in raising the wages of the British sailor, would bring any required number of seamen back to their ships? The whole British navy in 1812 cost twenty million pounds; the pay-roll amounted to only three million pounds; the common sailor was paid four pounds bounty and eighteen pounds a year, which might have been trebled at half the cost of an American war. No one rose in the House to press this reasoning. Castlereagh completed his argument, showing, with more temper than logic, that England was wholly in the right and America altogether in the wrong; the American government and people were infatuated; they had an inordinate and insolent spirit of encroachment and unreasonable hostility; had prostituted their character and showed an unexampled degeneracy of feeling. “For America he confessed that he deeply lamented the injury which her character had sustained by the conduct of her government; it was conduct unworthy of any State calling itself civilized and free.” Castlereagh’s invective had the merit of being as little serious as his logic, and left as little sting; but what Castlereagh could say without causing more than a smile, never failed to exasperate Americans like drops of vitriol when it came from the lips of George Canning. Canning had not hitherto succeeded better in winning the confidence of England than in curbing the insolence of America; he was still in opposition, while the man whom in 1807 he could hardly condescend to consider a rival was Secretary for Foreign Affairs and leader of the House. Worst of all, Canning could not escape the necessity of supporting him, for Castlereagh’s position in regard to America was strong, while Canning’s own position was weak and needed constant excuse. In the debate of Feb. 18, 1813, he undertook the difficult task of appearing to attack Castlereagh while defending himself.