The mercantile distresses have been described, with every possible exaggeration, as insufferable. The real distress, sir, is quite sufficient, without any undue coloring. I regret extremely, indeed, sir, from my heart and soul, I lament that the embargo should be considered as falling heavier on the merchant than on the planter. If I know my own heart I would share with them to the last loaf. But compare their situation now with what it would have been if their whole property had been swept away. Compare their present situation with that which must have been the necessary consequence of the seizure of all the floating, registered tonnage of the United States, and which would have happened, but for the embargo. Their vessels are now in safety; if the embargo had not been laid they would have lost both vessel and cargo. They must have either imposed an embargo on themselves, or exposed their capital to total destruction. Another reason why I approve of the embargo, and which, really to my mind, is a very consolatory reason, is, it has at least preserved us thus far from bloodshed. I am one of those who believe the miseries of this life are sufficiently numerous and pressing without increasing either their number or pungency by the calamities inseparable from war. If we had put the question to every man in the nation, the head of a family, whether we should go to war or lay an embargo, (the only choice we had,) nineteen out of twenty would have voted for the embargo. I believe, sir, the people of the United States confiding their honor and national character to your guardianship, would this day decide the same question in the same way. The people have nothing to gain by war, nothing by bloodshed; but they have every thing to lose. From this reason results another, equally satisfactory; we are still free from an alliance with either of the belligerents. Upon a loss of peace inevitably follows an alliance with one of those two powers. I would rather stake the nation on a war with both, than ally with either. No, sir, I never will consent to rush into the polluted, detestable, distempered embraces of the whore of England, nor truckle at the footstool of the Gallic Emperor.