668 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1S09. 



turn. The sources of our revenue 

 are dried up, and government 

 must soon resort to direct taxation. 

 Our sailors are forced to expatriate 

 themselves. Strong temptations are 

 offered to systematic evasions of 

 the laws, which tend to corrupt tiie 

 spirit of honourable commerce, and 

 will materially injure the public mo- 

 rals. In fact, the evils which are 

 menaced by the continuance of this 

 policy are so enormous and deplor- 

 able, the suspension of commerce 

 is so contrary to the habits of our 

 people, and so repugnant to their 

 feelings and interests, that they 

 must soon become intolerable, and 

 endanger our domestic peace and 

 the union of these states. As the 

 embargo laws have been the cause 

 of the public distress, jour com- 

 mittee are of opinion that no equal, 

 permanent, or effectual relief can 

 be afforded to the citizens of the 

 commonwealth, but by the repeal 

 of theselaws. They persuade them- 

 selves that the congress of the Unit- 

 ed States must be fully impressed 

 with a sense of the total inefficacy 

 of these laws for any valuable pur- 

 pose, and of their direct tendency 

 to the most serious consequences. 

 Your committee, therefore, trust, 

 that congress will not fail to repeal 

 them. In this confidence, there- 

 fore, your committee are of opinion, 

 upon this subject, the legislature 

 should, in its present session, con- 

 fine itself to a repeated disapproba- 

 tion of the laws interdicting foreign 

 commerce, and to instructing our 

 senators, and requesting our repre- 

 sentatives in congress to use their 

 utmost exertions to procure their 

 repeal. 



^ our committee might have con- 

 tenied themselves with the preced- 

 ing remarks, had not the laic mes- 



sage of the president of the United 

 States excited the most serious a- 

 larm, which, in the present critical 

 state of the country, they conceive 

 it a duty to express. They perceive, 

 with the most painful regret, that, 

 in the estimation of the president, 

 our country is now presented with 

 the only alternative of a continued 

 embargo, or a ruinous war; but 

 they cannot hesitate to express their 

 confident belief that the wisdom of 

 the government may yet find means 

 to avoid the necessity of electing 

 between these great public calami- 

 ties. If, however, this severe neces- 

 sity exists in regard to Great Bri- 

 tain, they are led by the message 

 to presume that it results, in a 

 great measure, if not entirely, from 

 the determination of the executive 

 to adhere to the proclamation of 

 July 1807, interdicting all BritisU 

 ships of war from the waters of the 

 United States ; which has been, 

 and as we infer from the message, 

 is still deemed by the British go-, 

 vernment, a measure so inhospita- 

 ble and oppressive, if not hostile in 

 its character, as to form an insuper- 

 able obstacle to amicable adjust-* 

 ment. 



Upon this delicate and important 

 subject, the committee are far from 

 asserting, that the attack on the fri- 

 gate Chesapeake did not justify the 

 original issuing of this proclamation, 

 and enforcing it so long as the in-» 

 jury might be presumed to have the 

 sanction of the British government. 

 But as this violation of the neutral 

 rights was promptly and explicitly 

 disavowed by the sovereign of the 

 aggressor, before the remonstrances 

 or measures of our government 

 could be known : as the right to 

 search our national ships was ex- 

 pressly disclaimed, and a special 



envoy 



