been discharged, and the resources of the nation thereby liberated, then may we rationally expect to raise, even in time of war, the sup plies which our frugal institutions require, without recurring to the. hateful and destructive expedient of loans; then, and not till then, may we bid defiance to the world. The present moment is peculiarly auspicious for this great and desirable work. Now, if ever, the national debt is to be paid by such financial arrangements as will accelerate its extinction, by reaping the righ harvest of neutrality, and thus providing for that diminution of revenue which experience teaches us to expect, on the general pacification of Europe. And the committee indulge a hope, that, in the changed aspect of affairs in that quarter, Spain will find motives for a just fulfilment of her stipulations with us, and an amicable settlement of limits, upon terms not more beneficial to the U. States, than advantageous to herself, securing to her an ample barrier on the side of Mexico, and to us the countries watered by the Missisippi, and to the eastward of it. But whilst the committee perceive, in the general uproar of Europe, a state of things peculiarly favorable to the peaceful pursuit of our best interests, they are neither insensible to the indignity which has been offered on the part of Spain, nor unwilling to repel similar outrage. On the subject of self-defence, when the territory of the U. States is insulted, there can be but one opinion, whatever differences may exist on the question, whether that protection which a vessel finds in our harbors shall be extended to her, by the nation, in the Indian or Chinese seas! Under this impression, the committee submit the following resolution: the annexed letter from the Secretary of War will explain why it is not more exlicit.

"Resolved, That such number of troops (not exceeding

·) as the President of the U. States shall deem sufficient to protect the southern frontier of the U. States, from Spanish inroad and insult, and to chastise the same, be immediately raised."

Mr. R. said, that the peculiar situation of the frontier, at that time insulted, had alone induced the committee to recommend the raising of regular troops. It was too remote from the population of the country for the militia to act in repelling and chastising Spanish incursion. New Orleans, and its dependencies, were separated by a vast extent of wilderness from the settlements of the old U. States; filled with a disloyal and turbulent people, alien to our institutions, language and manners, and disaffected towards our government.Little reliance could be placed upon them, and it was plain, that if "it was the intention of Spain to advance on our possessions until she should be repulsed by an opposing force," that force must be a regular army, unless we were disposed to abandon all the country south of Tennessee: that if" the protection of our citizens and the spirit and the honor of our country required that force should be interposed," nothing remained but for the legislature to grant the only practicable means, or to shrink from the most sacred of all its duties to abandon the soil and its inhabitants to the tender mercy of hostile invaders.

Yet this report, moderate as it was, had been deemed of too strong a character by the House. It was rejected: and, at the motion of a gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Bidwell) [who had since taken a great fancy also to Canada, and marched off thither in advance of the Committee of Foreign Relations]" 2,000,000 of dollars were appropriated towards" (not in full of) "any extraordinary expense which might be incurred in the intercourse between the U. States and foreign nations ;" in other words, to buy off, at Paris, Spanish aggressions at home.

Was this fact given in evidence of our impartiality towards the belligerents? That to the insults and injuries and actual invasion of one of them we opposed, not bullets, but dollars: that to Spanish invasion we opposed money, whilst for British aggression on the high seas we had arms--offensive war, But Spain was then shielded, as well as instigated, by a greater power. Hence our respect for her. Had we at that time acted as we ought to have done in defence of our rights, of the natale solum itself, we should (he felt confident) have avoided that series of insult, disgrace and injury, which had been poured out upon us in long, unbroken succession. We would not then raise a small regular force for a country, where the militia could not act, to defend our own territory; now, we are willing to levy a great army, for great it must be to accomplish the proposed object, for a war of conquest and ambition-and this, too, at the very entrance of the "Northern Hive" of the strongest part of the Union. An insinuation had fallen from the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. Grundy) that the late massacre of our brethren on the Wabash had been instigated by the British government. Has the President given any such information? Has the gentleman received any such, even informally, from any officer of this government? Is it so believed by the administration? He had cause to think the contrary to be the fact; that such was not their opinion. This insinuation was of the grossest kind—a presumption the most rash-the most unjustifiable. Shew but good ground for it, he would give up the question at the threshold-he was ready to march to Canada. It was indeed well calculated to excite the feelings of the western people particularly, who were not quite so tenderly attached to our red brethren as some modern philosophers; but it was destitute of any foundation, beyond mere surmise and suspicion. What would be thought, if, without any proof whatsoever, a member should rise in his place and tell us, that the massacre in Savannah, a massacre perpetrated by civilized savages, with French commissions in their pockets, was excited by the French government? There was an easy and natural solution of the late transaction on the Wabash, in the well known character of the aboriginal savage of North America, without resorting to any such mere conjectural estimate. He was sorry to say, that for this signal calamity and disgrace the House was, in part, at least, answerable. Session after session, their table had been pil. ed up with Indian treaties, for which the appropriations had been

voted as a matter of course, without examination. Advantage had been taken of the spirit of the Indians, broken by the war which ended in the treaty of Grenville. Under the ascendency then acquired over them, they had been pent up by subsequent treaties into nooks, straightened in their quarters by a blind cupidity, seeking to extinguish their title to immense wildernesses --for which, (possessing, as we already do, more land than we can sell or use) we shall not have occasion, for half a century to come. It was our own thirst for territory, our own want of moderation, that had driven these sons of nature to desperation, of which we felt the effects.

Mr. Randolph, though not personally acquainted with the late Col. Daviess, felt, he was persuaded, as deep and serious regret for his loss as the gentleman from Tennessee himself. He knew him only through the representation of a friend of the deceased, (Mr. Rowan) sometime a member of that House: a man, who, for native force of intellect, manliness of character, and high sense of honor, was not inferior to any that had ever sat there. With him he sympathised in the severest calamity that could befal a man of his cast of character. Would to God! they were both then on the floor. From his personal knowledge of the one, he felt confident that he could have his support--and he believed, (judging of him from the representation of their common friend) of the other also.

He could but smile at the liberality of the gentleman, in giving Canada to New York, in order to strengthen the northern balance of. power, while at the same time he forewarned her that the western scale must preponderate. Mr. R. said he could almost fancy that he saw the Capitol in motion towards the falls of Ohio---after a short sojourn, taking its flight to the Missisippi, and finally alighting on Darien; which, when the gentleman's dreams are realized, will be ⚫ a most eligible seat of government for the new republic (or empire) of the two Americas! But it seemed that "in 1808 we talked and acted foolishly," and to give some color of consistency to that folly, we must now commit a greater. Really he could not conceive of a weaker reason offered in support of a present measure, than the justification of a former folly. He hoped we should act a wiser part--take warning by our follies, since we had become sensible of them, and resolve to talk and act foolishly no more. It was indeed high time to give over such preposterous language and proceedings.

This war of conquest, a war for the acquisition of territory and subjects, is to be a new commentary on the doctrine that republics are destitute of ambition-that they are addicted to peace, wedded to the happiness and safety of the great body of their people. But it seems this is to be a holiday campaign-there is to be no expense of blood, or treasure, on our part-Canada is to conquer herself-she is to be subdued by the principles of fraternity. The people of that country are first to be seduced from their allegiance, and converted into traitors, as preparatory to the making them good citizens. Although he must acknowledge, that some of our flaming patriots were thus manufactured, he did not think the process would hold good

with a whole community. It was a dangerous experiment. We were to succeed in the French mode, by the system of fraternization -all is French!--but how dreadfully it might be retorted on the southern and western slave-holding States. He detested this subornation of treason--No---if he must have them, let them fall by the valor of our arms, by fair legitimate conquest, not become the vic tims of treacherous seduction.

He was not surprised at the war spirit which was manifesting itself in gentlemen from the south. In the year 1806---6, in a struggle for the carrying trade of belligerent colonial produce, this country had been most unwisely brought into collision with the great powers of Europe. By a series of most impolitic and ruinous measures, utterly incomprehensible to every rational, sober-minded man, the southern planters, by their own votes, had succeeded in knocking down the price of cotton to seven cents, and of tobacco (a few choice, crops excepted) to nothing-and in raising the price of blankets, (of which a few would not be amiss in a Canadian campaign) coarse woollens, and every article of the first necessity, three or four hun dred per cent. And now that by our own acts we have brought ourselves into this unprecedented condition, we must get out of it in any way but by an acknowledgment of our own want of wisdom and forecast. But is war the true remedy? Who will profit by it? Speculators a few lucky merchants, who draw prizes in the lottery---commissaries and contractors. Who must suffer by it? The people. It is their blood, their taxes, that must flow to support it.

But gentlemen avowed that they would not go to war for the carrying trade that which carries our native products abroad, and brings back the return cargo,—and yet they stickle for our commercial rights, and will go to war for them? He wished to know in point of principle, what difference gentlemen could point out between the abandonment of this or that maritime right? Do gentlemen assumethe lofty port and tone of chivalrous redressers of maritime wrongs, and declare their readiness to surrender every other maritime right, provided they may remain unmolested in the exercise of the humble privilege of carrying their own produce abroad, and bringing back a return cargo? Do you make this declaration to the enemy at the outset? Do you state the minimum with which you will be contented, and put it in her power to close with your proposals at her option;, give her the basis of a treaty ruinous and disgraceful beyond example? and this too after having turned up your noses in disdain at the treaties of Mr. Jay and Mr. Monroe !! Will you say to England, "end the war when you please, give us the direct trade in our own 'produce, we are content." But what will the merchants of Salem and Boston, and New-York, and Philadelphia, and Baltimore, the men of Marblehead and Cape Cod, say to this? will they join in a war professing to have for its object what they would consider (and justly too,) as the sacrifice of their maritime rights, yet affecting to be a war for the protection of commerce ?

He was gratified to find gentlemen acknowledging the demoralizing and destructive consequences of the non-importation law-conféssing the truth of all that its opponents foretold when it was enacted--and will you plunge yourselves in war, because you have passed a foolish and ruinous law, and are ashamed to repeal it? "But our good friend the French emperor stands in the way of its repeal," and as we cannot go too far in making sacrifices to him, who has given such demonstration of his love for the Americans, we must, in point of fact, become parties to his war. "Who can be so cruel as to refuse him this favor ?"-His imagination shrunk from the miseries of such a connection. He called upon the House to reflect whether they were not about to abandon all reclamation for the unparalleld outrages," insults and injuries" of the French government-to give up our claim for plundered millions, and asked what reparation or atonement they could expect to obtain in hours of future dalliance, after they should have made a tender of their person to this great deflowerer of the virginity of republics. We had by our own wise (he' would not say Wise-acre) measures, so increased the trade and wealth of Montreal and Quebec, that at last we began to cast a wistful eye at Canada. Having done so much towards its improvement by the exercise of "our restrictive energies," we began to think the labourer worthy his hire, and put in claim for our portion. Suppose it ours-are we any nearer to our point? As his minister said to the King of Epirus, may we not as well take our bottle of wine before as after the exploit?" Go! march to Canada!-leave the broad bosom of the Chesapeake and her hundred tributary rivers-the whole line of sea coast from Machias to St. Mary's, unprotected:-You have taken Quebec-Have you conquered England? Will you seek for the deep foundations of her power in the frozen deserts of Labrador?

"Her march is on the mountain wave,
Her home is on the deep!"

Will you call upon her to leave your ports and harbors untouched, only just till you can return from Canada, to defend them? The coast is to be left defenceless, whilst men of the interior are revelling in conquest and spoil. But grant for a moment, for mere argument's sake, that in Canada you touched the sinews of her strength, instead of removing a clog upon her resources-an incumbrance, but one, which, from a spirit of honor, she will vigorously defend. In what situation would you then place some of the best men of the nation? As Chatham and Burke, and the whole band of patriots, prayed for her defeat in 1776, so must some of the truest friends to her country deprecate the success of our arms against the only power that holds in check the arch-enemy of mankind.

Mr. Randolph declared, that the committee had outstripped the executive. In designating the power against whom this force was to be employed; as had most unadvisedly been done in the preamble or manifesto with which the resolutions were prefaced; they had not