upon such principles? The honorable member has roundly asserted that the late President, that Mr. Jefferson, whenever he was opposed to wiat he deemed unnecessary expense, instead of being actuated by his known aversion to saddle such an expense on the people, instead of being, as he had expressed it, averse to taking from the mouth of labor its hard earnings, had no other motive, but a fear to disturb the repose and popularity of the Secretary of the Treasury!! But, Mr. President, what is the treasury, abstractedly speaking? and what does the honorable member mean, by a fear to press on the treasury? The officers of the treasury are mere agents to receive and to pay the money which is collected from the people. There is never any real pressure on the treasury. If there be at any time a pressure for the purpose of defraying any expense, it is a pressure on the people, who must pay the money. Whether the treasury has ten or twenty millions to collect from the people, and to pay to the other agents of government, the repose of the Secretary is not in the least disturbed. When, during our revolutionary war, Congress was obliged to call on the people for heavy taxes, or unable to redeem our paper money, the pressure fell on the people who had the taxes to pay and in whose hands the paper money died away. When notwithstanding these inadequate resources, we were unable to defray the most necessary expenses, the pressure fell on whom? On your empty treasury? No sir-it fell on the army-on the defenders of your country on those war worn veterans, who were scantily fed, hardly clothed, and not paid at all, and whose earnings, at last, fell into the hands of speculating harpies. But, sir, what effect had this state of things upon the personal repose of your then commissioners of the treasury? Not the least, except so far as they felt for the distresses of their country, and identified themselves with its fate; and it is only in this point of view, said Mr. A. that the repose of a Secretary of your Treasury can be disturbed on similar occasions. That substi tution of the treasury-of the chest into which the taxes are paid-to the people themselves who pay them, is one of those equivoques of which the honorable member is so fond. It is, however, an artifice too thinly veiled, to deceive the senate, or mislead our constituents. Mr. A. said, the course taken by the honorable member had been so devious, that it had been hard to follow him, and indeed sometimes to understand his meaning correctly.

Mr. A. said, he could not, nor did he intend, when he rose, to answer all the observations of the honorable member-he had selected the most prominent, and should answer only one or two more. The honorable member had said, that to the unwillingness of the late and present administration to incur expense, he attributes the present situation of our country. Altho' he has made this charge against the administration, he has not specified any case in which the present administration had retused to incur expense. Mr. A. supposed it would have been rather too bold a charge, after the measures adopted by the President, and with their result now before us: he had, however, specified two cases under the former administration-a re

fusal to incur the expense necessary to carry the embargo into effect, and a rejection by the House of Representatives of a proposition to authorise contingent letters of marque and reprisal. Mr. A. said,he had always understood, that the executive had used with great assiduity every mean which had been placed in his hands by Congress, to carry into effect the several embargo laws; that the laws were as well executed as any restrictive laws, of so pressing a character, could have been upon so extensive a coast; and more so than the restrictive laws of Great Britain and France had ever been, with all their navies and their numerous armies; and that it was not because this law was not well executed that it was repealed, but in consequence of another consideration, well known to the honorable member himself, who can give as accurate a history of the repeal of that law as any honorable member of either House. Mr. A. said with respect to the failure, on the part of the House of Representatives, to adopt contingent letters of marque and reprisal, he could not see how that could with any propriety be attributed to the late president. He did not, indeed, by an official message, recommend such a measure; and the correctness of such a course might well be doubted, upon constitutional grounds. But, Mr. A. said, he well knew that the president was anxious for a provision of that kind, as a substitute for the embargo; whether in the precise phraseology of the provision the House rejected, Mr. A. could not say; but knowing, as he did, that the president was desirous of a strong substitute, he was sorry that the honorable member had attempted to attribute to him the failure of so important a measure, for which he was in no way responsible.

In the House of Representatives--Dec. 16.

MR. RANDOLPH'S SECOND SPEECH

On the Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations. The order of the day being called for, the Speaker declared that the gentleman from Virginia was entitled to the floor.

MR RANDOLPH faid, that he could not exprefs his deep fenfe of the politenefs of the Houfe, except by the regret he felt at the very poor return which they were about to receve for their indulgence. He lamented that it was not in his power to thank, in the name of all the old republicans of 1798-'9, his worthy friend from North-Carolina, (Mr. Stanford) for the found, fenfible, pertinent and conftitutional fpeech, which he had delivered, the other day, against this refolution. But he feared if a writ were to iffue against that old party (as had been facetioufly faid, in another body, of our valiant army) it would be impoffible for a conftable with a fearch-warrant to find it. There must be a return of non est inventus. Death, refignation, and defertion had thinned their ranks. They had difappeared. New men and new doctrines had fucceeded. He was aftonifhed at the frailty of fome memories; or rather at their aptnefs to remember to forget every thing but what fubferved their prefent purposes.

Diluted down and fritted away, indeed, as this propofition had been by his worthy colleague (Mr. Nelfon) and his excellent friend from North Carolina, (Mr Macon) it was, comparatively, a fubject. of fmall importance Yet, as argued by other, it af fused the most impofing magnitude. It was no lefs than a quefton of war or peace. Mr. Randolph proceeded to compare the provocations of France in 1798, with any now complained of-& to fhew the inconfiftency of republicans in fupporting the prefent meafores. He faid he would ftate fome, among many of the caufes of difference, at that time between the two republics. Yes, fir, the French republic!! mighty magic then in the phrafe. It was almoft as potent as the terms emperor and king in later days. He referred to the meffage of the prefident of June 18. 1798, accompanied by the correfpondence of our minifters at Paris with the French minifter of foreign relations. After replying to his three feveral heads of complaint against us, our envoy had proceeded to expofe the monftrous violation on the part of France of every principle of juftice and of public law, and in open defiance of her plighted faith to the United States.

"The underfigned will not refume, citizen minifter, the painful tafk of re-urging the multiplied injuries which have been accumulated on their country, and which have been in fome degree detailed in their memorial of the 17th January laft. They cannot however, decline to remonftrate against a meafure which has been announced fince that date. The legiflative councils of the French republic have decreed that

"Ift. The condition of fhips in every thing which concerns their character as neutrals or enemies, fhall be determined by their cargo, confequently every veffel found at fea, laden in whole or in part with merchandise, coming out of England or its poffeffions, fhall be declared good prize, whoever may be the proprietors of fuch commodities or merchandise.

"2diy. No foreign veffel, which in the courfe of its voyage fhall have entered into an English port, fhall be admitted into any port of the French republic, but in the cafe of neceffity; in which cafe the veffel fhall be obliged to depart from such por as foon as the cause of entry fhall have ceafed."

This decree went to sweep off the ocean every fhip of the United States and almoft of the whole world-for except perhaps a Chinese junk, there was hardly a veffel to be found on the ocean, without fome article of merchandise, that had "come out of England, or its poffeffions," It is an interdict of the direct trade, in our own commodities :-for no veffel could take tobacco, cotton, bread ftuff, &c. to London or Liverpool, and bring back a return cargo, without coming under that decree ;-and without return, there could be no export-for export and import were co-relative terms-the one could not exift without the other; there could as foon be a wife without a husband, a child without a parent, a master without a fervant; the one implied

the other. To talk of export without import, was argumentum ex absurdo. Here then was a prohibition of that direct trade, that pittance, that minimum of maritime right, for which gentlemen are now willing to go to war. He put thefe facts to gentlemen who now ftickle about the direct trade, with which the orders in council interfere. Was he therefore the defender of thofe orders? He ftated the parallel cafes to fhew that against the antineutral decrees of France, republicans had refused to vote armies and fleets. But thofe times had paffed away. The fternnefs of our republican principles had not then melted away, by basking in the fun-fhine of a republican court. He would not enter into a difgufting recital of other French injuries and abominations; he would confine himself to thofe daring maritime infults and aggreffions, which had been chaftifed by the valor of American tars, whilft happily the fleets of our enemy were pinioned in port, or crippled at fea, by her great rival. It was matter of curiofity to look into fome of the caufes of complaint urged against us by the notorious citizen Talleyrand, ex-bishop of Autun, &c. &c. In his capacity of minifter of foreign relations, he had, among other complaints, represented to our minifters, in an official note, that "The newspapers known to be under the indirect control of the cabinet, have, fince the treaty, redoubled the invectives and calumnies against the republic, and against her principles, her magiftrates and her envoys: pamphlets openly paid for by the minifter of Great Britain, have re-produced, in every form thofe infults and calumnies; without a state of things fo fcandalous having ever attracted the attention of the government, which might have repreffed it. On the contrary, the government itself was intent upon encouraging this fcandal, in its public acts."

We had greater inducements to raife men in 1798 than now. There were then French poffeffions in our neighborhood, from which a predatory war under French and Spanish colors, had been waged upon our commerce, even in our own harbors, and on our own fhores, which had no parallel, unless in the depredations, the rapine and plunder of the Barbary corfairs on the oppofite coafts of Chriftendom. Our little fleet at that time triumphed in the Weft-Indian feas. It was in our power to have applied the remedy to the actual feat of the difeafe: Not only was our fair and legitimate commerce with England prohibited-the trade from London to New-York, (and by confequence) from NewYork to London--but we were forbidden to barter, even with a neutral, for any article "coming out of England, or its poffeffions; "-nay, more, our vefsels engaged in any fuch trade were, ipso facto, ftampt with the character of enemy. The cargo, even the minuteft part of it, a fingle volume printed in England, determined the character of the whole, and of the vefsel alfo. It was a commercial attainder, working a corruption of the whole mafs.

The nation had been brought into its prefent alarming ard unprecedented fituation by means in no wife unaccountable-by

fteps as direct and fucceffive as Hogarth's celebrated series of prints, "The Rake's Progrefs," beginning at the gaming table and ending in a jail, or in bedlam. Our difficulties began to fhew themselves in 1805-6, when a wise man from the east (Bidwell) was fent to govern the American Houfe of Commons, in quality of manager. With what degree of fidelity he had difcharged this duty, we might judge from that which he had fince difplayed in far inferior trufts. We had commenced our fyftem fomewhat on the plan of Catharine of Ruffia, when the lent her nominal aid to the coalition; we had dealt even more profufely than fhe had in manifeftoes; we began, under the inftigation of mercantile cupidity, to contend, by proclamations, and refolutions, for the empire of the ocean. But, inftead of confining ourselves, as fhe had done, to this bloodlefs warfare, we muft copy the wife example of her fucceffors-and after our battle of Friedland, he fuppofed, we fhould have our peace of Tilfit. He gave the little minority praife, having kept the adminiftration in check; under the falutary reftraint of a rigorous examination of their acts-although adminiftration had run away with the credit of wishing to take a ftrong attitude and had thrown the blame of thwarting their meafures on the oppofition. That oppofition had been compofed of all fects and perfuafions-but he now perceived that the greater part of them (the federalifts) had gone over to the court party, for a very obvious reafon-because they forefee at the end of the journey, Mr. Speaker, that your defeat will fecure their triumph. I with the gentlemen on my left (the majority) joy of their new travelling companions.

But he could trace the origin of our prefent difficulties a little farther back than the year 1805 6-to the refufal of our government to prolong the treaty of London, which, by its own limitations, had expired within two years after the conclufion of the war. But for the truce of Amiens, for it hardly de ferved the name of a peace, that treaty would be now in operation. The refufal to prolong its ftipulations, at least during the continuance of the war; to confider the peace of Amiens as, in effect, no actual termination of the conteft; the rejection of the overtures made by the English miniftry to reinftate it, was a capital error for which no ftate fman could atone. Admitting for argument's fake, the treaty to have been in the first inftance impolitic-yet on the acceffion of the late Prefident to the chair-he might as well fay the throne; for he understood a throne to be only a magnificent chair-under the practical operation of that treaty, the commerce of the country was in the "full tide of fuccefsful experiment." It was (to fay the best of it) whim, madness, maggot of the brain-the wildeft of vagaries, to refufe to prolong that treaty when it was proposed by the British government: thus laying the foundation for a breach which has fince been widening. On the revolution of 1801, that government had been led to apprehend from the language held by prostituted preffes in this country-he meant