their neutrality) of whom he spoke greatly within bounds in saying that there were two thousand employed in these expeditions, and for ever lost to the service of the country-thus raising the price of labour, and greatly injuring the fair commerce and navigating interest of the country, as he showed by plain and practical illustrations.

Mr. GROSVENOR, from New York, rose. In the general view of this question, he said he hoped the time had gone by when, in considering what was the duty of this house, reference would be had to considerations not bearing on that point. For, it was simply a question, whether the United States would or would not compel its citizens to adhere to their duties as the people of a neutral nation. On this question, he said, there could be but one party, and but one sentiment. He here remarked on what, he said, was a curious argument. Why enforce these provisions in favour of Spain, it was asked-Has she not injured us? Do gentlemen recollect, said he, that when you countenance violations of neutrality, you in fact engage in the war? If we are to have war, let us boldly go into it, said he, and not sneak into it with our privateers from one port or another. If Spain have injured us, let us tell her and the world so, and appeal to the world and to the God of Battles. I protest against this mode of carrying on the war. What, Mr. G. said, was asked by this bill? The gentlemen from Georgia and Maryland had put it in its true shape. It did not touch the commerce of the country; it had nothing to do with it. It was a question touching the interference of the citizens of this nation in a war waged between two foreign powers. The report of the secretary of state had not been read: if it had, it would show, what was indeed notorious to the whole world, that we do now interfere in that war. The question was, whether congress should adopt legal principles which would compel our citizens to adhere to that neutrality which is the policy of the nation. This bill only proposed a mode of enforcing the observance of an established principle, for the maintenance of which every nation is responsible.

What, Mr. G. asked, was the objection to the 3d section, which it was now proposed to expunge? That the collector was to be authorised to detain vessels on suspicion, without a formal warrant. The same objection, Mr. G. said, would apply to all our revenue laws; and he never before heard any objection to seizure of vessels without warrant. He had heard objections to bringing these principles to operate on the land, in the bosom of society, by searches and seizures of houses, carriages, sleighs, &c. &c. but he had never before heard the ordinary provisions of the revenue laws, analogous to this, objected to as contrary to the constitution.

I know, said Mr. G., that this bill goes a great length; but, certainly without going it, we cannot cure the evil. I have had

some acquaintance with this affair, and shall not err when I say, that whilst the whole mass of the nation is at peace, some of its cities are at open war. Congress might, he said, adopt the principle that they would not interfere: but, if they did, where it would end he did not know, and no one could say.

Mr. RANDOLPH, of Virginia. Did gentlemen recollect, Mr. R. asked, the case between these colonies and Great Britain, and in what way France became a party to that war? In the same way the United States may and probably will become a party to the war between Spain and her colonies: by fitting out arms on colonial account from her ports, for the purpose of carrying on the war, public and private, against the mother country. In that way, he repeated, France had become a party to the war: in that way we might and probably should become a party to the present war. Now, if we are prepared to take sides between Spain and her colonies, let us say so: but, if not, let us do those things incumbent on us to prevent being drawn in on one side or the other. Mr. R. remarked on the fanciful theory of gentlemen, and a sort of visionary idea they appeared to have, of the struggle in question being one for the right of self government, &c. When the people of Spain, from the rock of Gibraltar to the pass of Roncevalles, were in arms against the authority of the government established there by the French, there was not, Mr. R. said, any of this feeling for a great and generous nation, asserting the right of self government-nothing of the sort. On the contrary, the United States had preserved what they called a neutral attitude-a neutrality calculated, as far as our means went, to subserve the cause of one of the parties, he did not say which. If, said Mr. R. we are prepared to take part between Spain and her revolted colonies, let us say so, and act an open, manly and generous part. But, for my share, I have had enough of revolutions, and I have had enough of war-and I cannot say, with an honourable member from Maryland before me (Gen. Smith) that I am not afraid of a Spanish war. I should be afraid of a war with the Sandwich Islands; I should be afraid of a war with the Cherokees or Creeks: I should be afraid of a war with any thing, unless perchance with the barbarians of the Mediterranean coast of Africa. I am afraid of war: we have found the consequences of it-and, if we go to war with Spain, it is not for me or the gentleman from Maryland to say, when or on what terms we shall make peace with the allied powers. I do not wish to make peace with them, said Mr. R. for the plain reason that I do not wish to make war with them. This bill had been called, and properly called, a bill for making peace between his catholic majesty and the town of Baltimoreand he was willing to contribute all in his power to the restoration of peace between these high contracting parties.

Mr. R. said he should not have troubled the house on this occasion, but for the allusion to the St. Domingo act, passed on the 28th day of February, 1806. You, sir, said Mr. R. (addressing the chairman) remember well that day-it was just at the close of a period, within which, after sitting for weeks in conclave, the policy of this country had taken a direction which has since governed the ship of state. The act referred to was passed at that memorable session when the politics of the United States assumed, in the eye of all those who knew how to judge_of events, a definitive direction as to the two great powers of Europe. I voted for it, said Mr. R., after endeavouring, with our doors shut and with the doors open, to arrest that career, and expose that fatal policy which brought us to what we have seen, and what we now feel. And when I was asked why I voted for this famous St. Domingo act-an act which was said it was so said; I speak in the impersonal-which was said to have been passed under terror of the displeasure of his majesty the emperor and king of France.-Referring to the saying of Charles XII. respecting Riga, that God had given it to him, and the Devil should not take it away from him, Mr. R. applied it to the sceptre of Napoleon: which, whether or not the devil gave it to him, we certainly know that the hand of God took from the oppressor—yes, that malefactor of mankind-that hostis humani generis. When he spoke of that man in this way, he said, it was with recollections of the date of this act, and not of his present condition. In his present condition, he would not triumph even over him: he looked upon his former elevation to have been the result of a timid acquiescence in what had been called public sentiment in the reign of terror-when heads had been lopped off, and men tortured in every way that ingenuity could devise -all in obedience to public sentiment!-when a few executioners, with the words 'public sentiment' in their mouths, mangled and massacred whatever was valuable in that once noble country. Yes, he said, it was a noble country, and the country of a noble people. When, said he, (resuming the thread of his discourse) I was asked, on what grounds I should justify my vote, I answered, on none that had been assigned, and unquestionably not on some that were not assigned. I voted in favour of it, because I considered St. Domingo as an anomaly among the nations of the earth; and I considered it my duty, as an American politician-as an American statesman, if you will allow me to apply that observation to myself as a representative, above all, of the southern portion of the United States, to leave nothing undone which could possibly give to the white population in that island an ascendancy over the blacks: for, if if ever any thing called for a perpetual embargo on all intercourse, it was the state of that country.

I am tired of war, said Mr. R., but I do not therefore expect to

escape it. Little does he know of the condition of mankind: little does he know of the signs of the times on the other side of the Atlantic or on this, who imagines the repose of the world is settled. The leaven is at work in Europe, perhaps more actively in England than in any other part of it, and the virus has been received here, that will produce a state of things very far from that settled repose which gentlemen seem to flatter themselves will follow the late convulsions in the civilized world. But, believing as he did, Mr. R. said he was willing to put it off to the latest day. He was attached to his own country. Let Jews, Turks or Infidels fight for their liberty or for their religion; he would have nothing to do with their liberty or their reeligion. He would not omit to do any thing he could constitutionally do, to prevent being involved in a quarrel in the name of liberty and religion, when servitude, and superstition the most dark and detestable that was ever known, was at the bottom of it. He would keep aloof from it.

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Gentlemen say, observed Mr. R., that our enterprizing citizens must go and fight the wars of the colonies with Spain. With all my heart. That they must go and attack her commerce. With all my heart, if they will not attack ours, nor involve their country in the war. Let Spain catch them when she can, and treat them as she has a right. There will be one advantage, certainly, in permitting this system of private depredation to continue; there would be less capital, less of this generous enterprizing spirit left, to engage in another trade which we have already attempted to prohibit by law-that is, the infernal slave

trade.

Mr. SHARP, of Kentucky. St. Domingo, Mr. S. said, was a revolted colony, its independence to this day unacknowledged by its former sovereign; yet we trade with St. Domingo-we go to her ports, she comes to ours. Where would the gentleman find a reason to distinguish between this case and that of the Spanish provinces? If, Mr. S. said, our feelings were enlisted in favour of old Spain against these colonies, and we believed that self government would be a curse to them, this bill might be a proper one to aid the mother government in subjugating the colonies. We may go thus far, said he: we have a constitutional right to lay these restrictions. But, he insisted, on the rules which govern neutral nations in their conduct and commerce with belligerents, we are not bound to pass it, and that we ought not to pass it, because it would be unwise to do it. The gentleman had asked why the feelings of gentlemen were not so warm in behalf of the patriots of Spain in their struggle for self government, as now for the South Americans. For my own feelings, said Mr. Sharp, I have no difficulty in expressing them. When the house of Spain had ground down the people, I felt no aversion to seeing any change which would improve VOL. II.

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their condition. The putting down of the inquisition, the abolition of monasteries, the reduction of the number of priests, he was glad to see. When the Spanish patriots collected the sense of the people, rallied around their standard, my feelings were interested in their favour, more than they had previously been in favour of any effort of Bonaparte. I viewed him as a tyrant; but I cannot view without abhorrence the conduct of the ruler who succeeded on these efforts of a patriotic people—I cannot view without horror human nature in such a state of baseness, as to exhibit such ingratitude as has been shown. Mr. S. said, he would never suffer himself to take any part to sustain the dominion of that monarch.

Mr. SHEFFEY, of Virginia, said he understood it to be the policy of the government of the United States, to observe a strict neutrality between the old country of Spain and her colonies in rebellion against her. If that was the determination of this country, it was the duty of the constituted authorities to carry that determination into effect, and not to manifest neutrality, when in fact our citizens were taking part with one of the belligerents, and against the other. To prevent this, the provisions of this bill had been reported, which Mr. S. approved. What sort of sincerity do we exhibit, he asked, if we permit persons to fit out expeditions in our ports, and, after they had gone to sea, pretend to prosecute them when beyond the reach of our jurisdiction? The government should not act at all, unless it acted effectually; to enable it to do which, the power proposed to be given by this bill was essential.

As to our feeling on the subject of the existing war, that, Mr. S. said, was wholly out of the question. If the government, or the house, feel as the gentleman from Kentucky does, it becomes us to pursue a different course; to take a stand in support of those who are contending against the tyrant of the European country. All this display of feeling, Mr. Sheffey said, might do honour to the heart, but, after the experience of past years, it certainly did no great honour to the head. After the failure of the great struggle on the old continent in favour of civil liberty in Europe, they must be sanguine indeed who anticipate its success in a population so much more ignorant and unenlightened. The slight dawning of liberty in France, had been, he said, perhaps the greatest curse that human liberty ever experienced. No more favourable consequences are likely to result from the contest in South America. There will be strife and bloodshed of long duration, but which will settle down in a despotism perhaps more dark than has heretofore prevailed there. If a population like that of the Spanish provinces is to be emancipated, it will not be by revolution, but by receiving gradually the principles of civil liberty. And, when gentlemen compared their struggle with that of the people of this country in our revolution, they were