410 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1813. 



Congress of the United States. 

 For although the numerous peti- 

 tions and remonstrances of the 

 people of the state in relation to 

 such measures as they deemed dan- 

 gerous to their rights, and ruinous 

 to their interests have heretofore 

 been received in a manner little 

 calculated to produce that har- 

 mony, and cement that union 

 which ought to be the permanent 

 aim of the general government, 

 yet we cannot but indulge the 

 hope, that new counsels and a 

 more conciliatory spirit will dis- 

 tinguish the several branches of the 

 present national legislature — that 

 they will endeavour, by the ex- 

 ercise of justice and impartiality, 

 to allay the apprehensions and re- 

 store the confidence of the eastern 

 and commercial states — to remove 

 their actual sufferings, and to re- 

 place them in the happy and pros- 

 perous condition from which thev 

 have been driven by a succession 

 of measures hostile to the rights of 

 commerce, and destructive to the 

 peace of the nation. 



It is not to be expected that a 

 hardy and industrious people, in- 

 structed in the nature of their 

 lights, and tenacious of their exer- 

 cise, whose enterprise was a source 

 of individual wealth and national 

 prosperity, should find themselves 

 obliged to abandon their accus- 

 tomed employments and relinquish 

 the means of subsistence, without 

 complaint ; or that a moral and 

 Christian people should contribute 

 tlieir aid in the prosecution of an 

 offensive war,, without the fullest 

 evidence of its justice and neces- 

 sity. 



The United States, from the 

 form of their government, from 

 the principles of their history they 

 have made, IVum the maxims trans- 



mitted to them by patriots and 

 sages, whose loss they can never 

 sufficiently deplore, as well as from 

 a regard to their best and dearest 

 interests, ought to be the last na- 

 tion to engage in the war of ambi- 

 tion and conquest. 



The recent establishment of their 

 institutions, the pacific, moral, and 

 industrious character of their citi- 

 zens, the certainty that time and 

 prudent application of their re- 

 sources would have induced a wise 

 and provident, an impartial and 

 temperate administration to over- 

 look, if it had been necessary, any 

 temporary evils, which either the 

 ambition, the interests, cupidity or 

 the injustice of foreign powers 

 might occasionally, and without 

 any deep and lasting injury, have 

 inflicted. 



With these maxims and these 

 views we cannot discern any thing 

 in the policy of foreign nations to- 

 wards us, which in point of ex- 

 pediency, required the sacrifice of 

 so many and so certain blessings, 

 as might have been our portion, 

 for such dreadful and inevitable 

 evils, as all wars, especially in 

 a republic, entail upon the 

 people. 



But when we review the alleged 

 causes of this war against Great 

 Britain, and more particularly the 

 pretence for its continuance after 

 the principal one was removed, we 

 are constrained to say, that it fills 

 the mind of the people of this 

 commonwealth with infinite anxiety 

 and alarm. We cannot but recol- 

 lect, whatever the pretences of 

 the emperor of France may have 

 been — pretences which have uni- 

 formly preceded and accompanied 

 the most violent acts of injustice — 

 that he was the sole author of a 

 system calculated and intended to 



