DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 319 



largely, on the preservation of that commerce. War between the two 

 nations would sweep it from the ocean. The Ministry that should 

 involve that nation in war with the United States, would be driven 

 from power by public indignation, arising put of universal calamity 

 and distress. 



England is a manufacturer. Her imports in all her domains are 

 valued by hundreds of millions annually, and her exports are equiva- 

 lent. She needs raw materials cotton and wool and other articles, 

 and breadstuffs and provisions. And to get these, while extending 

 the markets for her manufacturers, she bends all the policy of her 

 commercial and fiscal systems. We furnish those indispensable sup- 

 plies lavishly, and we consume her fabrics of iron, cotton, flax, wool, 

 silver, gold, everything in preference to manufacturing for ourselves. 

 A war with the United States would close these relations at once, 

 and the artisans and labourers of England would be involved in 

 calamities such as they have never yet known. 



England is a creditor* nation. We are debtors to her. Heaven 

 knows how much capital is not accumulated in England. It is a 

 capital that has been gathered through a thousand years, by a nation 

 of wonderful and world-searching sagacity, industry, and enterprise. 

 We employ of that capital all that we can obtain, for we have need 

 of it all to bring at once into sudden development and perfection vast 

 and perpetually-extending regions, which, for near 6,000 years were 

 by civilized man untrodden and unknown. A large portion of our 

 public debt is owned in England. Large masses of our State debts 

 are owned there. In addition to that, our merchants are indebted to 

 England I know not how much ; but I have known the time when the 

 whole public and private debt of the United States was not less than 

 $250,000,000. The interest on this debt constitutes the support of a 

 considerable portion of the British community. 



England, then, cannot wisely desire nor safely dare a war with the 

 United States. She knows all this, and more; that" war with the 

 United States about these fisheries, would find the United 

 189 States able to surround the British Colonies. She would find 

 that the dream of conquest of those colonies, which broke upon 

 us even in the dawn of the revolution, when we tendered them an 

 invitation to join their fortunes with ours, and followed it with the 

 sword ; that dream which returned again in 1812, when we attempted 

 to subjugate them by force, would come over us again, and that now, 

 when we have matured the strength to take them, we should find the 

 Provinces willingly consenting to captivity. A war about these fish- 

 eries, would be a war which would result either in the independence 

 of the British Provinces, or in their annexation to the United States. 

 I devoutly pray God that that consummation may come the sooner 

 the better; but I do not desire it at the cost of war, or of injustice. 

 I am content to wait for the ripened fruit, which must fall. I know 

 the wisdom of England too well to believe that she would hazard 

 shaking that fruit into our hands, for all that she could hope to gain 

 by insisting on or enforcing with armed power the rigorous construc- 

 tion of the Convention concerning the Colonial fisheries. 



Sir, what is the condition of England for a war with the United 

 States at this moment ? Her power has been extended over the Fast, 

 and she employs nearly all her armies in India and in Africa, to main- 

 tain herself against the natives of the one continent and the savages 



