Many of the opposition affected to believe that the interests of the country would not be subserved, whether the war eventuated in her favor, or that of her enemy; they could see nothing to be gained by it; to which Mr. Clay said, ‘I will ask what are we not to lose by peace?――commerce, character, a nation’s best treasure and honor! If pecuniary considerations alone are to govern, there are sufficient motives for the war. Our revenue is reduced by the operation of the belligerent edicts, to about six millions of dollars. The year preceding the embargo, it was sixteen. Take away the orders in council, it will again mount up to sixteen millions. By continuing, therefore, in peace――if the mongrel situation in which we are deserves that denomination――we lose annually, in revenue alone, ten millions of dollars. Gentlemen will say, repeal the law of non-importation. If the United States were capable of that perfidy, the revenue would not be restored to its former state, the orders in council continuing. Without an export trade, which these orders prevent, inevitable ruin will ensue if we import as freely as we did prior to the embargo. A nation that carries on an import trade without an export trade to support it, must in the end be as certainly bankrupt, as the individual would be who incurred an annual expenditure without an income.’ Mr. Clay contended that England, in assigning the cause of her aggressions to be the punishment of France, with whom she was at war, was practicing a deceptive part; that this was her ostensible and not real course. It was her inordinate desire of supremacy on the seas, which could not brook any appearance of rivalry, that prompted her hostilities. She saw in your numberless ships, which whitened every sea, in your hundred and twenty thousand gallant tars, the seeds of a naval force, which, in thirty years, would rival her on her own element. _She therefore commenced the odious system of impressment, of which no language can paint my execration! She DARED to attempt the subversion of the personal freedom of your mariners!_ He closed by expressing his decided conviction of the justice of the undertaking, and hoping that unless redress was obtained by peaceable means speedily, war would be resorted to before the close of the session. On the fourth of January following, the bill passed the house, after several ineffectual attempts to introduce amendments, by a vote of ninety-four to thirty-four, several voting for, who at the commencement of the discussion were bitterly opposed to it. This was the initiatory step taken by the government in relation to the war.