"Now, I think the arbitrator would say, "What the devil had you to do with that steamboat?" He would say that we struck the first blow. Now, admit that,--and none of your state rights men can deny it,--admit that, and all the rest follows of course. They will say it was wrong--abstractly, if you please. Talking of abstractions, it was wrong for an expedition to come over and burn the steamboat, and send her over the falls. But what was your steamboat about? What had she been doing? What was she to do the next morning? And what ought you to do? You have reparation to make for all the men, and for all the arms and implements of war, which we were transporting, and going to transport, to the other side, to foment and instigate rebellion in Canada. That is what the third party would say to us. And it would come, in the end, after all the blood and treasure had been wasted by a war between the two countries, to this, that we must shake hands and drink champagne together, after having made a mutual apology for mutual transgression. That is the way things are settled between individuals,--'If you said so, why, I said so,'--and thus the dispute is amicably settled. So we should have to do with this national matter; for there is not any great difference in the essentials of quarrelling and making up between nations and individuals." Mr. Adams then proceeded to another point of view in which he objected to this resolution. He said: "A prodigious affair has been made of this matter, as if the government of the United States had outraged the State of New York, because the great empire State of New York had undertaken to say that she would _hang_ McLeod, whatever Great Britain or the general government might do. Yes; whatever they might do, the great empire State of New York would _hang_ McLeod! That was the language.