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supplies from us, than they obtain in a clandestine manner; therefore they must depend upon England and other countries for their immediate supply. The presumption is, however, from the high price which the article now bears, and from the attention of many of the colonies to the raising of food within themselves, that the West-Indies do now receive from abroad but little more than one third of their usual supply. That portion of this third, which is not obtained from England, cannot reasonably be supposed to amount to more than 71,917 barrels. Now as it is manifest that the colonists could afford to pay 50 dollars 60 cents per barrel for this article, provided their sugar, in Europe, was enhanced in price only 1 dollar per cwt. ! We will here subjoin a calculation founded upon facts, by which it will appear evident that the price of sugar has obtained an infinitely greater increase than we have just suggested; and it is also evident that flour has by no means risen to the price abovementioned, in the West-Indies. The mean price of sugar in England, the first six months of 1807, was 36/6 per cwt. Soon after the Embargo went into operation, it began to rise; in June, 1807, it was 40/8, and in September from 50 to 51/per cwt. Let us take the middle price for an estimate, and we discover a rise of 16% per cwt. on the article: which makes a difference between the two prices, on the whole amount of sugar imported into Great Britain of nearly 11,110,810 dollars. The article of Rum has also received an uncommon augmentation of value, from the operation of the Embargo: the spirit of ship building has revived in England, most astonishingly within the last year; and indeed the whole foreign trade of that country has greatly increased. These wonderful advantages, when combined with the effects of the measure, in restoring a large body of deserted seamen to the English navy, may fairly be placed as more than a counter balance to the evils of a scanty supply of staves in the West-Indies, and the losses the manufacturers in Great-Britain are obliged to sustain. These evils, on the other hand, we will venture to assert have been very much exaggerated by Mr. Giles; but even though they were as dreadful as the warmest advocate of the President could require, we think they present no motive to a concession of the most trifling doctrine of the British maritime laws. When we consider, that for the manufactures which we do now receive from England, we are obliged to pay most enormous prices; that the profits, on the raw materials which compose them, are mostly derived by the English colonists; whilst those on the manufactured articles are paid by us, and that the cotton, which we formerly supplied, is now rotting in our store houses: it is clear that the evils resulting to Great Britain, through the medium of her manufacturers, is overrated. The operation of the measure, relative to them, is in a double aspect unfavourable to us, and in only one view, inimical to that nation! The force of Mr. Giles's argument about the duties of 4 per cent. on the manufactures which we receive, is greatly

weakened from such considerations, since it takes for granted, that all her exports to this country, are necessarily at an end. It is vain to say, we will exclude the admission of English manufactures into our country; the impossibility which the Emperor Napoleon, with all his power, has experienced in a similar attempt in his dominions, speaks a lesson to us more forcible than the most powerful language, on the impracticability of such a policy. But we ask pardon; the hint of the impracticability of a measure is an argument with our government in favour of its adoption.

It is only by estimates calculated from the interests of the whole nation, that we can draw a conclusion as to the course which Great-Britain will pursue, or that any just determination can be discovered. The Embargo, therefore, is favourable to that nation in another view; it facilitates her blockade of the French colonies; and affords her a better opportunity of assailing them, than at that happy period, when our ships. with various supplies, whitened every sea. The English colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, are notoriously benefitted by the continuance of this measure; and as to the supply of the West-India islands with staves and lumber, which Mr. Giles relies upon as impossible from any other country than the United States, we would only refer him to the shipments already made from Quebeck.

We consider the reasons we have produced, as quite apparent and conclusive; and as affording a sufficient solution of the refusal of GreatBritain to alter her Orders in Council, in our favour: but whether the Embargo had been effectual or not, we think it manifest that the British ministry would not be disposed to rescind those orders in any extremity, considering the hostile temper in which the Embargo originated, and the commercial pretensions which our government most pertinaciously maintained. It is, however, probable, from Mr. Canning's observations on the measure, that he was rather pleased with its effects, than irritated at its adoption. We are contented to draw this inference, from a part of his opinion, cited by Mr. Giles." If," says this minister, "the Embargo be a municipal regulation, which effects none but the United States themselves, and with which no foreign nation has any concern viewed in this light, his majesty does not conceive that he bas any right or pretension to make any complaint, and he has made none!" It is clear from this expression, that the English government care nothing about the Embargo; or, if they do, are pleased with its operation; and that as they hitherto have not, so neither will they ever perceive a pretension to complain of it.

Admitting however, for a moment, that its coercion abroad is intolerable; admitting the West-India islands to be greatly distressed, without deriving any counter-balancing advantages, and that the American supplies are almost indispensible to the European nations, yet we will venture to maintain that Great-Britain could not rescind her Orders in

consequence of that distress, without relinquishing her national dignity and honour in the first instance, and her dearest national interests in the second.

Her avowed intention, (we will not maintain that it was real,) but her avowed intention was to retaliate on France, for her Berlin decree of November 21, by her Orders in Council; and her Proclamation in relation to her seamen, of October 16, 1807, promulgated the principle, that she would seize her deserters in whatever merchant vessel she should find them. If therefore, her Orders in Council were taken off to-morrow, it would be a virtual admission before the world, that she could not maintain that measure against France. But the repeal of her Orders would not be sufficient for Mr. Madison, without a concession of that part of the Proclamation respecting English deserters in American merchant ships; because he has more than once required our ministers in London, to break off all negotiations with Great-Britain, unless our claims in respect to seamen under such circumstances were acceded to. This point must also be yielded, or our government can have no commerce with England; and if yielded, Great-Britain disavows a principle on which her very existence as a nation most clearly and indisputably depend.

Thus it is unquestionable that Great-Britain could not rescind her Orders or Proclamation, without sacrificing the principles which she is pledged before the world to maintain, and without relinquishing to us, her enemy, her most evident and important interests.

On the whole then, we conceive it to be apparent, that the effects of the Embargo are unimportant as respects Great-Britain; or if otherwise, the balance of interest is rather in her favour, especially if our own distress be taken into account; it is clear that she never has, and we think, never will complain of it; and besides, if it were ever so distressing in its operations on that nation, she never could, for many reasons, grant a concession to America.

(To be continued.)

TEMPER OF THE TIMES.

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THE many peculiarities of errour and turpitude by which the present administration of government, has been most shamefully disgraced, have stamped your character with such distinguishing marks of depravity, that to the future historian, it will only be necessary to mention a measure to be Jeffersonian, and the world will be ready to believe it inexpedient, unconstitutional, and corrupt. They will easily confess, that the man who would betray a friend, would sacrifice his country;'

and that the body, corrupted, as yours has been, by appetites the most unnatural, would of course be accompanied by a heart of the most deadly venom, and principles of the most destructive tendency. This letter is addressed to you, not in the delusive hope of your amendment, but that your successor may take warning from your example. That he may be induced to consider the universal detestation which you have excited, as a sort of memento to deter him from similar excesses; and to teach him, when the particular interests of any part of the community, and the constitutional rights of the whole are invaded, that not only the very existence of the nation is threatened, but that there is even some danger to be apprehended from the efforts of its accumulated resentment.

The philosophick dignity, and humble acquiescence of your inaugural address, afforded no indication, but to those who penetrated your hypocrisy, of those violent measures which have since marked the course of your administration; and those personal partialities and malignant resentments which have added new graces to your private character. Without daring, at first, to intimate the slightest displeasure at a difference of political opinion, we noticed your fruitless attempts to reconcile your opposers by smooth expressions, and excessive sensibility; and indeed it was not until you thought yourself perfectly secure in the favourable prejudices which you had excited among the people, that you had courage enough to unfold the perfidy of your real disposition, No sir, your ambition, like your passions, you satisfy by treachery; and as, to compass the one, your care not for the fate of the victim; so to gratify the other, you are regardless of the prosperity of the empire.

It would lead me into an exhaustless field of censure, were I to chase you through all the windings of your political race, and beat every bush which conceals some of your perfidious transactions. Your conduct has been so subtle, that your most corrupt proceedings have often been attributed to anxiety for the publick welfare: you have so mantled your vices, that the world have mistaken plausibility for reason, and affected zeal for true sincerity of disposition. But reflecting men have ever known you, and they would long ago have been reduced to the last state of desperation, had they not taken refuge from the dangers of your wickedness, in the cowardice of your heart. By some unaccountable fatality, however, they are now to be disappointed. Either they have mistaken your courage, or there is some hidden corner of inconsistency in your mind, which has not yet been penetrated. You have perhaps thought of your favourite plan of the extirpation of commerce, until you have believed the people would submit to its oppression; or what is still more probable, you have wished to complete the turpitude of your character, by leaving your successor to sustain the resentment of the people, when you shall have eluded the vehemence of their fu

ry. This I own is the probable calculation of such a mind as yours; but I trust the people will have too much good sense, even in the violence of the passions, not to level the bolt of their revenge against the head of their oppressor. You sir, have reserved for the end of your course this last black act, to shed if possible, a more malignant shade upon the rank and poisonous weeds of your former life.

This act only was required to complete the inconsistencies of your political conduct. We have seen you pay the libeller of Washington, and then weep over the tomb of the hero; we have seen you befriend Mr. Munroe, in order to desert him; we have seen you the most abject slave to the dictates of tyranny, and a high-handed brawler for the rights of the people; we have seen the laws treacherously relaxed in favour of Wilkinson, and strained in prosecuting Burr; and at length we have seen you, in order to give a death blow to the interests of our commerce, plunge your dagger through the vesture of the constitution. This last act is indeed practicing fully upon the principles of your writings; your Notes on Virginia, promulgated a doctrine, which your conduct as president has enforced. Hatred is the necessary feeling at your common transactions, but in this instance it is displaced by astonishment; for your last deed has been an act of danger. Had it been merely wicked or disgraceful, it would have been viewed as common to the administration, and corresponding with the tenour of the presidential character.

The fifth Embargo law, too, is essentially different from any of your other measures, as it is entirely destitute of every species of plausibility for its defence. You have declared not in language, but in deeds, that the inefficiency of a policy, is no bar to its adoption, though it involve the ruin of the nation; and that the ramparts of the constitution are no defence against the unprincipled ambition of a ruler. You have at last reduced the examination of your conduct, to a question which the most inferiour understanding can decide. This I confess surprises me, for while your perfidy was only to be detected by perspicacity of argument and investigation, you were safe from publick resentment; for the people cannot be reasoned into belief, they must feel their injuries before they will avenge them. You have ventured forth into the sea of tyranny, depending on the popular breath to waft you into harbour. The basis on which you have erected your last Embargo bill is too weak to sustain the building. Already the earthquakes of publick clamour have shaken it to its foundation; would to God the desolation which will follow, might whelm the contrivers in exemplary destruction. You have hitherto maintained your popularity; you have been supported by the people in the calmness of domestick security, and serenity of general happiness; but are you prepared for your fate, when they shall rise in the tumult of their indignation, supported by the majesty of their strength, and defended by the barriers of the constitution. · Vol. 1.

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