Chapter I: A. Coles (57)

I know, Mr. Speaker, that it is in the nature of tyrannical or despotical Governments to take arbitrary strides; yet, sir, I do believe that the impositions and oppressions heaped upon the American Government; the evils under which we at this time labor, are measurably, if not entirely, attributable to the party hostility arrayed against the Administration. Sir, they have, by their uniform opposition, led the British to believe that they had a powerful party in this country; that parties were nearly equally balanced; that it would be impossible for a Republican Administration to adhere to any decided stand taken against England, and that finally the English party would prevail. Thus, sir, have Government been beset by party. They have been baffled in every peaceable step calculated to vindicate our rights, or redress our grievances, until, by the injustice of our foreign enemy, bottomed on the aid they calculated on receiving from our domestic foes, the Government have been forced into war. And now you are told to put a stop to the war, and try once more if Briton will not do us justice. Degrading thought! Sir, we have already humbled ourselves in making proposals, and all efforts on the part of the Administration failed. The world has seen and understood that the failure was attributable to her own wickedness, and not to our pertinacity. Sir, the American Administration has exhibited an example of moderation unparalleled in the annals of the world; our forbearance has astonished the universe, and we have the consolation to see that neither the guilt of aggression, nor the folly of ambition, can be fairly attributed to it. Negotiation, as well as patience, has been exhausted. Instead of appealing again to the justice of a Government that makes principle bend to power, we have been necessarily compelled (though reluctantly) to appeal to arms, and I trust in God that they will never be laid down short of justice.

Mr. CHEVES rose.--It was for some time during this debate, said he, my intention to have mingled my unimportant opinions and sentiments with those of other gentlemen in this discussion; but I gave way from time to time before the eagerness of others who were desirous of presenting themselves to your attention, and I had entirely abandoned the idea of taking any part in the argument; but the sudden and unexpected indisposition at this moment of my worthy friend and honorable colleague, (Mr. WILLIAMS,) the chairman of the committee with whom this bill originated, who was expected to close the debate, has left a vacuum in the argument which I propose to fill. Could he have addressed you, as he was prepared and anxious, in the faithful discharge of his duty to do, it would have rendered the feeble attempt which I shall make as unnecessary as it would have been impertinent and obtrusive. I propose, then, to speak, as my honorable friend would probably have done, generally, but briefly, on the several heads of discussion which have been introduced into the debate, which has not been on the bill before you, but on the general merits of the war; the origin, progress, and continuance of it. I mean not to censure the wide range which this discussion has taken. It is fair and right in gentlemen of the opposition to select some occasion during each session on which to discuss the great questions of state which the public events of the passing times present; and the one furnished by the bill before you was perhaps as proper as any other.

Almost all the gentlemen who have addressed you, have very gravely told you, by way of exordium, of their unquestionable right to do so, and of the firmness with which they mean to assert and exercise it, as if there had been, at any time, really an opposition to this freedom of discussion. These introductions must be a little amusing to the members of this House and to the attendants in your galleries, who have been in the habit of listening to the gentlemen. But if there ever could have been a doubt on this subject, and surely there never was any, the debate, which I hope is about to be closed, affords an ample refutation of it. There are parts of this debate which will descend to distant posterity as a monument of the freedom of discussion in this Hall. I trust, sir, we shall furnish few such testimonials--I hope never to see another exhibition on this floor. They must be looked upon with apprehension by all those who consider the restraints of personal politeness and the urbanity of social esteem as affording a better security to those who love peace and good manners, for the preservation of these valuable objects, than can be lent by the strongest arm or the severest sanctions which positive institutions have established; restraints under which even "vice itself loses half its evil, by losing all its grossness." I shall imitate the example of gentlemen who followed in the debate--I shall pour oil upon the waves, and endeavor to still the raging of the storm.

Gentlemen, fruitful in epithets, yet rather fruitful in their abundance than in their variety, have called this an unjust, wanton, wicked, and unnecessary war. I, on the contrary, assert it to be a just and necessary war. One characteristic difficulty here presents itself, which has occurred in all the discussion in and out of this House on this subject. What is a just and necessary war? By the advocates of war it is asserted that the injuries and insults of the enemy demanded war, and rendered this war just and necessary. The opponents of war admit the magnitude of the insults and injuries, but deny the inference. They assert that the war is unnecessary and not justifiable, because the pecuniary expenditure and loss will exceed in value the commercial objects for which we are contending. The advocates of war deny both the premises and the conclusion. The objects of the war are not merely commercial, but, if they were, the inference is denied. They admit that the pecuniary expenditure and loss will exceed the pecuniary value of the commercial objects for which they contend, but they deny that a war for commercial objects is therefore unnecessary or indefensible. To an intelligible argument it seems, therefore, under these circumstances, necessary that we should begin by some definition of a just and necessary war; and yet it seems to be a melancholy labor in a great and free State, where public sentiment should be unequivocal on such subjects, to proceed by rules of logic to establish great first principles of public sentiment; but I fear that, as all good things are purchased by concomitant sacrifices, we have not obtained the innumerable blessings and advantages of the freedom of speech and of the press for nothing. I fear they have sometimes substituted an erring reason for a better guide--the great uncontaminated current of public feeling--the moral sense of the nation, of which the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. QUINCY) so often tells so much.

But we must inquire, what is a just and necessary war? A war is just and necessary when waged to protect and defend the violated pecuniary interests of the country; or to defend and secure the sovereign rights and independence of a country; or, lastly and principally, to support and maintain the national honor. The last, indeed, embraces all the others; and, if I have distinguished, it is rather in conformity with custom, or for the purpose of elucidation than from any practical separation which I admit between the last and the former. But I am likely to incur the derision of the honorable gentlemen in the opposition by speaking of national honor. They seem not to have admitted the term into their vocabulary; they treat it as a new language; they remind me of the character of _Goldfinch_ in one of _Holcroft's_ plays, who, when he hears the Romans mentioned, exclaims, "Romans! Romans! who are they?" So the gentlemen, "national honor! what's that? what's that?" Yet, sir, strange as it may seem to the honorable gentlemen over the way, the maintenance of the principle of national honor, by which I mean that principle which animates and sustains an elevated fitness of character and conduct, is the only justifiable cause of war; and, if necessary, the principle ought to be maintained by all the sacrifices of war in its worst shape. No war is justifiable or necessary which is waged merely for pecuniary objects, if we can suppose such a war, for all wars involve expense and loss greater than the amount of any pecuniary objects for which they can be waged. On the ground of interest merely they would not, therefore, be justifiable; and there is to be superadded, what cannot be valued in money, the value of human life. But the value of every thing is founded on the security with which it is enjoyed. One unpunished violation of right provokes another and another, until all security is destroyed; and, therefore, it is necessary to resist given infractions of pecuniary right by sacrifices beyond the value of the right itself, because resistance is necessary to the security of all other pecuniary rights--nay, to the security of all other rights. Security of rights is a political thing; it is the protection of Government; it derives its value, and a great portion of its power, too, from a faithful and unrelaxed application of it to all the rights and interests of a nation; and is diminished in its value, and in its power also, by any failure to afford the protection which is due by Government to the subjects and the interests under its control. To abandon any interest is to abandon all, and to protect one is to protect all; war, therefore, waged to protect one political right is waged to protect all political rights; no war is, in consequence, made for any given right merely as such, but for all the rights and interests which are bound together in a nation under the social and civil compacts. To compare the expenditure and losses of war with the value of commercial objects, which may be the immediate cause of war, is to talk idly, and to forget the true end of all war and the first great purpose of Government--security. A great man (Sir James Mackintosh) has said, "the paramount interest of every State, that which comprehends all others, is security." Will you, then, it may be inquired, go to war to avenge the infraction of the smallest right under the protection of Government, and for this object jeopardize every other, and spill the blood of your fellow-citizens? Certainly not. There is a fitness which cannot be defined in anticipation, but which is easily discoverable when the occasion occurs, which determines when a war is necessary. It may depend upon the nature of the injury; on the character which the nation has acquired; on its ability to avenge the injury; on the character of the nation which has inflicted the injury, and a thousand other circumstances. The question ought always to be, What becomes the nation? What is due to the national honor? What is necessary to sustain an elevated fitness of character and conduct in the nation? If the injury sustained be one which cannot or will not probably be repeated, it is less necessary to avenge it. If the nation be poor and feeble, it may be obliged to submit to the violation of a great right. If it be great and powerful, it must sometimes resent a smaller injury; it may sometimes disdain to notice a considerable aggression upon its rights; in short, in no instance is the expense of the war a rule which will prove it just and necessary, or otherwise; in every instance is national honor, that is, a fitness of character and conduct, the rule by which its necessity and justifiable character are determinable. Generally when a nation is able to resist with effect the infraction of important pecuniary rights, it seems indubitable that an elevated fitness of character and conduct requires resistance. But this obligation is increased, and is less doubtful when any of the sovereign rights of a nation are infringed, as in gross and reiterated insults to the national flag, habitual violations of the personal liberty of its subjects, invasion of its territories, and the like; these are assaults upon its independence, and there is no room left for an inquiry into the fitness of resistance; it may indeed be supposed to change from a question of expediency to an act of necessity; it is a struggle for self-preservation; the nation acts upon a principle which is inherent in the meanest insect, and of which inanimate matter is not divested; the worm, when trodden on, writhes in resistance as well as anguish, and the reaction of inanimate matter seems to be the repulsive act of self-preservation.

What, then, did an elevated fitness of character and conduct require of the American Government, in relation to Great Britain, at the moment war was declared? What does it still require? I repeat, the war is a just and necessary war. This will be proved by adverting to the causes of the war. What, then, were the causes of the war? They were principally new and before unheard-of blockades--the Orders in Council, which have been generally so called, by way of pre-eminence; the spoliations of our commerce under various unfounded and insulting pretexts, and the impressment of our seamen. I am not permitted by the circumstances under which I address you to go at length into any of these subjects. But I may ask, what on the ocean did we enjoy but by the sufferance of Great Britain? What insults, what injuries had we not suffered? When did they begin; when, though they may have been varied in character, were they relaxed in degree, and when were they probably to cease?

Great Britain has been properly selected as the first object of our hostility. When a proposition was made to include France as well as Great Britain in the declaration of war, gentlemen on neither side of the House did support it. The opposition prints throughout the Union laughed it to scorn. Few men thought of resisting both at once. The voice of both parties appeared to be against it. The Government, obliged to resist, was obliged to select its enemy. Should France have been selected? With the blood of our citizens insultingly slaughtered without the slightest provocation, on the shores of our own territory, unatoned for till the moment of the declaration of war, with the habitual impressment of our seamen in every sea, with the continual and reiterated violation of your right to seek where you choose a market for your native produce, all before your eyes, and with no hope of a discontinuance of these injuries, we are told that we ought to have diverted our enmity from Great Britain, and directed it against France. Where, sir, could we attack France? Where are her colonies into which we could carry our arms? Where could we subjugate her provinces? Where are her ships?--where her commerce? Where could we have carried on against her any of the operations of war? Would the chivalry of gentlemen on the other side of the House have suggested an invasion of France? An honorable gentleman from New York, (Mr. GOLD) said it would not have required another man nor another ship, to have resisted France. But, why, I pray you? Because such a resistance would have been confined to the idle and nugatory act of declaring it. Effectual resistance would have been impracticable. Gentlemen would resist France, would declare war against France, merely to show their indignation at her perfidy and injustice; and here I confess my feelings go with the gentlemen--I would do so too, had we no other enemy to contend with. But if we had abandoned or deferred our resistance to the injuries of England and as a pretext for it assailed France, would not the act have been idle and weak? Would it not have been wicked, to borrow one of the epithets which gentlemen have applied to the war with England, so to have sported with the public feelings and the national resentment as to have declared war against France, the minor aggressor, whom we could not touch, and to have suppressed our resentment against Great Britain, whose injuries were unlimited and unceasing, and whom alone we could reach? But why, sir, are the injuries these nations have done contrasted, and those of the one made an apology for those of the other? Why are we partisans of either? Have we no country of our own? Is there a land upon the globe so fair, so happy, and so free? And, beholding and enjoying these blessings,

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
_This is my own, my native land_!"

Sir, I feel neither as a Frenchman nor Briton, but as an American. As a citizen of the United States, I bear no affection to any other country. If I have any feeling of partiality for either of the great belligerents, it is for the country, and the people of Great Britain. From them I draw my blood in a very short descent. But that nation is the injurer of my country, and I can see her in no other light than that of an enemy, nor can I find any apology for her in the injuries France has done us. Sir, the Government did right in discriminating between Britain and France, and selecting the former. It was the only mode of real practical resistance. The world would have laughed at us had we declared war against France, who was no longer able to injure us, whom we could not assail with effect, and have left the unceasing injuries of Great Britain to go on unresisted and unresented. The world would have considered it as a mere cover for our pusillanimity. I say, then, that the Government was not tricked into a war with Great Britain. It was commenced in the prosecution of the best and most deliberate policy. It was the only honorable and practicable course. If there has been an error, and I think there has, it was in not having long since resisted England. War against England should have followed the first embargo; that was a wise measure, but it could not endure forever; it carried the policy of commercial restriction upon the enemy as far as such a policy should ever be carried, which from its nature can only be temporary. It at the same time prepared the nation for war; it brought home your wealth and seamen; it brought home your vessels, and placed you in the attitude in which the nation ought to have been previous to war, and its termination ought to have been followed by immediate and vigorous war. The pulse of the nation was high, and the confidence of the people in their rulers and resources great. Distrust has grown out of the hesitation and timidity then manifested. If the embargo had been followed up by war, some of the greatest injuries we have since suffered would not have occurred. France would not have ventured to have seized and sequestered our vessels and property as she subsequently did. She was tempted to do it because she saw we would suffer and submit to any injury.

Gentlemen say, that popular opinion was against the war. I deny it, sir. It was called for by popular opinion; and this will not be disproved, however soon popular opinion shall incline to peace, and gentlemen on the other side of the House regain the reins of power, as they are not unlikely to do, however just and necessary the war. Any man who thought with half the ability with which the gentlemen do, must have believed that in voting for war, he was probably surrendering himself politically a victim on the altar of his country; yet it is frequently declared, that the majority have declared this war to preserve their seats. They declared it against popular opinion, too, to preserve their seats, which they hold by the tenure of popular opinion! Are gentlemen serious? Look at the history of nations, and see if the war-makers have been generally the peacemakers.

But war was prematurely declared, it is said, because we had not a regular disciplined army at the time. Preparation for operations on land must have been relative to the defence of our own territory, or the invasion of the enemy's territory. The militia are the proper and the adequate defenders of the soil on which they live; for this purpose we did not want any other army. They might have been made more extensively useful. I join not with their revilers--I wish that their usefulness had not been circumscribed by a doctrine subversive of the true principles of the constitution which was maintained on this floor. I rejoice that I combated that doctrine; yet I do not mean to consider them as a fit army of invasion. I acknowledge that we were not prepared with a regularly-disciplined army, qualified for the invasion and conquest of the enemy's country. But should we have been prepared by winter, the time to which gentlemen wished to have deferred the declaration of war? It is a truth that a Government like ours never will, and never can, be prepared for war in peace. The great and effective preparation for war must grow out of the progress and events of the war. Notwithstanding our disasters on land, I believe our preparation is greater, and our situation better, than it would have been had the war been deferred. We were to expect, in the commencement of the war, to suffer such misfortunes. Except in the affair of Detroit, nothing has happened which should cause us to blush: that disgrace, like the disgrace of the Chesapeake, will be the harbinger of glory--I take it as an omen of victory. I pledge myself, if the war continue it will be so in the event. As the war stands at this moment, we have suffered little, and we have humbled the pride of the enemy where it was most insulting. We have insured the confidence of the nation, from the seashore to the mountains beyond them, as far as our population reaches, in our naval ability. I ask the gentlemen on the other side of the House, whether we have not gained something in this respect by the war? In one word, who would now commence the war and take the chance of better success in preference to the actual fortune of the war since it has been declared. It was not prematurely declared. I now contend the war ought to be continued. Some gentlemen have thought fit to say in debate, that the only alleged cause of war was formed by the Orders in Council. But from their own act, their celebrated protest, I will prove the contrary. Impressment is there enumerated as among the causes of war, as it was in all the public acts of the time relative to the causes of war. Without more words, I am authorized in asserting that impressment was one of the principal causes of the war; and although had the Orders in Council been revoked, and their revocation known to us before war was declared, we would no doubt have temporized longer; yet this cause itself must in the end have produced war.

It appears that very soon after the General Government went into operation, this practice was the subject of remonstrance; this was under the Administration of General WASHINGTON. It has been the subject of negotiation and remonstrance under every succeeding Administration. But it is alleged, because it was not settled in the Treaty of 1794, that it was not considered by General WASHINGTON as justifiable cause of war, and it is inferred that it ought not now to be considered as sufficient cause for the continuance of the war. What, sir, shall constitute cause of war? The spoliation of your property? Not so, say gentlemen, because the expenditure for redress will be greater than the injury sustained. The violation of the personal liberty of your citizens and the degradation of the ensign of your sovereignty? No, say gentlemen, General WASHINGTON did not consider these as sufficient cause of war. Will, then, any injury, or any combination of injuries, authorize or require national resentment? The reasoning of the gentlemen would lead us to a negative conclusion. But in their estimate of the actual causes of the present war, they appear to consider the business of impressment as trivial, and the Orders in Council as every thing. What, sir, will you go to war for property, the value of which is only relative, and which, compared with personal liberty, is worthless, and refuse to go to war for the personal liberty of the citizen? for that which is alike

"Given to the fool, the vain, the evil--
To Ward, to Waters, Chartres, and the Devil!"

You will wage war, and not to rescue your fellow-citizens from imprisonment and stripes? But however this subject was to be viewed before we were actually involved in war, it must now be put on a footing of certainty; if our claim be not secured it will be surrendered; to make peace without obtaining any security against the abuse of which we complain, would be to acquiesce in it, and to acquiesce in it would be to surrender the rights of the country. This was the reasoning of Mr. King, who in one of his communications to Government on this subject says, he has abandoned negotiation, because to acquiesce in the views of the British Government would be to surrender our rights. And shall I be obliged, sir, to come here with volumes of documents to prove the rights of the citizen; to demonstrate that the naval officers of Britain have not a right to incarcerate him; to drag him to the gangway and flog him? Shall I be obliged by a laborious process of reasoning to prove the obligation of Government to rescue him from such suffering? No, gentlemen generally have abandoned this ground, and say, that the impressment of our citizens is, under proper circumstances, justifiable cause of war; and the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. PEARSON,) who opened the debate on this subject says, that if a fit proposition, accompanied by means calculated to give it a fair chance of success, were tendered and did not procure a cessation of the practice of impressment, he would support the war. What is the proposition which he submits? That we shall prohibit from serving in our ships the seamen of Great Britain and other foreign seamen, and confine our crews to our own citizens. This being done he will support the war. I challenge gentlemen on the other side of the House to say distinctly to the people, for whom an honorable gentleman (Mr. QUINCY) has said this debate was intended, that this war should not be continued for the protection of our seamen; they will not, they dare not. But if they are against the continuance of the war, it is on that ground and no other. The honorable gentleman from Virginia (Mr. RANDOLPH) says, Great Britain has a right to insist on the services of her own subjects, and that England would not be England if she could not command them. I say that America will cease to be America if she suffers her to command them at the price of the liberty of her citizens and the honor of her flag. The same gentleman says, England will nail the flag to the mast and go to the bottom with it, rather than surrender the right of taking her seamen from on board our merchant vessels. I hope, sir, we shall imitate the noble example she sets us, and make every sacrifice rather than give up our citizens to bondage and stripes.

But, say gentlemen, the public law of all nations on earth, ancient and modern, has denied the right of expatriation. Admit that they are correct, and for the purpose of the argument, I do admit that such is the general law. But what is this law as modified by the practice of nations? Every nation which has thus forbidden expatriation has at the same time granted naturalization, and the general practice of nations is undoubtedly the law of nations. Does not England naturalize foreigners? Does she not naturalize your citizens? If she does not do it as generally as you do, it is because it is not her policy to do so; it is enough that she naturalizes your seamen; it is enough that all nations have, at the same moment, forbidden expatriation and granted naturalization. The law must be the result of neither exclusively, but of both these practices. Mr. Burke, (the great Edmund,) who was certainly no innovator, denominates Charles XII. the murderer of Patkul. Patkul was born a Swedish subject and had repeatedly taken up arms against his Sovereign; he was adopted by Russia and had been her Minister at the Court of Poland. Charles XII., the Sovereign to whom his natural allegiance was due, obtained possession of his person and put him to death--this act Mr. Burke denominates murder!

Governments which have naturalized foreigners have protected their naturalized subjects, and the Government to whom the native allegiance of such subjects was due, though they have denied the right of expatriation, have not impugned the protecting interposition of the adopted sovereign. If they have, it has been considered as an act of unprincipled violence, and in the instance of Patkul has merited and received the denomination of murder. On this subject I will quote a single sentence from one of Mr. King's letters; he says, "it behooves the British Government to adhere to the principle of natural allegiance wholly, or renounce it wholly." Contending themselves for the right of naturalization, can the British Government deny it to others? On the part of this Government sufficient evidence of its pacific and accommodating disposition appears in its offer to surrender every thing it can, consistently with national faith. On the part of Britain a protraction of the war, by refusing to meet us on the terms proposed, can proceed from no other motive than a determination to continue that abuse of power which she has inflicted and we have suffered so long. The ground taken by this country is what we must insist upon keeping, and I doubt not we will succeed if we contend for it as we ought. The informality of the negotiation between our Chargé d'Affaires and the British Government has been mentioned as a cause of its failure. If there had been an amicable disposition on the part of the British Government, the authority would have been considered ample. If there be not an amicable disposition we will negotiate in vain. We must fight, or we shall never succeed in obtaining a recognition of our rights. I will advert to one argument of the gentleman from New York, (Mr. EMOTT,) who has examined this subject with ability. It is that one which appeared to me to make the greatest impression on the House. He said he had examined the voluminous document on the subject of impressment, which was printed during the last session by order of the House, and that it did not appear from that document that more than ninety-three American seamen had been impressed in the year 1809; from which I believe every one who heard him inferred that it was proved affirmatively by that document, that no more than ninety-three American seamen, who were named therein, were impressed in that year. Now, what is the fact? The document does not state in one case, perhaps of eight or ten, when the impressment took place, and there are one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight persons named in that document. Of course the gentleman could not be authorized to say that but ninety-three, or any other precise number, were impressed in 1809. All those, the date of whose detention is not stated, may have been impressed in 1809. It is probable much the greatest portion was. A more particular examination of this point of inquiry will prove the magnitude of the evil. From the 1st of April, 1809, to the 30th of September, 1810, a period of eighteen months only, a single agent of this Government, in London, received one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight applications from impressed seamen. How many were unable to apply? Men imprisoned on board ships of war, scattered over the ocean and on distant stations, how could they apply to Mr. Lyman in London and give in their names? The number impressed must have been great, indeed, when a single agent in the short space of eighteen months, registered the names of one thousand five hundred and fifty-eight applicants. Of this number a part was discharged, acknowledged to be Americans beyond the possibility of denial; a small number is detained as being born in England, and the remainder are detained under various pretexts--such as supposed to be born in England, being on distant stations, having consular certificates proving them Danes, Swedes, &c.; as if they had any better right to take from on board an American vessel a Swede or a Dane than an American citizen. Even their own doctrine goes to assert a right to seize none but their own subjects. I ask, now, whether the impression made by the gentleman from New York was a just one? Whether it does not appear probable that at least one thousand of those contained in this list were impressed without even a plausible pretext? But if in a single statement I make out a result so variant from the statement of the gentleman, I beg you and the public to test the other statements of the gentleman in the same way. Not, sir, that the gentleman made the statement with any unfair intention, for no man is more honorable or correct--he has my highest esteem--but, it will show how liable we are to err--nay, how prone we are to err when our feelings and habit of thinking run with our argument. So much for impressment. It is an abuse such as cannot be tolerated by an independent nation. It is one which ought to be resisted by war.

The question was then taken on the passage of the bill, and decided in the affirmative--For the bill 77, against it 42, as follows:

YEAS.--Willis Alston, jun., William Anderson, Stevenson Archer,
Daniel Avery, Ezekiel Bacon, David Bard, Josiah Bartlett,
Burwell Bassett, William W. Bibb, William Blackledge, Robert
Brown, William A. Burwell, William Butler, John C. Calhoun,
Francis Carr, Langdon Cheves, James Cochran, John Clopton,
Lewis Condict, William Crawford, Richard Cutts, Roger Davis,
John Dawson, Joseph Desha, Samuel Dinsmoor, Elias Earle,
William Findlay, James Fisk, Meshack Franklin, Thomas Gholson,
Isaiah L. Green, Felix Grundy, Bolling Hall, Obed Hall, John
A. Harper, Aylett Hawes, John M. Hyneman, Richard M. Johnson,
Joseph Kent, William R. King, Abner Lacock, Peter Little, Aaron
Lyle, Thomas Moore, William McCoy, Samuel McKee, Alexander
McKim, Arunah Metcalf, Samuel L. Mitchill, Jeremiah Morrow,
Hugh Nelson, Anthony New, Thomas Newton, Stephen Ormsby, Israel
Pickens, James Pleasants, jun., Benjamin Pond, William M.
Richardson, Samuel Ringgold, Thomas B. Robertson, John Rhea,
John Roane, Jonathan Roberts, Ebenezer Sage, Lemuel Sawyer,
Ebenezer Seaver, John Sevier, Adam Seybert, Samuel Shaw, George
Smith, John Smith, William Strong, John Taliaferro, George M.
Troup, Charles Turner, jr., William Widgery, and Richard Wynn.

NAYS.--John Baker, Abijah Bigelow, Hermanus Bleecker, James
Breckenridge, Elijah Brigham, Epaphroditus Champion, Martin
Chittenden, Matthew Clay, Thomas B. Cooke, John Davenport, jr.,
William Ely, James Emott, Asa Fitch, Thomas R. Gold, Charles
Goldsborough, Edwin Gray, Jacob Hufty, Richard Jackson, jun.,
Philip B. Key, Lyman Law, Joseph Lewis, jr., William Lowndes,
Archibald McBryde, James Milnor, Jonathan O. Mosely, Joseph
Pearson, Timothy Pitkin, jun., Elisha R. Potter, Josiah Quincy,
John Randolph, William Reed, Henry M. Ridgely, William Rodman,
Daniel Sheffey, Richard Stanford, Lewis B. Sturges, Samuel
Taggart, Benjamin Tallmadge, Uri Tracy, Laban Wheaton, Leonard
White, and Thomas Wilson.

_Ordered_, That the title be, "An act in addition to the act, entitled 'An act to raise an additional military force, and for other purposes.'"

FRIDAY, January 15.

_Land claims in Missouri Territory--Confirmation
of private claims--Pre-emptions._

Mr. HEMPSTEAD observed, that he had certain resolutions to submit, on which, as they were somewhat in detail, he would ask the liberty to make a few remarks. Under the second section of the first act for adjusting land claims in the Territory of Louisiana, (now Missouri,) each actual settler was entitled to six hundred and forty acres of land, together with such other and further quantity as heretofore had been allowed for the wife and family of such actual settler, agreeably to the laws, usages, and customs of the Spanish Government. A majority of the Board of Land Commissioners in that Territory were, under that section, so liberal in their grants, that it excited the alarm of Government. This alarm, sir, was soon transferred to the people, and has continued ever since; because a majority of the Board passed from one extreme to the other, and granted, in many instances, only one hundred, one hundred and fifty or two hundred arpens, where they had before granted seven or eight hundred arpens. The grants for the smaller quantities are contained in the lists of grants, and being final against the United States, would never come before Congress, unless upon petitions from individual claimants. Other boards of Commissioners, acting under the same law, have granted to the actual settler in every instance, when the law had been complied with, six hundred and forty acres; and it would seem to me, sir, that the people of the Missouri Territory are entitled to the same justice.

The second resolution is to provide as well for rejected claims, in which no testimony has been adduced, as when testimony has been received; and to prevent individual claimants from loading our table with petitions. The mode pointed out will present all claims to Congress at one time. With these observations I shall submit the resolutions for the sanction of the House:

_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Public Lands be
instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing,
in favor of the claimants, the re-examination of the grants
of land made by the board of Commissioners for ascertaining
and adjusting the titles and claims to land in the district
of Louisiana, under the second section of the act, entitled
"An act for ascertaining and adjusting the titles and claims
to land within the Territory of Orleans and the district of
Louisiana," passed the 2d of March, 1805; and also the grants
made by the Recorder of Land Titles for the Territory of
Missouri, under that part of the third section of the act,
entitled "An act further providing for settling the claims to
land in the Territory of Missouri," passed the 13th of June,
1812, which provides for settlement of donation rights in all
cases where the quantity of land granted is less than six
hundred and forty acres; and that said committee have leave to
report by bill, or otherwise.

_Resolved_, That the Committee on the Public Lands be
instructed to inquire into the expediency of authorizing the
Recorder of Land Titles for the Territory of Missouri to
receive testimony in all the claims to land in which none has
been adduced, and which are rejected in the report made by the
late board of Commissioners for ascertaining and adjusting the
titles and claims to land in the then district of Louisiana,
now Territory of Missouri; and, afterwards, to arrange into
classes, according to their respective merits, as well the
claims embraced by this resolution, as the other rejected
claims mentioned in said report, and made abstracts containing
the substance of the evidence in support of such claims,
and such other information and remarks as may be necessary
to a proper decision thereon, and report on said claims to
the General Commissioner of the Land Office; and that said
committee have leave to report by bill, or otherwise.

_Resolved_, That said committee be instructed to inquire into
the expediency of granting the right of pre-emption to actual
settlers on the public lands in the said Territory of Missouri;
and that said committee have leave to report by bill, or
otherwise.

The resolutions were then agreed to.

MONDAY, January 18.

Two other members, to wit: from Massachusetts, PELEG TALIMAN; and from Pennsylvania, WILLIAM PIPER, appeared, and took their seats.

_Encouragement to Privateer Captures._

The House resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the bill "relating to captures."

[The bill provides that compensation shall be allowed to the officers and crews of our public vessels, for vessels of the enemy necessarily destroyed at sea after their capture.]

Mr. BASSETT stated to the House the considerations by which the Naval Committee had been induced to report this bill. It grew more immediately out of the case of the Guerriere destroyed by the Constitution--a case precisely in point. Such a principle as that which the bill proposed, he believed, had been engrafted in the British service. It was at least required by equity and sound policy, where the public service required the destruction of a vessel for fear of recapture by the enemy in its disabled state, that some compensation should be made to the captors in lieu of that which would have accrued from the sale of the vessel had it been brought into port.

Mr. H. CLAY (Speaker) spoke in opposition both to the principles and details of the bill. He was disposed to believe the principle unprecedented in any other country; but even if it were not, he thought it ought not to exist in this country. It would have the effect to make it the interest of the captor, unless the vessel should be immediately on the coast, or in the very mouth of our rivers, to destroy the captured vessel. On consulting the underwriters, gentlemen would find the premium required on bringing in a vessel of any description from any considerable distance, would be equal to one-half her value; and, as proof of it, Mr. C. instanced the high insurance even from Charleston and New Orleans, along our own coast, to a northern port. The strongest possible temptation would, therefore, be offered by giving half the value of the destroyed vessel to the captors in case of her destruction. Mr. C. moved to strike out the first section of the bill.

Mr. BASSETT replied to Mr. CLAY, and defended the bill, on the ground of expediency and of precedent. In the British nation, he said, rewards were always liberally bestowed on skill and valor, and they must always be by every country that wishes to encourage these qualities in its citizens. The principle did exist in the British service, not by statutory, but by admiralty regulations; and in all such cases rewards had been liberally dispensed.

Mr. BACON opposed the bill as inexpedient and unprecedented. To show that it went beyond the British legal provisions in that respect, he quoted a statute of that nation which allows to the captors of vessels so destroyed, as the bill contemplates, a bounty of five pounds for every man found alive on board said captured vessels, the aggregate to be equally distributed among the crew of the captors. Further, he believed, that Government had not gone.

Mr. CHEVES on this remarked, that every encouragement was afforded to British naval officers, by their Government, as well by promotions to higher office and to nobility, &c., which were not known in this country, as by pecuniary rewards and pensions, not in all cases by statutory, but by Executive sanctions. He was disposed to be liberal to our officers, to foster our rising navy. But, though friendly to the principle, he objected to the particular details of the bill, which he thought susceptible of modifications which would be better made in select committee than in the House. He, therefore, moved that the committee rise.

Mr. QUINCY objected to the principle of the bill, which he thought fundamentally questionable. He was for providing specially by statute for each case after its occurrence, where the circumstances of the case required an exercise of liberality by Congress, and to legislate generally for future occurrences.

The committee then rose, reported progress, and were refused leave to sit again; and,

On motion of Mr. CHEVES, the bill was recommitted to the Naval Committee.

TUESDAY, January 19.

_Privateer Pensions._

The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, on the bill regulating pensions to persons on board private armed ships.

[This bill directs that the two per cent. reserved in the hands of consuls and collectors, in pursuance of an act of June last, respecting private armed vessels, &c., be paid into the Treasury, to constitute a fund for pensions to persons disabled on board private armed vessels, of the mode and degree of which disability the log book of each vessel is to be evidence.]

Mr. BURWELL moved to strike out the vital section of the bill, with a view to try the principle. In support of the motion, he remarked that he conceived it improper to adopt a principle so extremely liable to abuse as this, especially when pensions had been refused to at least equally meritorious sufferers during the Revolution. The evidence which the log book of a vessel would afford, would be so very liable to error, and so indefinite, as not to be entitled to that conclusive weight given to it by the bill. The proper course, he conceived, would be, to leave the subject open to the annual disposition of Congress; which was now the case with certain other pensions.

Mr. BASSETT stated, in reply, that, at the last session, two per cent. having been reserved from the wages of the seamen on board private armed vessels, for the avowed and declared purpose of constituting a fund for pensions to the wounded, this bill now merely indicated the mode of carrying this provision into effect. The money had been reserved by the collectors and consuls, and as it was never the intention of Congress to make them a present of it, it remained for Congress to direct the mode of its distribution. If the principle was incorrect, it ought to have been objected to when the pledge was given by the House last session on the subject.

The question on striking out the section was negatived by a very small majority; and the committee rose and reported the bill.

Mr. STOW made a motion going to confine the pensions allowed by the bill to such as should be disabled in actual service, and spoke in support of his motion.

Mr. MCKIM opposed the motion. The services rendered by the privateers were valuable to the country and ought to be encouraged. The duties on prize goods, he said, brought into the port of Baltimore alone, had amounted to three hundred and fifty-four thousand dollars. This showed the importance of this system in a pecuniary point of view.

Mr. STOW questioned the benefit rendered to the public interest by privateering, and said he was in favor of letting this fund accumulate, and first see whether there was sufficient to pension those having received known wounds in action, before they agreed to extend it to all casualties on board private armed vessels.

Mr. LITTLE asserted the utility of privateers and their efficiency as a means of annoying the enemy, He bore testimony to the bravery they had displayed in all conflicts with the enemy, and to the injuries they had inflicted on his commerce. The enterprising individuals concerned in it ought to be encouraged; for, by the impediments to the prosecution of their enterprise, many had been already discouraged and had dismantled their vessels. If properly encouraged, they would scour every sea, however distant, and ransack every port and harbor in search of the enemy. He was in favor of exhibiting the most liberal disposition towards them.

Considerable further debate took place on the amendment, which was at last agreed to by a very small majority.

Mr. RHEA subsequently moved to recommit the bill to the same committee which reported it, for the purpose of amendment; and the bill was recommitted.

WEDNESDAY, January 20.

_Astronomical Observatory._

Mr. MITCHILL, from the committee to whom was referred the memorial of William Lambert, and the report made thereon by the Secretary of State at the last session, presented a bill authorizing the establishment of an Astronomical Observatory; which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole on Friday next.

The report is as follows:

On the 27th December, 1809, Mr. Lambert addressed the House of
Representatives upon the expediency of establishing a first
meridian for the United States at their permanent seat of
Government. This was ordered for consideration to a select
number of gentlemen, who, on the 28th March, eighteen hundred
and ten, laid upon the table an able and learned opinion,
accompanied with scientific calculations illustrative of the
object. They concluded their investigation by recommending that
provision should be made, by law, for determining, with the
greatest accuracy, the distance between the City of Washington
and Greenwich in England, and that the proper instruments
should be procured.

Afterwards, on the 23d January, 1811, the memorial was referred
to a select committee; and, on the 23d of the ensuing February,
that committee was discharged, and the memorial referred to the
Secretary of State for his consideration.

Conformably to the desire of the House, that officer wrote to
the Speaker a letter which, after having been read, on the
third day of July, 1812, was ordered to lie on the table. That
letter was, on the 8th December last, ordered to the present
committee, who have diligently weighed the matters which it
contains.

It is their opinion that astronomical observations are highly
useful to a navigating and commercial people, already eminent
for their progress in science and the arts, and who are
laboring for the completion of their national dignity and
splendor.

The most ready method of obtaining the information to be
derived from noting the phenomena of the heavens, is by the
establishment of an observatory. This may be erected at the
city of Washington. By such an institution, means may be
adopted not only to fix the first meridian, but to ascertain
a great number of other astronomical facts and occurrences
through the vigilance of a complete astronomer.

THURSDAY, January 21.

The House met with closed doors; and, after being opened, another member, to wit, from New York, PETER B. PORTER, appeared, and took his seat.

FRIDAY, January 22.

_Encouragement to Privateers._

The House again resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole on the report of the Committee of Ways and Means on the petitions of Joshua Barney and Stephen Kingston.

The resolution, reported by the Committee of Ways and Means, "that it is inexpedient to legislate upon the subject of the petitions," was disagreed to; and the following was reported to the House as a substitute thereto:

"_Resolved_, That any right or claim of the United States to
British property which may have been captured by American
privateers, arising from forfeiture under any provision of the
non-importation acts, ought to be relinquished for the benefit
of the captors."

The question on the original resolution was also disagreed to by a vote of the House. For disagreeing 61, against it 47.

And the resolution proposed in Committee of the Whole as a substitute, was, as stated above, agreed to; and was referred to the Committee of Ways and Means to bring in a bill in pursuance thereof.

_Impressed Seamen._

The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:

_To the Senate and House of
Representatives of the United States_:

I transmit, for the information of Congress, copies of a
correspondence between John Mitchell, Agent for American
Prisoners of War at Halifax, and the British Admiral commanding
at that station.

I transmit for the like purposes copies of a letter from
Commodore Rodgers to the Secretary of the Navy.

JANUARY 22, 1813.

JAMES MADISON.

_Extract of a letter from John Mitchell, Esq., Agent for
American Prisoners of War at Halifax, to the Secretary of
State, dated_

"DECEMBER 5, 1812.

"I cover you a copy of a correspondence, which took place
in consequence of different applications I received, either
by letter or personally, from persons detained on board His
Britannic Majesty's ships of war in this place.

"I formerly mentioned to you that the Admiral had assured me
that he would discharge all the citizens of the United States
who were in the fleet, and actually did discharge several. This
induced me to think I should be correct, and in the perfect
line of my duty, in sending him a list of the applicants to me,
and requesting an inquiry to be made, and discharges granted
to all who were citizens of the United States; I, therefore,
covered him a list of the names now enclosed to you, which
produced his letter to me of the same date, (December 1, 1812.)

"I read it with surprise, because some of the men had informed
me their captains had refused to report them to the Admiral.
Now, if no one here was, or is, allowed to do it, their
situation is hopeless.