not improbable that a large portion, perhaps the whole of the disaster, arose from the neglect of a rule so very rational, that it is astonishing how it could have been overlooked.

PROCEEDINGS OF CONGRESS.

Among the grievous sins of the ruling party, I know of none much more culpable than the shocking and miserable mode in which the proceedings of Congress are managed. - Whatever may be the urgency of the public business, how ruinous soever may be delay, it appears utterly impossible to inspire that body with a due degree or energy or promptitude. Week after week, and month after month, pass over and the public anxiously, but in vain, expect remedies to be applied to the disorders of the state. To a most culpable spirit, of procrastination, and the itch of speaking, this wretched waste of time and neglect of the public embarrassments, may be fairly traced.

Two or three powerful orators on each side take a comprehensive view of a subject. They exhaust it completely. They are followed by a crowd of speakers, who are unable to throw any new or important light on it and whose speeches stand in the same relation to those of the early orators, that a hash warmed over a second or third time does to the original, noble sirloin, of whose fragments it is formed. And thus is the money of the nation expended, and its hopes frustrated, merely that Mr. A, and Mr. B, and Mr. C, and Mr. D, may have an opportunity of making long speeches to prove to their constituents how wisely they have selected representatives!

I have not before me the debates of the British parliamentand therefore cannot, with full confidence state what is actually their mode of proceeding. But it is strongly impressed on my mind, that they generally decide on questions at one sitting. This at least I can. aver with the utmost certainty, that many of the most momentous questions, involving the interests of 80,000,000 of people,* have been thus decided, after a debate from three o'clock in the afternoon, till three or four in the morning. And in the debates on these subjects, some of the greatest men in Europe have displayed their talents on both sidesErskine, and Fox, and Grev-Pitt, and Burke, and Wyndham. Whereas one of our speechifiers will sometimes occupy eight, ten, or twelve hours, sometimes two days, with a single speech.

A large portion of the people of this country have taken op

Including its East India possessions, the above is the number of the sub. jects of the British Empire.

posite sides respecting England, its manners, and its customs. One party admires and copies the other censures and despises almost every thing British. They are both in equal error. England presents much to admire and imitate-much to censure and avoid. It is highly desirable we should imitate her in the management of her parliamentary proceedings.

As respects the business of Congress, a remedy ought to be applied immediately. The debate ought to be limited within reasonable bounds. When they have been extended far enough, they ought to be terminated by the previous question, notwithstanding the clamour and outcry of the minority. And whenever the emergency of the case requires promtitude, the sitting ought to be continued till the subject is decided, unless its complication and difficulty may render an adjournment necessary.

What a lamentable prospect the country exhibited at the moment I wrote these lines! it was the sixth of December. Congress had been in session nearly three months-They found the credit of the government laid prostrate the sea-board exposed to depredation--the pay of the army in arrears and every thing in a situation that was calculated to excite energy and decision among a nation of Sybarities. And what was the result? There had probably been one or two hundred flowery speeches made-amendments and postponements innumerable and only two important acts passed-one for borrowing three millions of dollars-and the other for buying or building twenty schooners.

To those who were actuated by a sincere regard for the welfare and safety of their country, these proceeding were a source of the most poignant uneasiness. They were utterly unaccountable, and irreconcilable with the plainest dictates of reason and common sense. Laying aside all considerations of publiç spirit or patriotism, a due regard to personal interest and personal safety, ought to have prescribed a totally different line of conduct.

The majority endeavoured to shelter themselves by censuring the minority who made those long speeches for the purpose of embarrassing them, and protracting their debates and proceedings. This plea would not stand examination. Were it valid, a minority of. six or eight persons, possessed of the faculty of making "long talks," ," might at all times totally baffle a majority, and paralize the motions of the government. Suppose each member of the minority to make a speech of a day or two on every subject that arose for discussion-allow a reasonable time for replication to the majority and the whole year would be inadequate for that portion of business which the British parliament would with ease despatch in a month.

Besides the delay arising from the displays of oratory which I have stated, there is another source of delay, equally injurious. Private and trifling business obtrudes itself on the attention of congress, and occupies a large portion, of the time which is loudly called for by the important affairs of the nation. The former ought to be postponed till the other is all despatched.

Here I must notice one particular case, of the most extraordinary kind that ever occupied the attention of a public body. Never was there a greater mockery of a deliberative as. sembly. A stud horse, called Romulus, belonging to a Mr. David Dardin, was impressed by a continental officer, in the year 1781. Having been valued at 750 pounds specie, General Green returned him, on account of the extravagant price. He was afterwards taken by another officer, and never returned. His widow, Mrs. Amy Dardin, has been a very assiduous applicant to congress for remuneration from that period; and the subject has at various sessions, occupied a large portion of the time of that body. The wages of congress, during the time of the debates, would, I am persuaded, purchase horses for the best appointed regiment of dragoons in Christendom. A worthy member from Virginia used to ride Romulus into congress in great state, every year during his life. He is now no more. Who has been appointed "master of the horse" in his place, I cannot decide. But that he has a successor, is beyond a doubt; for Dardin's horse was curvetting and prancing as usual, even during the late very important session.

A gentleman to whom I mentioned this circumstance, informs me that in the years 1802 and 1803, there were two pam. phlets published on this subject at the expense of the nation, for the use of the members, the cost of which would perhaps have paid for the horse.

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To render this procedure more culpable, as well as more fartical, the senate of the United States were on the 7th. or 8th. or 9th. of February, 1815, when every moment of their time was inexpressibly invaluable, gravely debating bill for the remuneration of Mrs. Dardin! And they were then within a month of the close of their session-and had made no provision for the defence of our cities, liable to hourly destruction, nor for the restoration of public credit! The mind is lost in the most prafound astonishment at the contemplation of such a futile, such a puerile mode of managing public business. I am mistaken if the annals of legislation can produce any parallel.

One of two things. The claim is just or unjust. If the former, it is disgraceful and dishonourable not to have discharged it. If otherwise, it is really insufferable to have the public taxed by such importunity.

NEGLECT OF PUBLIC OPINION.

Of all the errors of the two administrations of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, the least criminal, but probably the most pernicious in its results, is, the indifference they have displayed towards the unfounded allegations whereby they were borne down, and their reputation and usefulness destroyed. This may have arisen from an absurd reliance on the good sense of the public or on the rectitude of their own intentions-perhaps from their indolence or inattention. It was probably founded, if it arose from either, of the two first motives, upon a trite, but fallacious maxim, which antiquity hath bequeathed us-Truth is great and will prevail. Millions of times has this captivating maxim been pronounced; and it is almost universally admitted as incontrovertable. Yet the history of the world in almost every page bears testimony to its fallacy. Truth, unaided by industry, and activity, and energy, combats at very unequal odds against falsehood, supported by these auxiliaries. That truth, "other things being equal," is an overmatch for falsehood, I freely grant. But the friends of the former, if they rely wholly on its intrinsic merits, and do not exercise a due degree of vigilance, will be miserably deceived in their calculations.

A suppossed case in point. A matron is charged with having been seen entering a brothel in the face of day, with a notorious seducer. The story spreads. It is universally believed. Her character is destroyed. She is shunned as contaminatory. Six months afterwards, she produces a host of unexceptionable witnesses to prove an alibi. They establish incontrovertibly, that at the time stated, and for months before and after, she was in China or Japan. It is in vain. Her character is gone. The waters of the Atlantic would not pu-rify her. She pays for her neglect and her folly, the mighty forfeit of a destroyed reputation.

Thus has it been with the administration of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison. They have been charged with criminal conduct, frequently of the most flagrant kind. The charges have been passed over in silence for a considerable time. Not being denied, they were presumed to be admitted. And in fact, how can [the public determine, whether silence under accusation arises from conscious guilt, a reliance upon

conscious rectitude, or an absurd and criminal neglect of public opinion?

I say, " a criminal neglect of public opinion. This declaration is not lightly hazarded. The character of a public officer is in some sort public property. A private person may allow his to be destroyed, perhaps without inflicting misfortune on any person but himself. But the destructon of that of a public officer is really a public injury-as it materially impairs, if it does not destroy, his usefulness.

There is in the history of General Washington, a circumstance which appears a departure from the sound, masculine good sense that almost universally presided over his conduct. During the revolutionary war, some of the British emissaries published a collection of letters ascribed to him, which were partly genuine, but interpolated with forgeries, and partly letters altogether forged. They were calculated to inspire strong doubts of his attachment to, and confidence in the revolution. They were edited by a masterly pen.

The attack was unavailing. The attachment to, and confidence in, the general, were unimpaired. The pamphlet sunk into oblivion.

In the year 1795, during the discussion excited by Jay's treaty, it was reprinted as a genuine collection, and had an extensive circulation. General Washington did not at the time notice it. He allowed it to take its course, apparently indif ferent as to the consequences. But at the close of his public functions, he recorded in the office of the secretary of state a formal declaration of the forgery. I feel convinced the procedure was injudicious. If the pamphlet were intitled to any animadversion, the proper period was when it was republished, and of course when it would produce all the effect that could result from it on his public character.

The instances of neglects of this kind on the part of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison, are numberless. I shall only instance two. A charge was alledged againt the former, of having sent two millions of dollars to France for some secret and sinister purpose, which. I cannot now recollect. It had been in universal circulation throughout the union, without any formal or satisfactory contradiction, for months. At length, after it had done all the mischief it was calculated to produce, an au thentic documental disproof crept out, Fexactly like the lady's alibi. and with the same effect.

One other, instance, and I have done with this part of my subject. The offer of the Russian mediation was made by M. Daschkoff in March, 1813. Mr. Pickering in Boston, shortly afterwards published a series of letters on the subject, which were republished in almost every town and city of the