At the time when he was inducted into his office, the affairs of the republic were in an exceedingly critical condition. Those who had been sustaining themselves with the cherished expectations that England would repeal her orders in council, since the revocation of the edicts of France had removed the causes inducing their passage, now utterly abandoned them, on beholding her, instead of relaxing, enforcing them more rigorously than ever. To every unbiassed mind, the time seemed to have arrived when it was necessary to rise and put a stop to the long series of unprovoked depredations and outrages, committed against our commerce, by both that and the French nation. Such was the juncture of affairs as to make it obvious that if the American nation would preserve the semblance of freedom even, and command national respect, she must resort to more efficient measures than she had hitherto employed; that she must retrieve her tarnished honor, and vindicate boldly her rights. France manifested some disposition to be influenced by the remonstrances of the United States against her spoliations, by rescinding the opprobious Berlin and Milan decrees of Napoleon, which she had so construed as to make them sanction the seizure and confiscation of our property. Not so, however, with Great Britain; she refused to recognize their repeal, and even pretended to deny that they had been revoked. She still persisted in obstructing the commerce of America, declaring all the ports of France in a state of blockade, seizing our merchantmen bound to them, and confiscating their cargoes, in direct violation of the law of nations, permitting any neutral power to trade to any foreign port, when the blockade is not maintained by the actual presence of an adequate force. But England, by proclamation, blockaded every French port, from the Elbe to Brest, interdicting all vessels from entering them which did not carry on their trade through her, and seized such as made the attempt, while at the same time she neglected to keep a naval force on the coast of France sufficient to legalize the blockade. Her cruisers pursued our trading vessels to the very mouths of our own rivers and harbors, and seized, condemned, and confiscated them for violating this _pseudo_ blockade. It seemed, by the number and enormity of the illegalities practiced towards us by Great Britain, as though she had commenced an organized, systematic crusade against our commerce, which aimed at nothing less than its utter extinction. But her barbarous system of impressment capped the climax of her cruelties. Under the assumed right of searching our ships, thousands of our seamen had been forced into her service on suspicion that they were British subjects. This execrable custom had carried seven thousand American freemen into captivity, as appeared from official reports made during that session, and the number was constantly augmenting; scarcely a breeze came across the Atlantic