"I have selected, sir, the above from a long list of similar instances of barbarity, which the history of the last fifteen months could furnish; because they were perpetrated, if not in the view of the British commander, by parties who came immediately from his camp and returned to it-who even received their daily support from the king's stores, who in fact (as the documents in my possession will show) form part of his

army.

"To retaliate then upon the subjects of the king would have been justifiable by the laws of war and the usages of the most civilized nations. To do so has been amply in my power. The tide of fortune has changed in our favour, and an extensive and flourishing province opened to our arms. The future conduct of the British officers will determine the correctness of mine in withholding it. If the savages should be again let loose upon our settlements, I shall with justice be accused of having sacrificed the interests and honour of my country, and the lives of our fellow-citizens, to feelings of false and mistaken humanity. You are a soldier, sir, and, as I sincerely believe, possess all the honourable sentiments which ought always to be found in men who follow the profession of arms. Use then, I pray you, your authority and influence to stop the dreadful effusion of innocent blood which proceeds from the employment of those savage monsters, whose aid (as must now be discovered) is so little to be depended upon when it is most wanted, and which can have so trifling an effect upon the issue of the war. The effect of their barbarities will not be confined to the present generation. Ages yet to come will feel the deep-rooted hatred and enmity which they must produce between the two nations.

"I deprecate most sincerely the dreadful alternative which will be offered to me should they be continued, but I solemnly. declare, that if the Indians that remain under the influence of the British government are suffered to commit any depredations upon the citizens within the district that is committed to my protection, I will remove the restrictions which have hitherto been imposed upon those who have offered their services to the United States, and direct them to carry on the war in their own way. I have never heard a single excuse for the employment of the savages by your government, unless we can credit the story of some British officer having dared to assert, that, as we employed the Kentuckians, you had a right to make use of the Indians.' If such injurious sentiments have really prevailed, to the prejudice of a brave, well-informed, and virtuous people, it will be removed by the representations of your

T

officers who were lately taken upon the river Thames. They will inform you, sir, that so far from offering any violence to the persons of their prisoners, these savages would not permit a word to escape them which was calculated to wound or insult their feelings, and this too with the sufferings of their friends and relatives at the river Raisin and Miami, fresh upon their recollection.

"P. S. I pledge myself for the truth of the above statement in relation to the murders committed by the Indians."

General Vincent, in reply, stated, that "the account given. of the British officers, whom the fortune of war has lately placed at the disposal of the United States, is such, as cannot fail affording very consoling reflections to this army and their anxious friends.

"Though you must be sensible," continues he, "that there are several points in your letter respecting which it is wholly beyond my power to afford you the satisfaction of an explicit declaration, yet be assured, sir, I shall never feel the smallest degree of hesitation in joining you in any pledge, that it will ever be my anxious wish and endeavour to alleviate as much as possible the fate of those who may fall into my power by the chances of war.

"Believe me, sir, I deprecate as strongly as yourself the perpetration of acts of cruelty committed under any pretext; and shall lament equally with yourself that any state of things should produce them. No efforts of mine will be ever wanting to diminish the evils of a state of warfare, as far as may be consistent with the duties which are due to my king and country.

"The Indians when acting in conjunction with the troops under my command, have been invariably exhorted to mercy, and have never been deaf to my anxious entreaties on this interesting subject.

"I shall not fail to transmit the original of your letter to the lower province, for the consideration of his excellency the commander of the forces."

follores the American

STATE PAPERS

AND

OFFICIAL LETTERS,

AMERICAN AND BRITISH MANIFESTOES.

Message of the President of the United States, recommending the Subject of War to the Consideration of Congress. To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. I COMMUNICATE to congress certain documents, being a continuation of those heretofore laid before them, on the subject of our affairs with Great Britain.

Without going back beyond the renewal in 1803, of the war in which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her government presents a series of acts, hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation.

British cruisers have been in the continued practice of violating the American flag on the great highway of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under it; not in the exercise of a belligerent right, founded on the law of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neutral vessels, in a situation where no laws can operate but the law of nations, and the laws of the country to which the vessels belong; and a self redress is assumed, which, if British subjects were wrongfully detained and alone concerned, is that substitution of force, for a resort to the responsible sovereign, which falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British subjects, in such cases, be regarded as within the exercise of a belligerent right, the acknowledged laws of war, which forbid an article of captured property to be adjudged, without a regular investigation before a competent tribunal, would imperiously demand the fairest trial, where the sacred rights of persons were at issue. In place of such trial, these rights are subjected to the will of every petty commander:

VOL. II:

U

the belief, that the disavowal proceeded from a spirit of hostility to the commercial rights and prosperity of the United States. And it has since come into proof, that at the very moment when the public minister was holding the language of friendship, and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of the negotiation with which he was charged, a secret agent of his government was employed in intrigues having for their object a subversion of our government, and a dismemberment of our happy union.

In reviewing the conduct of Great Britain towards the United States, our attention is necessarily drawn to the warfare, just renewed by the savages, on one of our extensive frontiers; a warfare, which is known to spare neither age nor sex, and to be distinguished by features peculiarly shocking to humanity. It is difficult to account for the activity and combinations which have for some time been developing themselves among tribes in constant intercourse with British traders and garrisons, without connecting their hostility with that influence, and without recollecting the authenticated examples of such interpositions, heretofore furnished by the officers and agents of that government.

Such is the spectacle of injuries and indignities, which have been heaped on our country; and such the crisis which its unexampled forbearance and conciliatory efforts have not been able to avert. It might, at least have been expected, that an enlightened nation, if less urged by moral obligations, or invited by friendly dispositions on the part of the United States, would have found, in its true interest alone, a sufficient motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high seas; that an enlarged policy would have favoured that free and general circulation of commerce in which the British nation is at all times interested, and which, in times of war, is the best alleviation of its calamities to herself as well as to other belligerents; and more especially, that the British cabinet would not, for the sake of a precarious and surreptitious intercourse with hostile markets, have persevered in a course of measures, which necessarily put at hazard the invaluable market of a great and growing country, disposed to cultivate the mutual advantages of an active commerce.

Other councils have prevailed. Our moderation and conciliation had no other effect than to encourage perseverance and to enlarge pretensions. We behold our seafaring citizens still the daily victims of lawless violence, committed on the great common and highway of nations, even within sight of the country which owes them protection. We behold our vessels, freighted with the products of our soil and industry, on re

turning with the honest proceeds of them, wrested from their lawful destinations, confiscated by prize courts, no longer the organs of public law, but the instruments of arbitrary edicts; and their unfortunate crews dispersed and lost, or forced or inveigled in British ports into British fleets; whilst arguments are employed, in support of these aggressions, which have no foundation but in a principle, equally supporting a claim to regulate our external commerce in all cases whatsoever.

We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States; and on the side of the United States, a state of peace towards Great Britain.

Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations, and these accumulating wrongs; or, opposing force to force in defence of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of events; avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contests or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honourable reestablishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question, which the constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the government. In recommending it to their early deliberations, I am happy in the assurance, that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.

Having presented this view of the relations of the United States with Great Britain, and of the solemn alternative growing out of them, I proceed to remark that the communications last made to Congress on the subject of our relations with France will have shown, that since the revocation of her decrees, as they violated the neutral rights of the United States, her government has authorised illegal captures by its privateers and public ships; and that other outrages have been practised on our vessels and our citizens. It will have been seen, also, that no indemnity had been provided, or satisfactorily pledged, for the extensive spoliations, committed under the violent and retrospective orders of the French government against the property of our citizens, seized within. the jurisdiction of France. I abstain, at this time, from recommending to the consideration of congress definitive measures with respect to that nation, in the expectation that the result of unclosed discussions between our minister plenipotentiary at Paris and the French government, will speedily enable congress to decide, with great advantage, on the course due to the rights, the interests, and the honour of our country.

Washington, June 1, 1812. JAMES MADISON.