war originated, the respective assertion and denial of our MARITIME AND INHERENT RIGHTS. In fact, while they are scarcely to be deemed of minor importance, in one point of view they form the bulk of what ought to come under discussion; for as to our maritime rights, we re-assert, that so far from the concession being admitted, even all disquisition relative to them should peremptorily be abstained from.

It is needless to enter into the abstract principle, the moral propriety, or the accepted and acknowledged legality of our claims, though all have been established on grounds, if not always wholly incontrovertible, yet never satisfactorily controverted. It is sufficient to revert to the principle, that God and nature having put the power of the ocean, as the surest and only bulwark of an island against its ambitious neighbours into our hands, we are fully entitled to exercise that power for our complete security, and so as to ensure us the full enjoyment of the naval prosperity consequent upon it. We seek not, we cannot seek, to controul the nations of the earth, whose strength is in armies, and in territories, and in multitudes; but we have a power given to us to wield, by which this our little island can resist the armies, and the wealth, and the multitudes of the assembled world. That power must never depart from us, or we cease to exist as a nation. That power resides in our maritime rights. To them unreserved adherence must be our device, the sword and the rudder our supporters: so shall the shield of our security be blazoned with glory, and our crest be, and remain, the honorable and perdurable' dominion of the ocean.

"" QUI MARE TENEAT, EUM NECESSE RERUM POTIRI." London, 2d March, 1814.

APPENDIX.

ON THE CONDUCT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE

UNITED STATES TOWARDS THE INDIAN TRIBES.

Extracts from a Letter dated Canada, 14th January 1813.

[Taken from the Morning Post of the 26th April 1813.]

*I HOPE that before this letter reaches you, the eyes of the nation will have been opened to the real views of the American government, in their infamous war against Great Britain, which are none other than eventual destruction to the independence of the country of their forefathers, by the establishment of principles ruinous to her navy, and by the immediate conquest of all British North America, and especially the Canadas, as means conducive thereto.

"The diplomatic farce they have been acting, in their proposals (impudently demanding therein, as a preliminary, the very object of the contest) for an armistice on your side of the water, whilst they rejected it on this side, must surely convince the most incredulous that their purpose was to lull the nation asleep, in order that their conquest might be prosecuted, without interruption.'

1 In vanity and impudence the Americans surpass the world. The late Mr. Fox observed, that he had heard of Scotch modesty and Irish impu

NO. IX.

Pam.

VOL. V.

I

"It cannot but make a forcible impression upon all who will impartially reflect upon the past conduct of the American government, that whilst the orders in council were considered likely to be persisted in, they were loudly complained of, as the only bar to accommodation and harmony between the two countries: but no sooner was it found that they would be given up, if that would suffice (see Lord Wellesley's letter to Mr. Pinkney, of 29th December 1810), than the latter, in his answer of 14th January 1811, brings forward the annulment of the blockade of May 1806, as also indispensable. Now, it is notorious, that this blockade was never complained of by America, until she was required so to do by Bonaparte; for Mr. Monroe, so far from remonstrating against it, at the time, officially wrote, that he considered it as highly satisfactory to the commercial interests ;' and the said orders and blockade being at an end, Bonaparte's principles of blockade must also be acknowledged, and impressments from American vessels given up; which latter they confound and blind in such a manner, as to leave it equivocal, whether native American seamen be only meant, a point we never claimed, or British seamen naturalized in America` be also included, which we can never admit, as it violates fundamental principles of right, and would unman our navy in a few years.

"Further, they insidiously aim at our giving up the right of search for our seamen, and to trust to their prohibitions, (to be hereafter made,) about employing them; but if we ever abandon that right, either as to search for contraband goods or for seamen-or trust to any other security for enforcement of our rights upon these points, than the vigilance of our own navy-then farewell to our independence as a nation. Thus, it is evident, that give up what you will, something more is always held in reserve by America, to keep up irritation against us; and to promote the purposes of France; and it is further evident, by the conduct of America since her declaration of war, that in drawing the sword she threw away the scabbard, and yet we remain with ours sheathed.

"The forbearance and spirit of conciliation of Great Britain towards America have been so extreme and unprecedented, that, instead of being attributed to magnanimity, and a sincere wish for peace,

dence, but that the true Corinthian brass was only to be found in Amerića.

weakness only is considered in the United States as the motive: The time is therefore arrived when such determined enmity against us must be met by a proportionate and energetic application of our power against this new enemy, at his vulnerable points, of which there are many; for by such a course only will America be brought to her sober senses, and both countries saved from destruction; and I hope and trust that no terms of peace will hereafter be acceded to, that shall not provide ample security for our maritime rights-to our North American provinces-and to our Indian allies.

"The American government will be found inferior only to Buonaparte's in the arts of deception, and of framing and circulating falsehoods, calculated to give a color to their unprincipled deeds, and to mislead public opinion. They are ever ready to accuse their enemy of practices which they scruple not to pursue. In nothing is this more manifest, than in their hypocritical misrepresentations about our employing the Indians, and which form a prominent feature in Mr. Madison's message to congress, at the opening of its present session.

"The truth is, that the Americans have done the utmost to corrupt all the Indian nations, and employ them against us; when, finding their efforts in general fail (although successful in particular instances), they imitate the fox in the fable, and cry out sour grapes;-affecting to wish for Indian neutrality; although it is notorious that they would, if they could, employ every Indian in desolating Canada; and it is equally notorious, that they exaggerate the cruelties of Indian warfare, whilst greater are practised by the white savages of the Western American States, who are really more barbarous than the red savages of the wilderness.

"Of the Indians of North America, the far greater proportion live without the British territories, and only a small part within ; which latter are chiefly such as were driven from the United States, in the American war, and to whom tracts of land were assigned in Upper Canada. Even these were offered bribes by the Americans to desert us, and being terrified by their gasconade about the power of America, and our defenceless situation, at one time balanced, from fear of them, but not from want of affection for us.

"Part of the Indians of St. Regis, a few others of the Six Nations, and some Shawaneese who live within the American territory, joined them. General Hull's official dispatch proves the efforts he made to procure others; who, he bitterly complains, deceived and deserted

him and the American General Brown's invitation to the St. Regis Indians, whilst he commanded at Ogdensburg; as well as the Indians, generally, being invited to go to Washington and other places, to hold conferences, are further proofs of what I assert. Yet, after all these efforts to seduce the Indians, the American government has the effrontery to talk about Indian assistance to us. The reason why they do not succeed better in their plans of corruption is, that the Indians have experienced their deceptions and treachery too often to trust them, in any case, but that of necessity. The rule of the United States, respecting the Indians, is, that might makes right. They consider them as an inferior and unprotected class of beings, and act accordingly.

"The Indians, as well as the loyalists of British America, are objects of deadly democratic hate, as the speeches in congress plainly evince: indeed, the views of the American government seem long to have pointed at a systematic plan for exterminating the Indians—if not always by open force, at least by an insidious policy, which must operate to that effect: and the farce of the attempt made to civilize them, so much vaunted of in Mr. Jefferson's cant, was merely to deceive, and gain applause from foreign nations, who were ignorant of American practices, and of their Indian land swindling. Of this, the famous chief Tecumsecth, who unites the greatest wisdom with the most determined valor, was so well aware, that he had been long endeavouring to form a general league, to preserve Indian rights and repress AMERICAN INJUSTICE; but which, previous to the war, OUR government, from good faith and delicacy to the United States, declined giving countenance to, and on all occasions recommended peace; which sentiment, the British traders, in conformity with the wishes of this government, and in furtherance of their own interests, re-echoed to the interior tribes. But the moment that America declared war against Great Britain, the idea seems almost universally to have flashed upon the Indian mind, like lightning: that the moment was arrived for redress of the deep injuries inflicted upon them by the United States; and, consequently, they embraced the British cause in the full persuasion that they had no permanent hope but from British success and justice. Thus every motive combined to stimulate them to aid in defending THEIR AND OUR lives and properties against America ambition and rapacity.