bargo for 90 days, whilst the people of New-Orleans, to whom you are lavishly giving almost every thing you have, will be embargoed for only 60 days. This is a most unjust, and as respects the federative system, a most iniquitious distinction.

For my part, sir, I cannot help looking at the signs of the times. I see a parallel that runs almost on all-fours between these days and the days of the administration of Mr. Grenville and Lord North in England, and the last days of the administration of John Adams. I see the same disrespect of the voice of the people--the same contempt with which their humble remonstrances are treated; for I pronounce it to be contempt to say that we will take their case into consideration at a time beyond which it will be of no avail to consider their petitions like a physician, who, when sent to you for advice and relief in a dangerous disease, should send you word he would come and see you in the next century.

But are the effects which I have endeavored to pourtray the only ones suffered from the operation of this blister plaister the embargo? Look at your export of provisions: the last year but one it was ten millions the last year more than double that smount. Is there any man at all acquainted with the nature and the course of trade who does not believe that the first quarter of the year 1812 has far exceeded any other quarter of any preceding year? He cannot. And in this situation, in the most flourishing trade even carried on in these great commodities, in the staff of life, in the principal article we have to sell; in a period when commerce is more flourishing (except as far as it is impaired by our own restrictions) than for years before, we have been called upon to commit this political felo de se. The operation of the measure has been what I have mentioned, and it has the effect to enable speculators to combine and obtain produce at their own prices to ship at the end of ninety days. The annual list of our exports of bread stuff is of itself a conclusive argument. In the year 1807 the bread stuffs of this country exported amounted to $14,400,000, a greater amount than they had ever before attained. In the succeeding year, although for a part of that year the embargo was not in operation-I speak of the custom-house year and not of year from the 1st of January to the 31st December-although the embargo was not during the whole year in operation, yet such was its effect that these exports fell down to three and a half millions. In the year 1809 they partially recovered and got up to eight millions; in the year 1810, when trade began to breathe a little from the effects of our own statutes, they mounted to ten millions. In 1811, as I said before, they were upwards of 20 millions; and in the first quarter of the present year I have no hesitation in saying they exceeded the export in the same period of any year from the commencement of the government to the present day. And in this situation we have laid an embargo-as a precursor to war, it is said. If so, it should be shewn how it adds one single man to our army, a single gun to our forts, a single sailor to our navy, or a shilling to the Treasury. As the reverse is self-evidently true, it follows of course

if we do not mean to go to war,that we ought to shake off this nightmare which is palsying all the operations of the government and the feelings of the people. All the excitement we see in this nation,all the talk of war, is that produced on the people in consequence of the oppressive acts of the party in power, of the pressure produced by their own government-like that produced by the sedition act, the alien act and the eight per cent. loans of Mr. Adams's administration, the excitement is among those who are opposed to them. to war, without money, without men, without a navy! Go to war when you have not the courage, whilst your lips utter "WAR," to lay war taxes! When your whole courage is exhibited in passing resolutions! The people will not believe it. The gentleman from New-York has well said that it is not the conduct of the minority, but of the House itself and of the government-and I might go on and add of the government prints-of the most violent government prints, which have impressed the people with an idea that there was to be no war. I said on a late occasion on this floor with much diffidence of the state of my information when I differed from the very extraordinary man at the head of the Treasury, that I could not be brought to believe that he could obtain money at the legal interest; and experience bears me out in that opinion. The first Loan, only for eleven millions, has failed, and in so far as it has failed has cast disgrace on the credit of the country. If the first loan at the commencement of your war, when trade is embarrassed, and monied men not knowing what to do with their money, cannot be filled, how will you obtain the succeeding loans? The reason why the public mind is impressed with an opinion that there will be no war, is, because the public are totally unaware of the high price at which this House holds its own consistency-that the ruin of the nation weighs nothing in the scale against it. The reason why the public mind has been impressed with an idea that there would be no war is not the breaking up or down of this or that system of restriction, but they must have been blind and deaf not to have seen that that there has not been, from the beginning of the session to this day, any system at all. It is notorious; and is as well known to the well informed gentlemen in this House as to any gentleman in this nation. There has been nothing like a system; and the bills passed this house a few days ago in relation to the War Department proves that there has been no system. Passing resolutions to lay taxes by overwhelming majorities, and letting them lie on the table and relying on the scanty resource of borrowing, which has failed, proves that you have no system-and yet, sir, I do not mean to say that you will not have war; but with the gentleman from New-York I will say, because I know it, that you have neither army, ships, seamen nor system. Under these circumstances, sir, you may have war.

That one of the two great belligerents with whom we are about to come into contact, can have no objection to see all our ships and seamen driven by the operation of this law within her grasp; for

sailors who have received fifty-four dollars a month to go to sea will not receive fifty-four dollars a month to come back and there will be very little need of a hot press on the river Thames or the river Liffy to man the British navy. She can have no objection to see our property all driven by our own act into her grasp as a precursor to war; nor can she, if her orders in council were dictated by a fear of a rivalry in trade from our commercial spirit, have any objection to see that spirit laid, not in the Red Sea, but in the Fresh River, of Embargo.

My own opinion decidedly is,said Mr.R. that if we mean to go to war,we should have refused leave of absence to the honorable and worthy chairman of the committee of finance to have gone home. We should have gone into committee of supply, granted the supply wanted by government, and taken them out of the disgraceful situation in which they are now placed in endeavoring to borrow money and not being able to obtain it. The laying of taxes should have been preparatory to the loan-the first measure taken after we met here, if our intention be really to wage active war which shall not recoil on the heads of our own people and government, and involve the latter in disgrace. But, Mr. Randolph said, it seemed that after laying out all their money to make preparation for a war by land, after refusing almost to take any measure for the protection of the sea coast, and adding nothing to our navy; under these circumstances they were about to wage a war of predatory rapine, and all the military preparations for the ensuing year were to eventuate in nothing. After this, said he, I shall not be surprized, if, when we receive news of inroads from the savages, we were forthwith to build a fleet to repel them. We had put all our means in an army, and we are now about to wage a predatory war, to be carried on by the exertions, personal and pecuniary, of individuals!

I venture to affirm, sir, said Mr. R. that the New York election of the spring of 1800 was not more portentous of the events which thereafter very soon ensued, than the elections now going on are portentous of the destiny of this administration. The people will support you in whatever is just and necessary; they would have done so in 1799 and 1800. They would then have gone with the government to war, if they had been sensible that the national interest required it. But you cannot stem the current of popular sentiment; you cannot drive the American people into measures which they see and which they feel to be subversive of their best interests. They will speak and you must hear. It has been the case from time immemorial with all governments-they have always exhibited a proneness to turn a deaf ear to the complaints of the people. Some mon

archs have even shut themselves up in their palaces, and refused to let the peoele see their faces. What was the consequence? Every thing without was discord and confusion; and one of the most remarkable of whom we read had to set fire to the house over his head, from the effects of his effeminacy and deafness to the voice of the people over whom he presided.

I have seen one revolution in the councils of the nation, and I do not want to see another brought about by the operation of laws, as cruel, as impolitic and wild, as destitute of national policy,as the one now under consideration. Whatever may be the determination of the government, whether peace or a quasi war, I believe we shall consult the interest of the people, of the nation, and consequently of the government by an immediate repeal of the act in question, which every man sees is inadequate to the purposes which it ostensibly undertakes to answer.

Mr. JOHNSON said, however parliamentary a discussion of our foreign relations might be upon the postponement of a petition to a certain period, he could not believe it either timely or interesting. If the House were notified of such a debate, or could anticipate it, then members would not be taken by surprise. He said he did not

rise with a view to answer all the remarks that had been made by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Randolph), as he had taken no memorandum, nor did he expect to have made a single remark; but the character of some observations would compel him to ask the indulgence of the House a very few minutes. The gentleman from Virginia has reminded us of the signs in the north, the elections of Massachusetts and New York. He supposed, the change which had been alluded to would not give any uneasiness to the gentleman, if we judged from his opposition to the measures of the present administration. He presumed, therefore, that the House was not reminded of these political signs as admonitions to change their course of measures, with a view of sustaining the popularity of the present majority in Congress and the administration-but to give a greater impulse to that opposition which is manifest from those places-as to those elections he would state that the people had their rights, and he did not wish to encroach upon them, and he hoped they would elect whom they pleased. This was a government of the people, and if a majority of the nation thought with the gentleman from Virginia, then indeed the time would soon come when he and those in the opposition, with whom he seemed in most cases to act, would come into power and they might pursue a different course of measures, as they seemed to agree very well in what course that should be-retracing our steps. But if the gentleman from Virginia should be disappointed, of which Mr. J. said he had little doubt, that the present majority would not only retain their present popularity and pursue the course they had marked out for themselves, but meet the support of the people.

But the same gentleman says, we have failed in negociating the Loan-and therefore disgrace has fallen upon us. He did not know, whence such information was derived. Sufficient time had not elapsed to know the extent of the success in obtaining a Loan, and only two days had been given to try the experiment. But Mr. J. said, he would venture the assertion, that the Loan had succeeded well, and beyond expectation, taking into view the violent opposition that

had been made to it by certain men in the U. S. discouraging every individual and institution, that could be operated upon by their misrepresentations, not to subscribe. It was a tory opposition, of which he spoke, in the cities and sea-ports; and an opposition which would not be quite so bold and powerful in a time of war; and he trusted in that Heaven, to which the gentleman from Virginia had appealed, that 60 days would not elapse before all traitorous combinations and oppositions to the laws and the acts of the general government, would in a great measure cease or change and moderate their tone.

He stated, that in times of war, all governments had their tories and their traitors and enemies in disguise; and to such he alluded, and not to those who were Americans, and might differ from those who were in the confidence of a majority of the people, and had votWith respect to the Loan, he farther observed, that he had no doubt the sum subscribed would be sufficient to meet the wants of the government; and after a declaration of war, no difficulty would exist as to the amount of Loans. The Congress would not then be represented as insincere in their determination to go to war; nor would the clamor against the Loan be quite so high. But he did not see what connection this subject had with the one before the House. He should pass to the remarks of the gentleman, that we were proceeding, as did the blind and mad administrations of Lord North in England and of Mr. Adams in the years '99 and 1800. For his part, Mr. J. could see no such analogy; nor did he believe it existed, whatever might be the sentiments of those who think otherwise. Those who oppose the measures of Congress, say the voice of the people is disregarded; and so has the gentleman from Virginia said. Indeed! and was he to give up his sentiments, and the sentiments of those whom he represented, because the constituents of the gentleman from Virginia, and the minority in this House, did not agree with him and his constituents, and with the constituents of a great majority of the members of Congress? With the same propriety and more, the gentlemen, who made this charge, might be called upon to give up their opposition and their judgment too, if you will, and with much better grace, if a majority of this nation is to govern, and that majority to be ascertained by their representatives here-and what other criterion will be established? Mr. J. said, he not only voted his own sentiments, but represented truly his constituents, his district; and he presumed other members did the same. If that was the case, he did not believe the voice of the people was disregarded, but consulted, except it was disregarded by the minority-and while the opposition members exercised their rights, and he never wished to curtail them, they should recollect that the majority had rights also, and could not be called upon with any propriety to abandon them, because the constituents of a minority in the House wished it. Such a principle would totally destroy the great fundamental maxim of all