STATEPAPERS. 



337 



selves, others which had been mu- 

 tually adjusted, but none of them 

 such as were ever before alleged 

 by the American government to 

 be grounds for war. 



As if to throw additional obsta- 

 cles in the way of peace, the Ame- 

 rican congress at the same time 

 passed a law, prohibiting all inter- 

 course with Great Britain, of such 

 a tenour, as deprived the executive 

 government, according to the pre- 

 sident's own construction of that 

 act, of all power of restoring the 

 relations of friendly intercourse be- 

 tween the two states, so far, at 

 least, as concerned their commer- 

 cial intercourse, until congress 

 should re-assemble. 



The president of the United 

 States has, it is true,since proposed 

 to Great Britain an armistice; not, 

 however, on the admission, that 

 the cause of war hitherto relied on 

 was removed ; but on condition, 

 that Great Britain, as a prelimi- 

 nary step, should do away a cause 

 of war, now brought forward as 

 such for the first time ; namely, 

 that she should abandon the exer- 

 cise 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 enter- 

 ing into their service; but inde- 

 pendent of the objection to an ex- 

 clusive reliance on a foreign state 

 for the conservation of so vital an 

 interest, no explanation was, or 

 could be afforded by the agent who 

 was charged with this overture, 

 either as to the main principles 



Vol. LV. 



upon which such laws were to be 

 founded, or as to the provisions 

 which it was proposed they should 

 contain. 



This proposition having been 

 objected to, a second proposal was 

 made, again offering an armistice ; 

 provided the British government 

 would secretly stipulate to re- 

 nounce the exercise of this right in 

 a treaty of peace. An immediate 

 and formal abandonment of its 

 exercise, as preliminary to a cessa- 

 tion of hostilities, was not de- 

 manded ; 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 offensive proposition 

 was also rejected, being accom- 

 panied, as the former had been, by 

 other demands of the most excep- 

 tionable nature, and especially of 

 indemnity for aU American vessels 

 detained and condemned under the 

 orders in council, or under what 

 were termed illegal blockades — a 

 compliance with which demands, 

 exclusive of all other objections, 

 would have amounted to ah abso- 

 lute surrender of the rights on 

 which those orders and blockades 

 were founded. 



Had the American government 

 been sincere in representing the 

 orders in council as the only sub- 

 ject of difference between Great 

 Britain and the United States cal- 

 culated 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 spon- 

 taneously recalled their "letters of 

 marque," and manifested a disposi- 



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