for a length of time, having been merged | in the general retaliatory blockade of the enemy's ports under the Orders in Council, and that his Majesty's government had no intention of recurring to this, or to any other of the blockades of the enemy's ports, founded upon the ordinary and accustomed principles of maritime law, which were in force previous to the Orders in Council, without a new notice to neutral powers in the usual form."

namely, that she should abandon the exercise of her undoubted right of search, to take from American merchant vessels British seamen, the natural-born subjects of his Majesty; and this concession was required upon a mere assurance that laws would be enacted by the legislature of the United States, to prevent such seamen from entering into their service; but independent of the objection to an exclusive reliance on foreign state, for the conser The American government, before they vation of so vital an interest, no explana received intimation of the course adopted tion was, or could be afforded by the agent by the British government, had in fact who was charged with this overture, either proceeded to the extreme measure of de- as to the main principles, upon which such claring war, and issuing "Letters of laws were to be founded, or as to the proMarque," notwithstanding they were pre-visions which it was proposed they should viously in possession of the Report of the contain.

French minister for foreign affairs, of the This proposition having been objected 12th of March, 1812, promulgating anew to, a second proposal was made, again ofthe Berlin and Milan Decrees, as funda-fering an armistice, provided the British mental laws of the French empire, under government would secretly stipulate to rethe false and extravagant pretext, that the nounce the exercise of this right in a monstrous principles therein contained treaty of peace. An immediate and for were to be found in the treaty of Utrecht, mal abandonment of its exercise, as preand were therefore binding upon all states.liminary to a cessation of hostilities, was From the penalties of this code no nation was to be exempt, which did not accept it, not only as the rule of its own conduct, but as a law, the observance of which, it was also required to enforce upon Great Britain.

not demanded; but his royal highness the Prince Regent was required, in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, secretly to abandon, what the former overture had proposed to him publicly to concede.

This most onffesive proposition was also In a Manifesto, accompanying their rejected, being accompanied, as the former declaration of hostilities, in addition to had been, by other demands of the most the former complaints against the Orders exceptionable nature, and especially of in Council, a long list of grievances was indemnity for all American vessels des brought forward; some trivial in them-tained and condemned under the Orders selves, others which had been mutually adjusted, but none of them such, as were ever before alleged by the American government to be grounds for war,

in Council, or under what were termed illegal blockades-a compliance with which demands, exclusive of all other objections, would have amounted to an absolute surrender of the rights, on which those Orders and blockades were founded.

As if to throw additional obstacles in the way of peace, the American Congress at the same time passed a law, prohibiting all intercourse with Great Britain, of such a tenor, as deprived the executive government, according to the President's own construction of that Act, of all power of restoring the relations of friendly intercourse between the two states, so far at least as concerned their commercial intercourse, until Congress should re-assemble. The President of the United States has," Letters of Marque," and manifested a it is true, since proposed to Great Britain disposition immediately to restore the rean armistice; not, however, on the ad- lations of peace and amity between the mission, that the cause of war hitherto re- two powers. lied on was removed; but on condition, that Great Britain, as a preliminary step, should do away a cause of war, now brought forward as such for the first time;

Had the American government been sincere in representing the Orders in Council, as the only subject of difference between Great Britain and the United States, calculated to lead to hostilities; it might have been expected, so soon as the revocation of those Orders had been officially made known to them, that they would have spontaneousty recalled their

But the conduct of the government of the United States by no means corresponded with such reasonable expectations.

The Order in Council of the 23d of June

neutral merchant vessels in time of war, the impressment of British seamen, when found therein, can be deemed any violation of a neutral flag. Neither can he admit, that the taking such seamen from on board such vessels, can be considered by any neutral state as a hostile measure, or a justifiable cause of war.

There is no right more clearly established, than the right which a sovereign has to the allegiance of his subjects, more especially in time of war. Their allegiance is no optional duty, which they can decline, and resume at pleasure. It is a call which they are bound to obey it began with their birth, and can only terminate with their existence.

If a similarity of language and manners may make the exercise of this right more liable to partial mistakes, and occasional abuse, when practised towards vessels of the United States, the same circumstances make it also a right, with the exercise of which, in regard to such vessels, it is more difficult to dispense.

British officer, was acknowledged, his conduct was disapproved, and a reparation was regularly tendered by Mr. Foster on the part of his Majesty, and accepted by the government of the United States.

It is not less unwarranted in its allusion to the mission of Mr. Henry; a mission undertaken without the authority, or even knowledge of his Majesty's government, and which Mr. Foster was authorised formally and officially to disavow.

The charge of exciting the Indians to offensive measures against the United States, is equally void of foundation. Before the war began, a policy the most opposite had been uniformly pursued, and proof of this was tendered by Mr. Foster to the American government.

Such are the causes of war which have been put forward by the government of the United States. But the real origin of the present contest will be found in that spirit, which has long unhappily actuated the councils of the United States: their marked partiality in palliating and assisting the aggressive tyranny of France; their systematic endeavours to inflame their people against the defensive measures of Great Britain; their ungenerous conduct towards Spain, the intimate ally of Great Britain; and their unworthy de sertion of the cause of other neutral nations. It is through the prevalence of such councils, that America has been associated in policy with France, and com

But, if to the practice of the United States, to harbour British seamen, be added their assumed right, to transfer the allegiance of British subjects, and thus to cancel the jurisdiction of their legitimate sovereign, by acts of naturalization and certificates of citizenship, which they pretend to be as valid out of their own territory, as within it, it is obvious that to abandon this ancient right of Great Britain, and to admit these novel preten-mitted in war against Great Britain. sions of the United States, would be to expose to danger the very foundation of our maritime strength.

Without entering minutely into the other topics, which have been brought forward by the government of the United States, it may be proper to remark, that whatever the declaration of the United States may have asserted, Great Britain never did demand, that they should force British manufactures into France; and she formally declared her willingness entirely to forego, or modify, in concert with the United States, the system, by which a commercial intercourse with the enemy had been allowed under the protection of licences: provided the United States would act towards her, and towards France, with real impartiality.

The government of America, if the difference between states are not interminable, has as little right to notice the affair of the Chesapeake. The aggression, in this instance, on the part of a

And under what conduct on the part of France has the government of the United States thus lent itself to the enemy? The contemptuous violation of the commercial treaty of the year 1800, between France and the United States; the treacherous seizure of all American vessels and cargoes in every harbour subject to the controul of the French arms; the tyrannical principles of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, and the confiscations under them; the subsequent condemnations under the Rambouillet Decree, antedated or concealed to render it the more effectual: the French commercial regulations which render the traffic of the United States with France almost illusory; the burning of their merchant ships at sea, long after the alleged repeal of the French Decrees-all these acts of violence on the part of France produce from the government of the United States, only such complaints as end in acquiescence and submission, or are accompanied by suggestions for

his present Majesty's reign, accompanied | account of his religion, when it is a notoas they are with necessary restrictions and securities for the safety of the established Church, but they look with the deepest anxiety to the claims now made for the abrogation of all restrictions by persons who acknowledge the spiritual superiority of the Pope in these realms, and who hold tenets in many respects as inimical to the principles of the English constitution in matters of state as they are subversive of all religious toleration, and utterly inconsistent with the doctrines of the established Church; and praying the House to adopt such measures as will best maintain the Protestant ascendancy in Church and State, and give stability and permanence to the civil and ecclesiastical constitution of the country."

A Petition of the freeholders of the county of Oxford was also presented and read; setting forth,

rious fact that the right even to the crown, the highest civil right in these dominions, was conferred on, and is now enjoyed by, the present royal family, to the exclusion of others more nearly related to it, upon the mere ground of an objection to their religion, and, should it once be established by the legislature that religious opinions are not a sufficient ground of civil incapacity, the petitioners apprehend there can be no pretence whatever afterwards for saying that the crown of these dominions shall not be worn by a Papist; and that the petitioners cannot but observe, that the most strenuous supporters of the claims of the Roman Catholics admit that every attention ought to be paid to the se curity of our civil and religious establishments, and that effectual measures ought to be adopted for the security of both, but the petitioners also observe, that none of those persons who make these admissions have ever pointed out or suggested the measures they should think effectual for that purpose, from which they cannot but infer the extreme doubtfulness and diffi culty, even in the judgment of those per. sons themselves, or rather, as the peti tioners firmly believe, the absolute impracticability of devising such measures; and that the petitioners apprehend, that, if the claims of the Roman Catholics should be acceded to, every other restric tion and test must of course be abolished, and that the government of our establish ments in Church and State must be thrown open to sects of every denomination, and of the most discordant opinions and prin ciples; and that the petitioners most solemnly declare, that they are not influenced by any wish to restrain the free exercise of religious opinions, and, if pos

"That the petitioners have observed, with the deepest concern, the repeated attempts that have been made to break down, repeal, and destroy, all those secu. rities of our civil and religious establishments which we owe to the wisdom and firmness of some of the best of our ancestors, securities not demanded by any occasional or temporary causes only, but founded in principles as immutable as they are wise; and that the petitioners cannot conceive a situation of things more repugnant to the principles of sound policy, than that Roman Catholics should possess the power of framing the laws and of administering the highest offices in the government of a Protestant establishment in Church and State, to the very character and principles of which their tenets are decidedly hostile, nor can they conceive it to be any hardship that Roman Catho-sible, still less by any kind or degree of lics, who exclude all persons except those of their own communion, from any authority or interference whatever in the government of their Church, should be excluded from any share in the government of a Church to which they are not only strangers but adversaries; and that, by the constitution of England, the government of the Church and the State are inseparable, and whoever is admitted into the share of the government of the one, must consequently be intrusted with a share of the government of the other; and that the petitioners have heard, with astonishment, persons contending that no one ought to be excluded from a civil right on

animosity towards their Roman Catholic fellow subjects, but they are actuated by an honest and firm persuasion that the re strictions now attempted to be abolished have essentially contributed to the preser vation of those establishments which have been the source of our prosperity and happiness, and that the abolition of them would inevitably tend to weaken and undermine those establishments, and ultimately lead to the overthrow of the con stitution; and praying, that the restrictions by which Roman Catholics are excluded from the power of framing the laws and administering the highest offices in the government of our civil and reli