Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)United States. Congress
History
Abridgment of the Debates of Congress, from 1789 to 1856, Vol. 4 (of 16)
United States. Congress
Law -- United States; United States -- Politics and government
We have been referred by the gentleman to the history of the
Revolution, and after a kind of encomium on the resources of Great
Britain, the triumphs of her navy and her present imperious attitude,
he demanded to know if we can expect she will yield to us now, when
during the Revolution she maintained a war against the whole world, at
the same time that she kept us at bay seven years and succeeded with
every nation but her own sons--will she truckle at our feet now? The
gentleman knows we do not seek to make her truckle at our feet; we wish
her no injury; we ask of her no boon whatever; we only entreat her to
let us alone; to abstain from wanton, unprovoked acts of oppression.
What is the object of this language? Is it to tell us she never will
redress our wrongs; or is it to divert us from a prosecution of our
rights? The contest was very different with her at that time from
what it is now. She then contended against the dismemberment of her
Empire. Will the gentleman say she values the principles of the Orders
in Council, as she did the sovereignty of her colonies? What will the
gentleman discover, by examining the history of the period he referred
to? England, at that time, when France, Spain, Holland, and the United
States, were opposed to her, when the armed neutrality in the north of
Europe assailed her, when all these brought the principle of embargo
to bear upon her, was nearer ruin than she ever was before or since. I
refer him to Playfair's tables for the year 1781; there he will find
the very principle proven, for which we are now contending. Does Great
Britain now prize the plunder of your merchantmen, the impressment
of your seamen, insult to your national flag, as much as she did the
sovereignty of the soil? Certainly not; and yet she must, precisely the
same, or she will not hold out now as she did then. When I recollect
that her necessary annual expenditure is greater than the gross rent
of all the landed property in her kingdom; that the armed neutrality
affected her so materially, that the same principle is brought into
operation again; that by withholding our custom, our supplies, our raw
materials, we must necessarily destroy a large portion of her revenue,
I cannot but hope she will see her own interest in redressing our
injuries. This is all we contend for, allow the experiment to be made;
if not, at least propose some better remedy.
But said the gentleman, at the close of the Revolutionary war we alone
triumphed over the arms of Great Britain; defeat befell all the rest of
the world. I will not contest that point with him, as he is old enough
to speak from experience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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