Mr. LLOYD.-Mr. President, the amendments proposed by the committee to whom this bill has been referred, having been gone through with, I now beg leave to offer a new one, by an additional section, to the following effect: Be it further enacted, That the President of the United States be, and he hereby is, authorized to cause to be built as speedily as may be, on the most approved model,frigates, not exceeding thirty-six guns each; and that a sum not exceeding dollars be, and the same is hereby appropriated for building the said frigates, out of any moneys in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated." It is my intention, sir, to move for twenty new frigates; but the number I have left blank, in order, should the Senate be favorably disposed to an increase of the Navy, and disagree with me as to the degree of that increase, they might regulate the number at their pleasure. Sir, I have been induced to offer this amendment from an impulse of duty towards my more immediate constituents, and also from a sense of the obligation imposed upon me, however feebly I may be able to respond to it, in the honorable station in which I am placed, to endeavor to the extent of my ability to support the dignity, protect the rights, and advance the best interests of the United States. Sir, I trust the amendment under consideration, if adopted, would have a relation, and a favorable relation, to all these objects. FEBRUARY, 1812. force is as indispensable, nay much more indispensable, than a land force. A few days since there was exhibited to the Senate an account of sales of three hundred and eighty hogsheads of tobacco and a parcel of cotton, recently disposed of in the dominions of his Majesty the Emperor of France, who professes so much affection for the United States, from which it appeared, that the tobacco, which cost with the charges near $20,000, was not only totally sunk to the adventurers, but involved them in an additional loss for the payment of the expenses of near one thousand dollars more-of the cotton, fifteen sixteenth parts were also sunk. Nor did this arise from a bad state of markets, the hazard of which merchants must always take, for the markets were unprecedently high. The tobacco, which could have been bought in the United States from 24 to 5 dollars per cwt. sold at twenty dollars-and the cotton, which could have been purchased at ten cents, sold at fifty cents the pound. The loss arose solely from the perfidy and rapacity of the French Government, in seizing upon the greater part of both the adventures, under a pretence for the payment of duties, which it shifts ad libitum as suits either its avarice or caprice, or promulgates or withholds as best answers its purposes. 6 Sir, you will remark that these accounts of sale bear date July 15, only eight days antecedent to the information communicated to the American Government by Mr. Serrurier, in his letter to Mr. Monroe of July 23, 1811, in which he states, that "the introduction of tobacco is not prohibited in France-it forms the first object of culture of some of the States of the Union, and His Majesty, having an equal interest in the prosperity of all, ' desires that the relations of commerce should be common to all parts of the Federal territory." Yes, sir, this is indisputably the sort of interest which His Majesty is pleased to take in the commerce of the United States, and this the sort of benefit, which he, without doubt, would delight to render common to all parts of the Federal territory. * If it be not the determination of the Government to engage in an open, actual, efficient war; to place the nation in such a complete state of preparation as may avert war, from our state of readiness to meet it; then the measures of the This information was given in too authentic a present session, those of filling up the existing shape to admit of its being questioned; it came Military Establishment, and thereby adding to it from one of the most respectable mercantile houses between six and seven thousand men, that of en- in the country, composed of Federalists, and was listing a standing army of twenty-five thousand made known to you by an honorable member of men to serve for five years, unless sooner dis- the Senate from Maryland, (Mr. SMITH,) of oppocharged of providing for the employment of site politics, and who has long in some sort been fifty thousand volunteers, and of holding in read- considered or respected as the commercial organ of iness one hundred thousand of the militia, would this House, if not of the Government. When these be not only inexcusable, but nearly treasonable; facts were stated, the colleague of the gentleman, as they would in such case, without any adequate (Mr. REED,) with the manly frankness of a soldier, object, impose severe and heavy burdens upon of a man who, in the times which tried men's souls, the people of the United States, from which years devoted himself both soul and body to the service of the highest degree of prosperity would not of his country-who entered your Army at the relieve them. But, sir, I am bound to believe, commencement, and continued in it to the termithat, unless redress be obtained, it is the determination of the Revolutionary war, with great usenation of the Government of the United States to enter into an actual, vigorous, real war, or at any rate to put the nation into a perfect state of readiness to commence it, should it be necessary; and in either of these cases, an efficient naval fulness to the public and reputation to himself— with that integrity which characterizes him, after giving vent to the honest indignation of his heart, *Messrs. Robert Gilmore & Sons, of Baltimore. in a phillipic against the Emperor of France, which I shall not repeat, but which was as well placed as it was justly merited; he asked, "if this was to be the state of your commerce after a war with Great Britain, what in the name of God were you going to war for?" His colleague (Mr. SMITH) rose immediately and said, this was not to be a war for commerce; it would be absurd to suppose the nation was now going to war for commerce-commerce had been abandoned long ago, the trade to France was worth nothing; and if the Orders in Council were off to-morrow, if the same system continued, the trade to France would be worth nothing. This was to be a war for honor-we are now going to fight for our honor! Yes, sir, part of this is too true, commerce has been abandoned, commerce has been made the scape-goat, on whose back have been piled all the erudities and follies of mistaken theory and visionary speculation, and thus laden, she has been sent adrift into the wilderness to be lacerated by every briar or bramble, that could rob her of her coat, or plant a thorn in ber carcass. No country on earth, in the same period of time, and under sinilar circumstances, ever reaped one half the benefits from commerce which have been experienced by the United States. Without adverting to the effect it has had on the extension and embelishment of your populous cities-without adverting to the encouragement it has offered to your agriculture and to the settlement of your wilderness, which has been made to blossom like the rose, and in all which it has been in a high degree instrumental-look at the records of the Treasury, and you will there see, that commerce has put into your public coffers, during the short period that has intervened since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, two hundred millions of dollars-a sum nearly three times as great as the national debt of the United States, the price of your independence, as it was funded at the commencement of the Federal Government. Sir, this is what commerce has done for youwhat have you done for commerce? In the year 1793, when Great Britain depredated upon your commerce, you had a man at the head of your Government who fought no battles with paper resolutions, nor attempted to wage war with commercial restrictions, although they were then pressed upon him. He caused it to be distinctly and with firmness made known to Great Britain, that if she did not both cease to violate our rights, and make us reparation for the wrongs we had sustained-that young and feeble as we then were, just in the gristle, and stepping from the cradle of infancy, we would try the tug of war with her. What was the consequence? Her depredations were stopped-we made a treaty with her, under which we enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. Our claims were fairly heard, equitably adjudged, and the awards were honorably and punctually paid to the sufferers. In this instance you did something for commerce. Next came the war with Tripoli-the Barbary States preyed upon our commerce-you deter mined to resist, and despatched a small squadron to SENATE. the Mediterranean; this ought to have been considered as the germ of your future maritime greatness: the good conduct and bravery of that squadron, and the self-immolation of some of its officers, spread the renown of your naval prowess to all quarters of the civilized globe. What did you in this instance? At the moment when victory had perched upon your standard-when you might have exhibited the interesting spectacle of the infant Government of the United States holding in subjugation one of the Powers of Barbary, to whom all Europe had been subservient-at this moment, when conquest was completely within your grasp-civil agency stepped in-the laurel was torn from the brow of as gallant a chieftain as ever graced the plains of Palestine, and we ignominiously consented to pay a tribute, where we might have imposed one. Then came the Louisiana convention; in which, after purchasing a disputed title to a Territory, and paying double what any other nation would have given for it, we were permitted by France to put our hands in our pockets and take out three millions of dollars more to pay to our own citizens their claims for property which she had plundered from them. How was this conducted? Much in the same sort of spirit in which it was begun. Those of the claimants who were on the spot, or who had efficient agents there, who well understood the avenue to the back stairs; who could delude others, and purchase for a song claims they were sure of having allowed; who could intrigue well, bribe well, and swear well, got fortunes; while the honest unsuspecting merchant, confiding in the correctness of his claim, and the integrity of his own conduct, got nothing; and, very probably, some of the latter may now be seen wandering as beggars through the streets of your populous cities, the pavement of which is made to echo, by the rattling of the chariot wheels of those who have defrauded them. After this, you had the Berlin decree, the Orders in Council, the Milan decree, the Rambouillet decree, the depredations of Spain, the robberies even of the renegado black chief of St. Domingo, and the unprovoked and still continued plunder of Denmark, a nation of pirates from their origin. What cause of complaint has Denmark, or ever had Denmark, against us? Her most fond and speculative maritime pretensions we have willingly espoused, and yet she continues daily to capture and condemn our vessels and cargoes, and contemptuously tells us, that the Government of the United States is too wise to go to war for a few merchant ships. And this we bear from a people as inferior to the United States in all the attributes of national power or greatness, as I am inferior to Hercules. Yes, sir, commerce has been abandoned, else why prohibit your merchants from bringing the property, to a large amount, which they have fairly purchased and paid for, into the ports of our country, else why, by this exclusion, perform the double operation of adding to the resources of the enemy you are going to war with and impoverishing your own citizens. SENATE. Increase of the Navy. FEBRUARY, 1812. In 1808, the unfortunate embargo year, In 1809 In 1810 2,550,000 8,750,000 10,750,000 Yes, sir, the gentleman from Maryland is right, but he has no especial reason of complaint; from his situation and standing, he should naturally have been the guardian and protector of commerce in this House; he should have raised his powerful voice in her favor; he should have opened his arms for her protection. He did raise his voice, but for merely her extinction, not for her encouragement; he did open his arms, but he gave her the clasp of death, not that of protection. The embargo, the enforcing act, the non-intercourse act, the non-importation act, and all that ill-omened brood of measures, number that gentleman among their patrons and sup-ly more abundant harvest than the country ever porters. In 1811, the last year, amid all our vegetable export, she takes scarcely any; but a market furnished almost exclusively by Great Britain for her own supply, and that of the countries under her possession. Yes, sir, commerce has been abandoned, "de-it to, not afforded, however, by France, for, of our before produced, with a glorious market to carry serted in her utmost need, by those her former bounty fed." Yes, sir, she has been abandoned. She has been left as a wreck upon a strand, or as a derelict upon the waters of the ocean, to be burnt, sunk, or plundered, by any great or puny assailant who could man an oar, or load a swivel for her annoyance. What was the leading object of the adoption of the Federal Constitution in the Northern parts of the Union? Most emphatically, it was for the protection of commerce. What was the situation of some branches of our commerce then? And what is it now? Look at the statement which was laid upon our tables about a fortnight past, and taken from the returns of the Treasury. What effect has it had upon our fisheries, which were so nobly and successfully contended for by the American Commissioners who settled the Treaty of 1783; which, for a time. suspended that Treaty; and which, both the duplicity and intrigue of France and the interest of England, strove to deprive us of-of our fisheries, which were then considered, and still ought to be considered, as a main sinew of our strength, and a nursery for our seamen ? In the year 1791, when we were just emerging from a chaos of confusion, the export of dried fish was of the value, as then estimated, of In the year 1811, it had diminished $1,200,000 757,000 196,480 In 1811, it had fallen off nearly two- Let us observe now the export of vegetable food, in which other parts of the Union are more deeply interested. It is worthy of attention, and I shall notice a series of years. In 1791, the export of vegetable food amounted to In 1803 In 1804 In 1805 In 1806 - $4,640,000 12 080,684 11,752,000 11,050,000 14,432,000 in Council were off to-morrow, you could get no Now, if it has been shown that, if the Orders cotton; and it has been also shown, that the exnew market for the great staple of the country, port of wheat, flour, and vegetable products, was the farmers and planters of New York, Pennsylnever anything near so great as at present; let States, tell what they are going to war for? vania, Maryland, Virginia, and the Western Look at the same statement for the situation of the export of our domestic manufactures: In 1791, the exportation of domestic manufac$600,000 Having increased more than three times since seventeen hundred and ninety-one, and giving also to the manufacturers a larger export than in any former year, in addition to their having, in many articles, the entire supply of the home market; thus affording to the manufacturers a much greater degree of encouragement than they ever before experienced. Let the manufacturers of Philadelphia, and other parts of the Union, also tell, then, what are they going to war for? If this be the situation of our domestic manufactures, and if our agriculture is in a high state of prosperity, except for a few articles which a war would not improve the demand for, and commerce is abandoned, it must follow, if we go to war, we must, as has been stated, go to war for our honor. worth contending for; it is the fruitful parent of Well, sir, this is a noble theme, perhaps, a boon and sanctifies urbanity, courtesy, and confidence, many virtues; it is the germ of whatever adorns Maryland, in the fervor of his imagination, posin polished life. The honorable gentleman from sibly may think, Sir, the feeling, if it exist, is creditable to him; but I can assure him, if this be a contest for honor, he will not alone "fetch up drowned honor by the locks," nor, "without co-rival, wear all her dignities." In this contest, ten thousand gallant spirits will start with him in the race; ten thousand other gallant spirits will struggle with him for the goal. SENATE. when we were convinced of the fairness of the title, and took possession of it-when we put our doings on our own statute book, and promulgated them to the world-when we had done this, and observe a frown lowering upon the brow of an apostate Bishop, a wanderer from his country and his God-and we shrunk from a possession which we still claim-where was our honor? This is Where the fugitive has been for the last twelve the foulest stain on the annals of your history; years, I know not; but whether she has been and, if the title be a fair one, the whole military drinking salt and bitter tears in the fathomless force of the United States, if necessary, should caves of ocean, or wandering an outcast, desert- be put in requisition to wipe it away, and to posed and forlorn, among the wilds beyond the West- sess and defend the country in question. ern mountains, it is equally our duty to welcome Sir, when Mr. Serrurier told us, in his letter of her return; we should consider it as the harbin- the 23d of July last, that His Majesty the Emger of better times as the morning star of a new peror of France, having an equal interest in all day-we should make it a jubilee for the nation."of the States, desires that the relations of comThe tutelary genius of America should receive her with open arms; should endeavor to make her teach us, in the high-wrought language of one of our native bards, to attempt, once again, "Amid our own stars, To inscribe a nation's name.". And in a war for honor, in the words of the same poet, over whose tomb the cypress has recently been suspended, should make us remember, as regards more than one Power, that “Base submission, inviting both indignity and plunder, Like a worm, kills the oak that could have braved the thunder." merce should be common to all parts of the Federal territory"-when we were told this to our teeth, at the very moment, or shortly before, when the whole of New England, possessing half the seacoast, and nearly half the tonnage of the United States, was under the ban of his empire, under a bull of excommunication, and not permitted to ship to the value of a single cent of colonial produce to his empire, while permissions were given to New York, to Charleston, and, for aught I know, to Baltimore, and we made no reply, where was our honor? want no intercourse with her; would to God, so long as she thus treats us, there were a Chinese wall extending from the foundations of the great deep to the third Heavens, all round her empire, if such a one were necessary, to cut off all communication between her and us, until she is better disposed to do us justice. Sir, I do not complain of the fact, but of the delusion with which we are perpetually shuffled; But, sir, it is more especially the part of honor no, sir; on the contrary, so long as France purto discriminate, to draw even nice distinctions-sues her present system of conduct toward us, I against whom, then, should commence this war of honor? Most unquestionably, in the first instance, against France. For, let me ask you, sir, without going far back, when General Turreau wrote his most insolent letter to the American Government, demanding an interdiction of the trade to St. Domingo, and you complied with it, where was your honor? When France undertook to deprive you of one of your most essential rights of sovereignty, and to declare war for you'; to state that you were at war, and she would so consider you; and you remained quiet-where was your honor? When she told you that you were a nation without policy, without spirit, and without principle; that you were inferior to any assembly of the colony of Jamaica, and we still courted her where was your honor? When she plunders, sinks, burns, and destroys, our vessels and cargoes; when she manacles and impresses our seamen, and marches them, like galley slaves, through her territories, and we only complain, that these are "the most distressing modes by which belligerents can exercise force in opposition to right"-where is our honor? Thus, sir, although France unquestionably should be the first object of attack, yet adhering to the Republican principle, that the will of the majority, legally expressed, must govern, and the nation will not go to war with France, but will` engage in a war with Great Britain; I am ready to admit that, in a war for honor, you have cause enough for war against Great Britain. I am no partisan of Britain in opposition to the interest or feelings of my own country. When one of her navy officers inflicted that most outrageous insult upon us—the attack upon the Chesapeake-there was not a man in the nation who would have been willing to have gone further in anything, cursing and boasting excepted, to avenge it, than myself. Nor did I ever contend for the sweeping, extended construction that was attempted to be given to her principle of blockade. Both these points are, however, now happily adjusted; an atonement has been made and accepted for the attack on the Chesapeake, which it would be the part of petulance and cowardice to repine at, inasmuch as it would be a reproach on our own pusillanimity, for having When, after paying double the price which any received what we ought not to have acceded to. other people would have given for a territory-And the principle of blockade has been so expli When we submit to that most infamous of all decrees-the Rambouillet decree, issued in May, 1810, to take place from March, 1809, by which a large amount of American property was seized, and never has been restored, under the pretence of balancing seizures in the United States which never existed-where is our honor? citly laid down in the recent correspondence of Mr. Foster, in conformity with the established recognised law of nations, as to make future cavil with regard to it impossible. I derived no pleasure from the bitter sarcastic retorts of Mr. Canning-in my estimation much better adapted to the flippant petulance of the teatable, than to the bureau of a statesman. Nor was I gratified by the diplomatic manoeuvring and evasions of the Marquis of Wellesley in regard to the appointment of a Minister to the United States, and a revocation of the Orders in Council, which, in my opinion, are equally indefensible in point of principle, whether they are attempted to be supported on the ground of retaliation, or that of self-preservation. I once thought Great Britain was contending for her existence; that dream has now completely passed away. And, how is it possible that a third and neutral party can make itself a fair object of retaliation for measures which it did not counsel, which it did not approve, which militate strongly with its interests, which it is and ever has been anxiously desirous to remove, which it has resist ed by every means in its power which it thought expedient to use-and, of these means, the Government of the neutral party ought to be the sole judge; which it has endeavored to get rid of even at a great sacrifice! How is it possible that a neutral country, thus conducting, can make itself a fair object of retaliation for measures which it did not originate, which it could not prevent, and cannot control? The contrary doctrine may be contended for by the diplomatist in obedience to his instructions, by the statesman in conformity with what he considers the interest and the policy of his country; but that it should now be supported by any man of sober, unimpassioned mind, can, to my perceptions, be accounted for, only from the existence of a prejudice as gross as ignorance made drunk. Thus, sir, to my view, the Orders in Council are wholly unjustifiable, let them be bottomed either on the principle of retaliation or of selfpreservation; they might not be untenable, if they could rest, which they never could do, on a revocation, a bona fide virtual revocation of the French decrees; for every gazette from the seaboard furnishes damning evidence of their existence; and almost every arrival in our ports showers upon us proofs as thick as hail-stones in a Summer's storm. Among others, look at the ship General Eaton, taken when bound from London to Charleston, in ballast, exclusively American; the memorial establishing the facts has been presented to the Senate by the gentleman from New Hampshire, (Mr. CUTTS.) Look at the account of Captain Lefevre, who has just arrived at Norfolk, and whose vessel was burned at sea by a couple of French frigates that had sailed from France after the pretended abrogation of the French decrees, the captain of which told him he had orders to destroy all American vessels bound to or from a British port, but that if he captured a British vessel, a vessel of their open, acknowledged, inveterate enemy, he could give FEBRUARY, 1812. her to Captain Lefevre. The frigates afterward did fall in with an English vessel, and the French captain humanely gave her to Captain Lefevre and his crew, who, by this means alone, reached the United States. Look at the case of the brig Julian, carried into Norway and acquitted after the payment of costs, then again captured by a French privateer, and condemned for this, among other allegations: that if she were an American vessel, she was entitled to be respected by Denmark, and to be released without expense, and that the payment of these costs, without which the whole property had been sacrificed in the first instance, was evidence of her being British property! Look at a case still more atrocious-the statement of which I hold in my hand, and which I have been requested to present to the Senate. Its authenticity cannot be questioned; it comes from a highly respectable merchant whom I personally well know, (John Parker, Esq.,) and is supported by the process verbal, which I also have, and other evidence of the facts contained in it. It is the case of the brig Catharine, Captain Ockington, and, by the memorial, it appears that this vessel sailed from Boston on the tenth April, 1810, with a cargo consisting of coffee, sugar, cocoa, dye-woods, and cotton, bound to Gottenburg, in Sweden, and from thence to any other port in the Baltic, which on her arrival at Gottenburg would appear to offer the most advantageous market. The vessel and cargo were exclusively owned by American citizens, and were furnished with every document required by our laws, or by the laws and usages of nations, including the most ample certificates from His Majesty the Emperor of France. On her passage to Gottenburg she was captured by a Danish privateer, and carried into Jahrsund, where, after a detention of ten months and five days, she was liberated, subject however to the payment of costs, on the ground that she was bona fide American property, and had not contravened either the law of nations or the modern law set up by the Government of France, and enforced under its influence and authority in other countries of the continent of Europe. Thus liberated, after so long a detention, and at an expense of more than four thousand dollars, and thus furnished with the opinion of a vigilant court that she was liable to no suspicion, the vessei departed from Jahrsund, and proceeded to Gottenburg, her original port of destination, where finding her cargo unsaleable, she proceeded for St. Petersburg, first stopping at Elsinore to pay the Sound duties, in order to prevent any possible pretence, either that she availed herself of enemy's convoy, or that she had made any attempt to elude the laws of Denmark; and having there complied with all the regulations both of France and Denmark, and having also had the good fortune to escape being visited by British cruisers, the vessel sailed from Elsinore to St. Petersburg, when, on the 3d of May, 1811, she was captured by a French privateer, duly commissioned by the Emperor of France, |