There is, perhaps, no one of the papers written by Mr. Webster as Secretary of State, in which so much force of statement and power of argument are displayed as in the letter on "impressment." To incorporate a stipulation on this subject into a treaty was, regarding the antecedents of the question, impracticable. But the reply of Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster's announcement of the American principle must be considered as acquiescence on the part of his government. It may be doubted whether this odious and essentially illegal practice will ever again be systematically resorted to, even in England.[28] Considering the advance made by public sentiment an all questions connected with personal liberty, "a hot-press on the Thames" would hardly stand the ordeal of an investigation in Parliament at the present day. It is certain that the right of impressing seamen from American vessels could never be practically asserted in a future war with any other effect than that of adding the United States to the parties in the contest. No refinements in the doctrine of natural allegiance, although their theoretical soundness might equal their subtilty, would be of the least avail here. To force seamen from the deck of a peaceful neutral vessel, pursuing a lawful commerce, and compel them to serve for an indefinite and hopeless period on board a foreign man-of-war, is an act of power and violence to which no nation will submit that is able to resist it. In the case of the United States and Great Britain, that community of language and resemblance in general appearance which may have been considered as palliating the most deplorable results of the exercise of this power, in reality constitute the strongest reason for its abandonment. The unquestionable danger that, with the best intentions, the boarding officer may mistake an American for an Englishman; the certainty that a reckless lieutenant, unmindful of consequences, but bent upon recruiting his ship on a remote foreign station, will pretend to believe that he is seizing the subjects of his own government, whatever may be the evidence to the contrary, are reasons of themselves for denying on the threshold the existence of a right exposed to such inevitable and intolerable abuse. These and other views of the subject are presented in Mr. Webster's letter to Lord Ashburton of the 8th of August, 1842, with a strength of reasoning and force of illustration not often equalled in a state paper. That letter was spoken of, in the hearing of the writer of this memoir, by one whose name, if it could be mentioned with propriety, would give the highest authority to the remark, as a composition not surpassed by any thing in the language. The principles laid down in it may be considered as incorporated into the public law of the United States, and will have their influence beyond our own territorial limits and beyond our own time.