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The French in their negociations for peace, made a compention for those vessels for a long time a sine qua non, and the refusal of Great Britain certainly protracted the war. The fortune of arms finally compelled France to give way; but this has not altered the character of the transaction.... The voice of impartial posterity will class it among the depredations of brigands and pirates.

The gentleman has endeavored to extenuate the enormi, ties of Great Britain, by a representation of the conduct of the French minister in this country, and the general sensibili, ty excited in favor of our French revolution. With the conduct of any foreign minister here. Great Britain had nothing to do, unless that conduct was hostile to her interests, and sanctioned by our government. The sensibility in favor of France, at the commencement of the revolution, was not peculiar to this country....it existed in every enlightened part of the world, and flourished luxuriantly in England. It is true that the events of the revolution were sanguinary and disgraceful; but its principles being in favor of the establishment of a free government, was calculated to gain respect and approbation. With regard to the French minister, (GENET) his conduct was doubtless disagreeble to the President, and his recal was solicited. Our minister in France, (Mr. G. MORRIS) was equally disagreeable to the constituted authorities of that country, and his recal was also solicited. The former was charged with associating with democrats and disorganisers; the other with royalists and aristocrats! The one was said to aim at the overthrown of our administration; the other was charged with opposing the principles of the revolution. The one was blamed for visiting the halls of democratic societies; the other for loitering in the regal chambers of the Thuilleries. ....The one was inculpated as the minister and agent of anarchy and confusion....The other as the patron and advocate of monarchy and privileged orders....a composition was made, and it was agreed that both should be withdrawn.... But what effect could this possibly have on the temper or policy, or interest of the British court.... The minister at Paris was perhaps as beneficial to their cause, as the minister at Philadelphia was injurious; and certainly they gained nothing by the nominal recal. The tone of Great Britain to this country was lowered, not by incidents of this kind, but by the events of Europe;....by the total frustration of the projects of the crowned heads, leagued together to destroy the sovereignty of the people; and Jay's treaty, bad and disgraceful as it was,

would never have been agreed to, or rather no treaty would have been made, with this country, had it not been for the defeat of the duke of York, before Dunkirk, and the subsequent disasters which befel the British arms. The gentleman indeed went out of his way, to tell us that a man of high talents was sent to Great Britain to negociate....that a treaty was formed....that it was opposed with great virulence, but finally adopted; and the gentleman continued to go out of his way, and to inform us, that the negociator was elected governor of New York, where he presided for a long time with great honor and advantage, and left behind him an example worthy of imitation....I shall not, sir, speak of the negociator or of his negociations, in the terms I would do if he were present to defend himself; but since I am compelled in vindication of the state I represent, to say something, I may surely be permitted to observe, that the British treaty was neither honorable nor advantageous to this country;....that the negociator was ignorant of the growth of cotton in the United States, which is one of our most valuable exports;....that the list of contraband articles was most improperly extended ;....that it was put in the power of Great Britain to say when provisions should be deemed contraband ;....that the great and important principle to neutral commerce, free ships free goods, was abandoned ;.... and generally, that reciprocity was in a great measure overlooked. Notwithstanding it was deemed good policy to ratify this pernicious instrument, it was not done without expunging one of its most degrading provisions. The councils of the country hesitated for a long time....although time has purged the visual ray of the gentleman, (Mr. Ross) and discovered to him great beauties in the treaty, yet at that period, I well recollect, for he was then first bursting into general notice, it was supposed that he was unfriendly to it; and that expediency alone exacted his assent. We know that Gen. Washington was prevailed upon by the circumstances of the times, to sign it, and that he elected it only as a lesser evil than war. The negociator was indeed elected governor of New York, but it was before the contents of the treaty were promulged....If they had been known, his chance of success would have been forlorn....At the subsequent election he was withdrawn! The odium attached to his conduct as a negociator, had been softened down by time, and it was in the year 1798, during the memorable reign of terror....when the minds of men were worked up to a state of phrenzy, and reason was ejected from her throne.... My excellent friend (Chancellor LIVINGSTON) as much superior

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to him as Hyperion to a Satyr, was the candidate on the repub lican side. On the brink of our election the gossipping report of the famous triple ambassadors, who held conferences, not with the regular authorities of the country to which they were sent, but with the valets and understrappers of Talleyrand, reached this country. The wonderful discoveries they made were magnified by the political necromancy which at that time deluded the public mind....and it was industriously reported at our polls, that treasonable correspondence had been detected....that the leading characters of the opposition were engaged in an attempt to yield up this country to the domination of France....that their own letters were sent over to the United States, and that Mr. Livingston was amongst the most conspicuous of these traitors!.... Judge of the effects which these hell-born calumnies were likely to have on a people jealous of their country's honor. Mr. Jay prevailed in his election, but when the intelligence and patriotism of the state were permitted to have a free and fair operation, his incompetency became notorious....he was found unqualified to hold the reins of state. The men of observation of his own party knew it, and lamented it....and he fell like Lucifer, never to rise again....He declined another election, because he had sagacity to perceive the working of the waters....He wisely retired from the contest, and avoided the fate which candidates of greater temerity in some of the neighboring states justly experienced.*

In order to shew that the Spanish aggressions were dif ferent from the present, and that our government pursued a different course, the gentleman has told us, that the treaty had not been executed, and that the government had directed a body of troops to fall down the Mississippi. I know that lieutenant Pope went down to the Natches, with a detachment, certainly not large enough to take possession of that place, and to guard our commissioner, Mr. Ellicott, in running the boundary line; but he certainly never went out of our territory, nor was he ever directed to strike at N. Orleans. The obligations of the treaty demanded and enforced its execution as strongly as they require the observance of all its provisions after it had been carried into operation.... The breach of faith is the same ...the injury the same....the dishonor the same. Two years and upwards, by the gentleman's own admission, we were deprived of the right of deposit, in contravention of the trea

Mr. Ross was the unsuccessful candidate for the Pennsylvania government chair.

ty; and what did our government then do? Did the honorable gentlemen carry fire and sword into the territories of Spain? Did they then cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war? No, no; they sent lieutenant Pope, and a lieutenant's command, down the Mississippi, with their swords sheathed, and their bayonets unfixed; all was then modest stillness and humility; the blast of war was not blown in our ears....nor did they stiffen the sinews, and summon up the blood.

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Nor will it form any solid excuse for the then administration, as it respects France, to say with the honorable gentleman, that no essential right was invaded by that nation. Are not the rights of commerce and the rights of embassy, essential rights? and were they not vitaliy attacked and wounded? And if there was a strong party at that time opposed to war with France, there is a vast majority of the American people opposed to a rupture with Spain now. The administration, indeed, evinced at last, some disposition to retaliate the injuries which were heaped upon us; but they acted " as if willing to wound and yet afraid to strike." the midst of their feeble attacks....warlike preparations....and vaunting rhodomontade," the rock on which the storm might beat," gave way....a new triple embassy was sent....and the consequences are known to all who hear me. Away then with your empty declamation....with your hyperbolical rant about national honor and national rights!... You then drank the cup of humiliation to its very dregs!... You then suffered real wounds upon the honor of the country....and you bore it patiently.... When you were smitten on one cheek you turned the other....and now, when a subordinate officer, distant from his country three thousand miles, and probably acting from his own impulse, interdicts a right to be enjoyed without our territories, you come forward and give us lectures upon national honor, and vaunt about taking up arms!

I now turn to my honorable colleague, and cannot refrain from congratulating my country for giving birth to so sublime an intellect....Scorning the restraint of common rules, he has started from them with brave disorder, and giving the wing to a lofty fancy, has ascended into the regions of conjecture far beyond the ken of human observation. He tells us all the world is under the dominion or the fear of Bonaparte.....that the states of Russia, Austria, Prussia and Great Britain are the only ones which have not entirely lost an independent character....but that even they have retired from the contest worsted and faint hearted...that the first Consul is conducted to the

gratification of an insatiable ambition by a more than common capacity.... that Louisiana will enable him to establish that ascendancy in the western, which he has already acquired in the eastern hemisphere....and that unless the United States imitate the conduct ascribed by the hon. gentleman from Pennsylvania, to Washington, and place themselves between the nations of the earth and the destroyer, as he is said to have placed himself between the people and the pestilence, the balance of the great communities of mankind will be deranged.... and the world will be enthralled in the vortex of an all devouring, all destroying despotism....Sublime, sir, as these speculations may appear to the eyes of some, and high sounding as they may strike the ears of many, they do not affect me with any force. In the first place, I do not perceive how they bear upon the question before us....it merely refers to the seizure of New Orleans, not to the maintenance of the balance of power. Again.... Of all characters, I think, that of a conquering nation least becomes the American people. What, sir, shall America go forth like another Don Quixotte to relieve distressed nations, and to rescue from the fangs of tyranny the powerful states of Britain, Spain, Austria, Italy, the Netherlands? Shall she, like another Phaeton, madly ascend the chariot of empire and spread desolation and horror over the world? Shall she attempt to restrain the career of a nation which my honorable colleague represents to have been irresistible, and which he declares has apalled the British lion and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria? Shall she wantonly court destruction and violate all the maxims of policy which ought to govern an infant and free republic? Let us, sir, never carry our arms into the territories of other nations, unless we are compelled to take them up in self defence. A pacific character is of all others most important for us to establish and maintain. With a sea coast of 2000 miles, indented with harbors, and lined with cities....with an extended commerce, and with a population of six millions only, how are we to set up for the avengers of nations? Can gravity itself restrain from laughter at the figure which my honorable colleague would wish us to make on the theatre of the world? He would put a fool's cap on our head and dress us up in the parti-colored robes of a Harlequin, for the nations of the earth to laugh at....and after all the puissant knights of the times have been worsted in the tournament, by the Orlando Furioso of France, we must then, forsooth, come forward and console them for their defeat by an exhibition of our follies, I look, sir, upon all the dangers we have heard

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