Mr. LLOYD said he considered the question now under discussion as one of the most important that has occurred since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. It is a subject, said Mr. L., deeply implicating, and perhaps determining, the fate of the commerce and navigation of our country; a commerce which has afforded employment for nearly a million and a half of tons of navigation; which has found occupation for hundreds of thousands of our citizens; which has spread wealth and prosperity in every region of our country, and which has upheld the Government by furnishing the revenue for its support. A commerce which has yielded an annual amount of exports exceeding one hundred millions of dollars; an amount of exports three times as great as was possessed by the first maritime and commercial nation of the world at the commencement of the last century, when her population was double that of the United States at this time; an amount of exports equal to what Great Britain, with her navy of a thousand ships, and with all her boasted manufactures, possessed even at so recent a period as within about fifteen years from this date; surely this is a commerce not to be trifled with; a commerce not lightly to be offered up as the victim of fruitless experiment. Our commerce has unquestionably been subject to great embarrassment, vexation, and plunder, from the belligerents of Europe. There is no doubt but both France and Great Britain have violated the laws of nations, and immolated the rights of neutrals; but there is, in my opinion, a striking difference in the circumstances of the two nations; the one, instigated by a lawless thirst of universal domination, is seeking to extend an iron-handed, merciless despotism over every region of the globe; while the other is fighting for her _natale solum_, for the preservation of her liberties, and probably for her very existence. The one professes to reluct at the inconvenience she occasions you by the adoption of measures which are declared to be intended merely as measures of retaliation on her enemies, and which she avows she will retract as soon as the causes which occasion them are withdrawn. The other, in addition to depredation and conflagration, treats you with the utmost contumely and disdain; she admits not that you possess the rights of sovereignty and independence, but undertakes to legislate for you, and declares that, whether you are willing or unwilling, she considers you as at war with her enemy; that she had arrested your property, and would hold it as bail for your obedience, until she knew whether you would servilely echo submission to her mandates. There is no doubt that the conduct of these belligerents gave rise to the embargo; but if this measure has been proved by experience to be inoperative as it regards them, and destructive only as it respects ourselves, then every dictate of magnanimity, of wisdom, and of prudence, should urge the immediate repeal of it.