with other nations. And to entitle these experiments to the more favorable consideration, they were so framed as to enable her to place her adversary under the exclusive operation of them. To these appeals her government has been equally inflexible, as if willing to make sacrifices of every sort, rather than yield to the claims of justice or renounce the errors of a false pride. Nay, so far were the attempts carried, to overcome the attachments of the British Cabinet to its unjust ediets, that it received every encour- . agement, within the competency of the Executive branch of our government, to expect that a repeal of them would be followed by a war between the United States and France, unless the French ediets should also be repealed. Even this communication, although silencing forever the plea of a disposition in the United States to acquiesce in those edicts, originally the sole plea for them, received no attention. If no other proof existed of a predetermination of the British government against a repeal of its orders, it might be found in the eorrespondence of the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at London, and the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1810, on the question whether the blockade of May 1806 was considered as in force or as not in force. It had been ascertained that the French government which urged this blockade as the ground of its Berlin decree, was willing, in the event of its removal, to repeal that decree; which being followed by alternate repeals of the other offensive edicts, might abolish the system on both sides. This inviting opportunity for accomplishing an object so important to the United States, and professed so often to be the desire of both the belligerents, was made known to the British government. As that government admits that an actual force is necessary to the existence of a legal blockade, and it was notorious, that if such a force had ever been applied, its long discontinuance had annulled the blockade in question, there could be no sufficient objection on the part of Great Britain to a formal revocation of it; and no imaginable objection to a declaration of the fact that the blockade did not exist. The declaration would have been consistent with her avowed principles of blockade, and would have enabled the United States to demand from France the pledged repeal of her decrees; either with success, in which case the way would have been opened for a general repeal of the belligerent edicts; or without success, in which case the United States would have been justified in turning their measures exclusively against France. The British government would, however, neither rescind the blockade nor declare its non-existence; nor permit its non-existence to be inferred and affirmed by the American Plenipotentiary. On the contrary by representing the blockade to be comprehended in the orders in council, the United States were compelled so to regard it in their subsequent proceedings. There was a period when a favorable change in the policy of the British cabinet was justly considered as established. The Minis ter Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty here proposed an adjustment of the differences more immediately endangering the harmony of the two countries. The proposition was accepted with a promptitude and cordiality corresponding with the invariable professions of this government. A foundation appeared to be laid for a sincere and lasting reconciliation. The prospect, however, quickly vanished. The whole proceeding was disavowed by the British government without any explanation which could at that time repress 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 negociation 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 diflicult to account for the activity and combination which have for some time been developing themselves among the 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 U. S. would have found in her true interest alone, a sufficient motive to respect their rights and their tranquillity on the high seas; that an enlarged poliey would have favored 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 the other belligerents; and more especially that the British Cabinet would not, for the sake of a precarions and surreptitious intercourse with the 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 have 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 com mon 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, or returning 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 natural rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of events, avoiding all connexions which might entangle it in the contests or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable re-establishment 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 deliberation, I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and 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 decrces 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 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 greater advantage, on the course due to the rights, the interests, and the honor of our country. JAMES MADISON. Washington, June 1st, 1812. THE MANIFESTO. THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS, TO WHOM WAS REFER- TWELVE, REPORT THAT after the experience which the United States have had of the great injustice of the British government towards them, exemplified by so many acts of violence and oppression, it will be more difficult to justify to the impartial world the patient forbearance, than the measures to which it has become necessary to resort, to avenge the wrongs, and vindicate the rights and honor of the nation. You committee are happy to observe, on a dispassionate review of the conduct of the United States, that they see in it no cause for censure. If a long forbearance under injuries ought ever to be considered a virtue in any nation, it is one which peculiarly becomes the United States. No people ever had stronger motives to cherish peace: none have ever cherished it. with greater sincerity and zeal. But the period has now arrived, when the United States must support their character and station among the nations of the earth, or submit to the most shameful degradation. Forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. War on the one side, and peace on the other, is a situation as ruinous as it is disgraceful. The mad ambition, the lust of power, and commercial avarice of Great Britain, arrogating to herself the complete dominion of the ocean, and exercising over it an unbounded and lawless tyranny, have left to neutral nations an alternative only, between the base surrender of their rights, and a manly vindication of them. Happily for the United States, their destiny, under the aid of Heaven, is in their own hands. The crisis is formidable only by their love of peace. As soon as it becomes a duty to relinquish that situation, danger disappears--They have suffered no wrongs, they have received no insults, however great, for which they cannot obtain redress. More than seven years have elapsed, since the commencement of this system of hostile aggression by the British government, on the rights and interests of the U. nited States. The manner of its commencement was not less hostile, than the spirit with which it has been prosecuted. The U. S. have invariably done every thing in their power to preserve the relations of friendship with G. Britain. Of this disposition they gave a distinguished proof, at the moinent when they were made the victims of an opposite policy. The wrongs of the last war had not been They warned us of the danforgotten at the commencement of the present one. gers, against which it was sought to provide. As early as the year 1804, the Minister of the U. States at London was instructed, to invite the British government to enter into a negociation on all the points on which a collision might arise between the two countries, in the course of the war, and to propose to it an arrangement of their claims on fair and reasonable conditions. The invitation was accepted. A negociation had commenced and was depending, and nothing had occurred to excite a doubt that it would not terminate to the satisfaction of both the parties. It was at this time, and under these circumstances, that an attack was made, by surprise, on an important branch of the American commerce, which affected every part of the United States, and involved many of their citizens in ruin. The commerce on which this attack was so unexpectedly made, was between the United States and the colonies of France and Spain, and other enemies of Great Britain. A commerce just in itself; sanctioned by the example of G. Britain in regard to the trade with her own colonies; sanctioned by a solemn act between the two governments in the last war; and sanctioned by the practice of the British government in the present war, more than two years having then elapsed, without any interference with it. The injustice of this attack could only be equalled by the absurdity of the pretext alleged for it. It was pretended by the British government, that in case of war, her enemy had no right to modify its colonial regulations, so as to mitigate the calamities of war to the inhabitants of its colonies. This pretension, peculiar to Great Britain, is utterly incompatible with the rights of sovereignty in eve ry independent state. If we recur to the well established and universally admitted law of nations, we shall find no sanction to it, in that venerable code. The sorereignty of every state is co-extensive with its dominions, and cannot be abrogated, or curtailed in its rights, as to any part, except by conquest. Neutral nations have a right to trade to every port of either belligerent, which is not le gally blockaded; and in all articles which are not contraband of war. Such is the absurdity of this pretension, that your committee are aware, especially after the able manner in which it has been heretofore refuted, and exposed, that they would offer an insult to the understanding of the House, if they enlarged on it, and if any thing could add to the high sense of the injustice of the British government in the transaction, it would be the contrast which her conduct exhibits in regard to this trade, and in regard to a similar trade by neutrals with her own colonies. It is known to the world, that G. Britain regulates her own trade, in war and in peace, at home and in her colonies, as she finds for her interest--that in war she relaxes the restraints of her colonial system in favor of the colonies, and that it never was suggested that she had not a right to do it; or that a neutral in taking advantage of the relaxation violated a belligerent right of her enemy. But with G. Britain every thing is lawful. It is only in a trade with her enemies that the United States can do wrong. With them all trade is unlawful. In the year 1793 an attack was made by the British government on the same branch of our neutral trade, which had nearly involved the two countries in war. That difference however was amicably accommodated. The pretension was withdrawn, and reparation made to the United States for the losses which they had suffered by it. It was fair to infer from that arrangement that the commerce was deemed by the British government lawful, and that it would not be again disturbed. Had the British government been resolved to contest this trade with neutrals, it was due to the character of the British nation that the decision should be made known to the government of the United States. The existence of a negociation which had been invited by our government, for the purpose of preventing differences by an amicable arrangement of their respective pretensions, gave a strong claim to the notification, while it afforded the fairest opportunity for it. But a very different policy animated the then cabinet of England. The liberal confidence and friendly overtures of the United States were taken advantage of to ensnare them. Steady to its purpose and inflexibly hostile to this country, the British government calinly looked forward to the moment when it might give the most deadly wound to our interests. A trade just in itself, which was secured by so many strong and sacred pledges, was considered safe. Our citizens with their usual industry and enterprize had embarked in it a vast proportion of their shipping, and of their capital, which were at sea, under no other protection than the law of nations, and the confidence which they reposed in the justice and friendship of the British nation. At this period the unexpected blow was given. Many of our vessels were seized, carried into port and condemned by a tribunal, which while it professes to respect the law of nations, obeys the mandates of its own government, Hundreds of other vessels were driven from the ocean, and the trade itself in a great measure suppressed. The effect produced by this attack on the lawful commerce of the U. States was such as might have been expected from a virtuous, independent and highly injured people. But one sentiment pervaded the whole American nation. No local interests were regarded; no sordid motives felt. Without looking to the parts which suffered most, the invasion of our rights was considered a common cause, and from one extremity of our Union to the other, was heard the voice of an united people, calling on their government to avenge their wrongs, and vindicate the rights and honor of the country. From this period the British government has gone on in a continued encroachment on the rights and interests of the United States, disregarding in its course, in many instances, obligations which have heretofore been held sacred by civilized nations. In May, 1806, the whole coast of the continent from the Elbe to Brest inclusive, was declared to be in a state of blockade. By this act, the well-establishe ed principles of the law of nations, principles which have served for ages as guides, and fixed the boundary between the rights of belligerents and neutrals, were violated By the law of nations, as recognized by Great Britain herself, no blockade is lawful, unless it be sustained by the application of an adequate force, and |