University of South Carolina Libraries
?vf* ?*?** ' &| >' * 'V . .. . . ?JNfr JMmi _^m ?' _ '. V .\-v i .'*? ktbT*^ it.M hi ?? " V mm H i i 'i ??' ? i i' ir r< t'lM !?'?? i I. ' "' i' Mm' '- ? tNo'*'?] tsfssaaast i i 11, i, 'jr-mmmnessssjesBsssa muwu 1 BY THOMAS W. I.OKRAIN. ^ TVtmw if $i<brcrif>rion.?Thrt<i l>olla?t perwvvum, $*,}? nMo in a?lv<\nce....No paper to be ilitconUmtcd, but at the option of the Editor, until all arrearage*'?>? paid. Jl(htrtitemenit not exceeding fourteen line#, inserted the flr?t time for atvcnty4ve cent*, and forty cenufor each ?ubae<iuent insertion. I*ttrri to the Editor rtiiut ^postpaid,or tliepoetiiKewUlbecluu^eil to the w^t?. J-'-i?i? m. ..'..-im , ? h ' POLITICAL. . rNON'ttlK WriKjM 3IVKTMIV aSTIlfl|St' ?in K.yponfUon of th$ Caust$ and CharacUr nj the fate War with Great-firltain, Publish' cd by authority of the American Government fivo.pp. 101. Printed at Washington, ami ?reprinted in I<ondon for Clement. 1815. 8th edition. Priceffs. ^ Cordially do we hope that this publication will be one of the last that we shall have occasion to notice on the subject of our lato contest with the Americans. It was drawn up, we learn, in the beginning of the year 181.1, on the receipt of disMtehcH front their negotiators at Ghent, which seemed to leave them little expectation of making neace with us on safo or honorable terms j and it will bo recollected that their go vernment also published, in tho autumn of 1814, extracts from the dispatches of their plenipoten tiaries, containing demands on tho part of our envoys which were strongly censured in the British parliament and subsequently relinquish ed by our ministers. The Americans, however, taking it for granted that we should persist in what we had demanded, had begun to adopt measures for uniting all parties in a common cause, and for raising such a forco as might guard their frontier effcctMaUv from our at tacks: But these preparations were fortunately render ed unnecessary by tho arrival of intelligence that our government had consented to pcace on terms of reciprocity, and that a treaty was ac tually signed at Ghent in the end of December. An immediate stop was then put to tho publica tion of the present document, which hill been intended as a manifesto or appeal to the popula 'ar8? 1 it was kept carefully back until the ratification of the peace, and the ad justment of the principal articles of a treaty of commerce. After all tnese pacific arrangement*, it ought perhaps to have been buried in oblivion: but the majority of the American people still smarted under our injuries, and their rulers ap pear to have permitted the circulation of this long list of grievances as an offering or sacrifice to their wounded spirits. Of the different publications noticed by us in late years on the American question, none dis covered greater moderation at tho time, or have, approached more nearly in point of reasoni tire, result, than tho ?* tetters of a Cosmouol and the ?* by the same writer, which wefo reviewed In our Numbers for August 1810, and April 181& That author, who is as much a stranger to our corps as to the public, had tho merit of laving a temperate statement before his countrymen, at a time when all classes seemed blindedby a com mon enthusiasm against the claim* of the Ame ricans. Ilis arguments accordingly had little effect i but the " Kxposition" has appeared atamoro fortunate epoch i its .circulation has been very considerable f and it h*?,we are told, been productive of a very material change in the state of public feeling towards the" American go vernment Now that the return of pea'co has allowed us to judge coolly, and to receive a state ment of the opposite side of the question, Wo be gin to find Unit our ministers nr/ry have been to blame in the beginning of the contest f and that some of our officers ?nay, in its prosecution, nave forgotten those dictates of generosity and humanity which Are so congenial to the majority of our countr);,urn. In tat-t, the more wo exa mine the question, the more we shall be satisfied that the public have hitherto lieen strangely in the dark as to our quarrel with America \ and that tho language of our new s-papers has, in that respect, been about as deceptive as it is at present with regard to the ?tnte of Frunce?a country in which we know from direct advices that nil is tranquil at the time when those inge moiiH gentlemen, who I'm ? by keeping the public mind in a state of uncertainty, find it conveni ent to circulate rumors ofdlfsentions and insur rections. I hesc disinterested persons profess a strong predilection fyr measures of vigor, and declare themnoltes to he actuated on all orcasl on* by the purest patriotism t but, unluckily, their conscience* are not sufficiently tender to withhold them from tho unchristian practice of inflaming national animosities j nor is their mo desty such as to ledd to nn acknowledgement of error, after the ronduct of government lias shewn that they were strangers to the real'views of our cabinet. What measures were less within their calculation than tho repeal of the Orders in Council in June I ft 1 i>% or the conclusion of the Keace w ith America 12 months ago ? 'Hie public, ad in the one cn?e hcen taught to look on the grand restri. iion in question as the pillar of our salvation j while, on the other, they w>ere pre pared by the newspapers for nothing tdiovt of a new and most extensive scale of operations.*? >\c shall now endeavor to rftatr a lew particu lars calculated to dr*w tho Veil from these mys terious transactions. and to enable our readers to trace tho motive* &( the apparent contradic tions in tho measures of our government. Origin of our Orthr* In'i'ounrif^-fthc war which begnh in IWi.1, seemed from it# outset to have no definite prospect of termination ! Bona parte, proceeded in hU tone of preoption arid encroachment, while we,'however powerful at sea, seemed not likely to be abjo' ft Urn the tide of fortune o^inst him on the continent One year was thus likely to pass after another * our commerce was f,offering severely from the duudvanta^cs of a state of wor j and neutral.), particularly the Amertekns, navigstto? tier term*, without the^incumbrance ofconvoVa or tho burden of high inHur?nice, appeared in competition withus in every market, from the Baltic to Chink, Had our naval pfwer been 'ess pre-eminent, ire'might have consebted*to julopt the course pursued oy inferior belligerents^ vl*. that of carrying on m part of bar trade un der a neutral Hag, and reserving British ship >lng for particular branches, such ai the coast og and colonial navigation i but the doctrine of moderation is seldom palatable in the day of so riority \ we were all agreed in combatting the rant of the continent) and it seemed to mahy among us a better plan to nut a Hop to ntutral trade ultortther, than to steer a middle course by listening to thOpfctlent few who. Sought to prove that we should consult our interest by its toleration. To decide in this direct or (as we might almost say) abrupt manner is sufficiently natural to the mass of a people, but what aro we to think of ministers who yield to hasty impres sions, and venture to take measures o"f hostility without appreciating the consequences to those whom they are appointed to govern ? | In the vear 1805, MrKPitt, being aware of the complaints of our ship^^wnersy^nitl of the transaction oftraile between tlftrT^mc/ican* and j the French colonies was persuaded-to ial^c steps calculated to restrict that trsdo^witbin specific limits, lie was urged, we maVbiLJiwrtired, t? go much farther j but lie had by this time acqui red experience | and, though not possessed of sufficient command of time To examine a compli cated subject in all its relations, he was convin ced that the real consciences of interference with trade are generally very different from the apparent, lie was succeeded, in 1806, by men j who were disposed to cultivate a good under standing with America, but who were unluckily prevented, by the unwarrantable pretensions of j Bonaparto and the ferment cxhitinu among our selves, from acting as they would have wished, 'litis was accordingly the cera of several mea sures that were the sutyect of complaint from the Americans y who, howevety seemed to consider I them as only temporary* aqd negotiated under the belief that our ministers were ardently de sirous of an accommodation. ,Then came the | second change of ministry (May 1807,Vand the adoption of a system altogether new. The cau tion of Mr. Pitt, and the half-measures of the; Orenville ministry, were nOw treated as wholly unworthy ofa nation poss4sSifijt thedbjninion of the s?u and tho vMtace of xsj<on #*s no loHr ger to be resisted by the artnor of mod?ir*tion ?nd justice, but by {he adoption of corimMdr ihg violence CftOUr part. HencO the seizure of the Danish navy t which w*s applauded at the time, but has since bein bitterly lamented as tho Cadle of the delay of the co-operation ofP ,J i against France, or thoalienation OfHorira; Ifcjntiiark, and of an nihMppjr spirit Of I ment engendered againifr ua in the Utter coun try. From the same chsngeof ay stem arose the j measures against the Americans;?measures ascribed by our niswspaper writers, and even by some of our parliamentary orators, to the neces sity of retaliating Bonaparte's violence, but which were in contemplation among ourselves long before he took any steps for tho execution of htB prohibitory decrees. If we turn to the evidence nrinexed to the report of a committee I of the House of Cprimotis in July 1807, oh West I India affairs, we shall find that the committee in [question had been occupied, during that and the preceding month, in examining a number of wit nesses concerning the possibility of excluding [the Americans altogether from our sugar colo nies ) an oxclutidn whibfcdould n4yer have been in contemplation fcJtho'Ut an accompanying res triction on American navigation at large 1 while it is matter of notoriety among the well inform ed merchants Of ^ondon, that, during the ittm mer of 1807, repeated interviews And communi cations tbok place between merchants and men in office on the probable consenuouces of such a measure. The ship owners called for it loudly : hut the apprehension of losing an export of ten or 12,000,0001. annually to the United States, proved, in another quarter, the cause of consi derable delav and enquiry. The object t>f mi nisters, in these interviews, was to ascertain whether we coubl not find means of conveying our manufactures directly to the countries, par ticularly to 8|Mtnish America, whither they had hitherto been imported by merchants of the Uni I ted States. The dates of these transactions are recorded in the proceedings of the ship owners l and of the Boar<l of Trade'} and from the whole it is clear that the stoppage of the American I trade was not the result of the extravagant de crees of Bonaparte, hut ofa plan previously de vised among ourselves. ?? The pride of navnl superiority, (nays the Exposition, p. 4*1) " rind the craving# of com mercial monopoly, gave, after all, flic impulse itiil direction to the council* of the British cabi net \ while the vast, although visionary projects of France, furnished occasions and pretexts fur accomplishing the object# of those councils." We arc w{(lirtg?for tlic sake of simplifying the discussion, to wave alt enquiry into the Justice or Injustice of our orders in council, and shall consider merMy their policy. 'Iliey were dicta ted hy ^belief among cerium individuals, piulry merchants, p&rtly men in office, partly lawyers, (among tvhom one of the mofct conspicuous was Mf. Stephetn) that " It wa? perfectly practica ble for ns to maintain our export trade without the aid Of the .Americans, and trf control hy mean* of licences the extent to which it should please us to allow Vrance to traffic with other natiorfs." It wftn admitted (hat the operation of such a measure might in tlm outset be aul>joctto partial disadvantage*: but it? final tendency could not, it wan alleged, he otherwise than 1k* nefkial to the country. 'Hie odium of the vio. lent part was thrown on Napoleon j and encou ragement was indirectly given to that spirit of of*America* which actuated (ho leas en 1 men of tho city, as well as politician* rT-V'" elm attho west end of the tow A.?* c?mo accordingly, in the Oaxclto of 11 tit i??tewMr. 1807. our far famed o-ders $?the ttxt of which, boing too much in the law style for the habits of mti? of tailiness, was succeeded by a commentary which rivalled In obscurity the oHgiiiat composition. Wo are in the next place to contrfdor the ? i Effects of the Orderh in Council.?If the Ian* liago of these decrees was doubtful, urac hal operation was soon described in very legi ble character*. Failure on failure took place in our manufacturing towns) and matters came at IMt, in tho spring and summer of 1808, to such a length as to produec petitions for peucn from nlen who were well known to bo most cordial in their Imtred of the Continental oppressor. These petitions caused many to waver, anil might have given a shock to tho system,"had not the change ofaffairs in Spain produced the effect of open ing, at once, the trans-Atlantiu possessions of that monarchy to our exports. Now begau ship Irtents to Caraccas, to Brazil, to Buenos Ayres,; and an arithmetical increase in our custom bouse books which nut the advocates of the Orders in Council in u triumphant altitude. " I have no oMection." said one of them in Parliament, " to acknowledge my participation in a measure which has been instrumental in adding so many Millions to the exports of the country." This pleasing dream continued during year 1809 ; ' a year," said Mr. G. Chalmers, 44 the most prosperous to us in nil that constitutes opulence throughout the effluxion of half a century."? These gentlemen, however, did not take" into account the difficulty of getting returns for their liberal shipment* t Sir. Ma weliad not then pub lished his precious information (gpe M. It. vol. li xii. p. 3450 on the state of the Brazil trade \ a id the oracle of the day was Sir Home Pop h imTs celebrated epistle from Buenos Ayres to ?lie Mayor of Birmingham. We were roused, h mover from these delightful visions, by the c dl of the manufacturer in the spring of 1810 oi the exporting merchant for payment /?a call syon followed by a long string of bankruptcies, which took their rise from the middle of that ?y Bar. It was then that we learned that it was 0 lo thing to make sales, and another thing to rualifce their amount t that there exist a difter e \&>\n dealing between North and South-Ame V <E*| and thfcithe latter, whatever maybe its ii iportance to ihe rieXt generation, is not likely t< be of much ad vantage to the traders ofour dn v. |.TKehsbits of* merchant are, it is well known, ?Attef fitted for the practical performance of in "idual tranlactions than for a conception of tendency of general measures. Cabinet Mora alio come generally into office without IplentipftfpaVaiidn^nd,. when in place, arc mt^n abiorded bjr an incessant routine to <?xrry their reflections into remote consequences, lo complete our perplexity, it unluckily Imp Dens that the principles of commerce are' very 1 little ftuditd by those honorable persons, who flgur^lO dexterously in the management of their respective boroughs, or acquit themselves sogracefully at a levee. It would be otherwise impossible to account for thatsilonoe and misap prehension which prevailed so long in parlia ment with regard to the mischief caused by the Orders in CouncllrHI ttlschief which was point* ed out, in a convincing tone, by one member only, viz. Mr. Baring, That gentleman ex plained, In his pauiphtet cm Ac Orders in Coun cil, that of all the shipment* of merchandize made by America to France, Holland and other parts of Kurope, more than two thirds wen re mitted in blU? or money to England, and invest ed in the purchase of our manufactures t while to stop this trade would be to stop thoso remittan ces which afforded funds for our foreign garri sons, for the subsidies to our allies, and for tho supplies to our squadrons in the Mediterranean and other foreign stations. It would, in fact, lie to overthrow that powerful counterpoise which had hithorto corrected on the continent the irre gularity of our money-system, and prevented our bank paper from fulling into discredit. All these consequences, with the time and mode of oj?eration, have already been explained in our pages i more particularly in vol. lix. page 06, vol. Ixili. i?. 289, vol. Ixvili. pp. CGand 378 j and we have thus tho satisfaction of having embra ced an early opportunity of warning the public of the impending iujury. It would lie superflu ofts to recapitulate what has been already stated) and we shall confino ourselves at present to an attempt to calculate tho amount of the loss cau sed to us by the Orders in Council, and the con sequent war with America. The more we re flect on this result, the more we shall be surpri sed at its inagnitudc, and at the variety of wwts in which injury has been sustained i it seem* to meet us in every shape, whother direct or indi rect. Wc have suffered by I.?l. Los* of exports to the United States during six years, from 1808 to 1814. 2. Bank ruptcies in Orcat Britaincausedby thentoppago of the American trade during all these years^ 3. Deflcioncesin tho income tax,and others con sequent on these bankruptcies. 4. Bankrupt cies in America among the debtors of British merchants. (This, though little known, has been a very serious part of our loss.) 3. |)imi nished consumption ofour manufactures from ri val establishments in t)io IJ. States. 0. Bank ruptcies on the continent .of Kuropc among the debtors of Britihh merchants, consequent on our Orders in Council. II.?1. I.oss to government <fii its continental expenditure from 1809 to 1813, by the foil of the exchange, 2. Los* to government in loans from the reduced price of stock since 1810 j a reduc tion owing chiefly to two muse*-?mercantile distress, and the enormous addition to our ex penditure abroad from the depreciation of bank note*, F.xtia price of foreign good*, paid ns it him been in a depredated currency, during the last seven years. ' III.?1. Expenses of the American war. C. Captures of our merchantmen, and other pri vate loskes daring that war. A part of thin distressing enumeration, \vu meat) that which Is mentioned under No. 11. was aggravated bjr other circumstances j?fiz. thu suuden demand of aid from Spain, the failure of our harvestIn 1809, and the reduction of our continental exports by Bonaparte's prohibitory j decrees. The chief nourco of the evil, however, or ruther the grand cause of the absence of a remedy, was our stoppage of the American trado to the continent, with Hie consequent depriva tion of the ample fund of which it woulu havo procured for us the remittance. Three years ago,(see M. It. vol. Ixviii. p.379} we computed the amount of the losses caused by our Orders in Council at one hundred mil lions starling ; but, since that time, we have lmd to pity immense sums in Spain. Germany and [the Netherlands,at a disadvantageous exchange, and to bear all the burden of the American con test. Shall wo, then, be accused of exnggera 1 tion in calculating the whole of tin? Ions sustain ed, from the first to the last, by these unfortu nate Orders, at two hundred millions sivling. How, it may be said, was it |H>ssible that go verninentshould allow such pernicious measures to continue in operation during such a number of years ? They thought for a time that they were injuring Prance j and when at last they found that we were injuring ourselves, tbc dis covery camo too late ;?the error, in which we so long persisted, had led us like Donaparte at Mobcow, into a situation from which we had no escape. Lord Liverpool, however, having stu | died the true principles of commerce, ana see ing farther into their cotiftetjuences than his pre | decessors, repealed the Orders in Council im mediately on being appointed to the first place in the cabinet; and lie repealed them not from* any change In our political situation, (for Bona parte was still triumphant,) and not, as far as we know, from any new light thrown on them Iby parliamentary discust*jns, but from a con viction that" whatever shackles the free course | of commerce must be of the greatest injury to Rutland, the country of all others the most be* j nehtted by commerce." Unfortunatel v, his re | cal came too late, the Americans having alrea dy declared war. It U expressly admitted in the document before us, (p. OH) that " had their repeal been made known to the United Statea before their resort to arms, it would have nr ! rested it; and, that cause of war being reniov | cd, the other essential cause, the practice of iin | pressment, would have been the subject of re viewed negotiation." If it We asked, why did not the Americans do after the commencement of the war that which they would have done before it ? wc vital I by no mcnn*Hcek to justify their icfusal. We may, however, easily account for it by t'?e exaspera (ion caused by recent events. "Great Ilritnin," nayn their government manifesto, p. Hi, " had converted the commercial scenes of American opulence and prosperity into scenes of compa rative poverty anu distress j she had brought the existence of the United States as an iftae pendent nation into question.*' We seam to ' nave little reason for doubting, that the execu tive government in America waa (desirous of getting oat of the w^r Msoon *$ ft 'ascertained the repeal of our Otrdfrt ift Council: luit the people in the middle ??id southern States, and. in consequence, the majority of the member* of Contort, were fn a very different disposition. From tMs timc forwards, therefore, we had no other tholco than to meet force by force j and our only satisfaction, amid the mutual havoc that enftued, was that we hail now a ministry diiqKised to mako peace on fair terms. In ?!?? cliningonr offers, and particularly the armistico proposed by Hir John Warren in 1812, the A* mericans assumed the tone which had characte rised our government a few years before. The Marquis or Wcllesley and Mr. Canning had ta ken it for granted that the United States would submit to any thing rather than hazard a ?rar ; nay, that war would be ridiculous on the part of a country, whtfch had neither army nor navy.? On the o'ther handy the Americans now mado sure of the conquert of Canadaj they anticipa ted it in their diplomatic notes j and they per sisted in their attempts even aftor repeated o verthrows. It would be unpleasant to u* 19 dwell on the ovents of such a contest t and wn shall merely remark, that it happened, by a sin gular coincidence, that fortune declared against each party as it ventured to assume flic offen sive ) since we failed, in our turn, when we ad vanced beyond the Canadian line, and when wi ' attempted an attack on New-Orleans. F It uid not suit the views of the American go vernment to make a distinction lietwecn one let: of Ilritiftli ministers and another. - Their object was to unite the people in a common causet ami it is amusing to sec them charge a cabinet, in which we reckon such pacific councilor* a* l/?t Midmouth and Mr. Vansfctart, with the ruthless projects of their predecessors. It is 110 part of our duty, or our intention, to express admiration of our present administrators ; but neither tho violent character assumed by the war during tho last year of operations, nor the ra-di enter. ftrisc on New-Orleans, appears to ns impotable o thein. Hostility to America had been che rished among us iii former years 1 and the sum of ministerial culpability seems to be mnflned to a passiveness of conduct in not opposing their ntvn Conviction to the impulse of national feel-* ing. It it only by this deference to public sen timent, that wc can account for the lofty tono assumed in ,..trliainent by Lord nathuro't and. hia Coadjutors, in defence of our vindictive o perations 1 a tone tho more extraordinary as wm were then on the evo of signing the peace at Ohent. A similar reason may je;vc to explain