apprentices on board, he observed, that little need now be said. Its object was the same with the first,

to provide in time the means of naval power, by promoting the growth of native seamen; and it would be found, he believed, powerfully conducive to that end. It was a measure sanctioned by long experience, in other maritime countries, and especially in Great Britain; in whose practice and institutions we might expect to find the most useful lessons in the art of advancing naval power.

Speech of Mr. PINKNEY, in the House of Representatives, on the Treaty between the United States and Great Britain.

Mr. PINKNEY said, he intended yesterday, if the state of his health had permitted, to have trespassed on the house with a short sketch of the grounds upon which he disapproved of this bill. What I could not do then, said he, I am about to endeavour now, under the pressure nevertheless, of continuing indisposition, as well as under the influence of a natural reluctance thus to manifest an apparently ambitious and improvident hurry to lay aside the character of a listener to the wisdom of others, by which I could not fail to profit, for that of an expounder of my own humble notions, which are not likely to be profitable to any body. It is, indeed, but too probable that I should best have consulted both delicacy and discretion, if I had forborne this precipitate attempt to launch my little bark upon what an honourable member has aptly termed "the torrent of debate" which this bill has produced. I am conscious that it may with singular propriety be said of me, that I am novus hospes here, that I have scarcely begun to acquire a domicil among those whom I am undertaking to

time with that honest and unreserved freedom which becomes this place, and is suited to my habits.

address; and that recently transplanted thither from courts of judicature, I ought for a season to look upon myself as a sort of exotic, which time has not sufficiently familiarized with the soil to which it has been removed, to enable it to put forth either fruit or flower. However all this may be, it is now too late to be silent. I proceed, therefore, to intreat your indulgent attention to the few words with which I have to trouble you upon the subject under deli-pendent provisions, flowing as coberation.

Before we can be in a situation to decide whether this bill ought to pass, we must know precisely what it is; what it is not is obvious. It is not a bill which is auxiliary to the treaty. It does not deal with details which the treaty does not bear in its own bosom. It contains no subsidiary enactments, no de

rollaries from the treaty. It is not to raise money, or to make appropriations, or to do any thing else beyond or out of the treaty. It acts simply as the echo of the treaty.

That subject has already been treated with an admirable force and perspicuity on all sides of the house. The strong power of argument has drawn aside, as it ought "Ingeminat voces, auditaque to do, the veil which is supposed verba reportat." It may properly to belong to it, and which some of be called the twin-brother of the us seem unwilling to disturb; and treaty; its duplicate, its reflected the stronger power of genius, from image, for it re-enacts with a timid a higher region than that of argu- fidelity, somewhat inconsistent ment, has thrown upon it all the with the boldness of its pretenlight with which it is the preroga- sious, all that the treaty stipulates, tive of genius to invest and illus- and having performed that work trate every thing. It is fit that it of supererogation, stops.-It once should be so; for the subject is attempted something more, inworthy by its dignity and im- deed; but that surplus has been portance to employ in the discus- expunged from it as a desperate sion of it all the powers of the intruder, as something which mind, and all the eloquence by might violate, by a mis-interpretawhich I have already felt that this tion of the treaty, that very public assembly is distinguished. The faith which we are now prepared subject is the fundamental law. to say the treaty has never plightWe owe it to the people to laboured in any the smallest degree. In a with sincerity and diligence, to ascertain the true construction of that law, which is but a record of I am warranted in concluding, their will. We owe it to the obli- then, that if it be any thing but an gations of the oath which has re- empty form of words, it is a concently been imprinted upon our firmation or ratification of the consciences, as well as to the peo- treaty; or, to speak with a more ple, to be obedient to that will guarded accuracy, is an act to when we have succeeded in ascer- which only (if passed into a law) taining it. I shall give you my the treaty can owe its being. If it opinion upon this matter, with the does not spring from the "pruritus utmost deference for the judg-leges ferendi," by which this body ment of others; but at the same can never be afflicted, I am war

word the bill is a fac simile of the treaty in all its clauses.

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