second place the distinction between what the British government demand as indispensable, and what they merely urge as convenient and pleasant, and tending to peace, and as well calculated to set off against our pretensions of free ships free goods, and no blockades. We say no blockades, because it amounts to that, as Mr. Madison has declared by proclamation that there is now no legal blockade of the United States !!! If so, there never can be. dered, and that both of them must be gratified or war must be interminable? The doctrine must amount to this.-For when the war was declared it was avowed in cougress, that its end if not its sole object was the conquest of both the Canadas. General Hull's proclamation sent to him from the war department avowed the design of conquering and holding those provinces. It promised protection, a better government to the British subjects, but threatened them with the most dreadful sufferings if they should dare to be loyal and to defend their own soil. When peace was expected to be made two years since, it was contended in many or most of the democratic papers, that our government should insist on holding what we might have acquired. Will it be now pretended that if we had taken both the Canadas we should not even have demanded to keep them? When it was announced that the motions to take them were, indemnity for British spoliations and security against the Indian tribes? There never was a negotiation in which the demands were not infinitely more extravagant than what the parties intended to take. The ultimate, or sine qua non demands, which (to explain to unlearned readers) incans those demands upon which the party intends to insist, are always considered the true test of the spirit of negotiation. Sometimes the uti possidetis is the ultimatum, that is the condition in which the parties stand at the time of negotiation. If there ever was a case in which it was to be feared that this condition would be insisted on, this was that case. We made the war, we made it by stealth, we fell on Britain unawares. She had recovered from the shock, Were all these excuses false, and the reahad made peace with all the world, and it was sons fallacious? Have we expended one hunmere sport to fight with us. Hardly an Eng-dred millions, lost 20,000 men, wasted two lishman at home feels or cares for this war. campaigns, and left our whole sea coast to be They are watching balloons, and giving feasts, plundered merely to make a parade of a conIt was natural she should have demanded quest which we never meant to claim at a the uti possidetis in the outset of the negotia-peace! tion. France or any other nation would have done more. They would have adhered to it. But what a shocking state this demand would place us in? We should lose Niagara, Michilliakkinak, the Islands in the Chesapeake, and half of the Province of Maine. I hear a patriot exclaim, but this would have been abominable to demand so much! Softly, not so fast. I have an excellent memory. The first year of war when we expected to take Canada, and Russia offered to mediate, the war party proposed and I believe Adams was instructed to demand the uti possidetis, that is whatever we had taken. Now the tables àre turned and it is wicked. No. III. PACIFICUS. It seems that the late conferences at Ghent were broken off on the ground that we will never admit a discussion, or a provisional agreement on any terms, whereof one of them shall claim the smallest cession of territory on our part even if it be done for the sake of securing future tranquillity or adjusting boundaries. This point must be considered before we enter into the proposals of Great Britain, because if this principle is to be considered as settled, it is useless to discuss the nature of the terms proposed by her. Is it understood that we will never treat on the footing of reciprocity? Are we not willing to do to Great-Britain what we should expect the would do to us? Is it understood, that our pride and our rights are alone to be consi This would be a wicked mockery indeed. But it is not so. Every man knows, that if at the moment of the meeting at Ghent, news had arrived there that the American flag waved over the walls of Quebec, that same news would have been accompanied by express instructions to our commissioners to sign uo peace without the cession of the Canadas. Even many federalists would have approved such a demand, and the nation at large would have suffered no peace to be ratified by which those provinces were restored. Let any man lay his hand on his heart and say whether he can deny that this would have been the case, nay a treaty would have been rejected if au inch of Canada had been restored. But a different course of things took place, Britain holds two of our most important western forts; the whole of the Province of Maine cast of Penobscot river, one or two islands in Long Island Sound, and all those in the Chesapeake under her controul while we hold about a mile square at Fort Erie only, and then Britain instead of insisting upon what she had conquered merely asked that we would not exterminate the Indians nor buy their lands so as to approach and endanger her weaker provinces, and because she asks and offers to discuss the question whether she may not have a communication across our unsettled wilderness from Halifax to Quebec, it is the most abominable and unheard of. unjust, and insolent demand. All that we gain by right of conquest is ours and may be insisted on. We can dismember] the greatest empire in the world without insolence or injustice. A nation like ours, of seven millions only, can say to one of ten millions, give us all your posessions, in our "neighbourhood; we want them to round our Territory, want them to enable us to extermiDave the Indians. Substantially, this is the only proposition made. The others were subjects of discussion only, and might have been modified to our acceptance. But no, we will not discuss, not even try to agree. What then are we to do? Fight. Till when? Till we have humbled Britain. So we promised to do three years ago. We have But if that great nation, after actually con- only lost five or six millions of acres; one quwing large portions of our country, after hundred millions of dollars; and twenty thougiving them all up, says permit me to ask sand lives. Shall we do better? If Britain scurity for my subjects, by interposing a neu- with G000 troops on our seaboard, has called tral country between us. I fear you. Let us out 100,000 militia, taken our capital, and not be conterminous or immediate neighbours. two great counties of Massachusetts, what We may quarrel again or rather you may inmay she be expected to do, when she has vade me unawares as you did before; and also 20,000 troops to be directed by sea, to any be so good as to let me take the most one point? Will she be less disposed to ask harren ew her of every province I dave sub-for security, after she has teken Louisiana ? d. dued a perfect wilderness, just far as to New-York! Yet she certainly can do either Totke a road, which road will bring all your with such a force as she can send. No man back, lands into market, and be beneficial to doubts wo ear defend our country, but not from you as to 8.** ravage and devastation, and immense expense If Great Britain says this, it is the height and lasting injury. And after we are thus exof insolence and injustice. Iti what a "con-hansted, is it probable our enemy will give us quering nation alone could say to a conquered better terms than those we now reject: one." Can any man read this in his closet without a sting of conscience? Is this our equality and fairness, and love of peace? But our honour is concerned! America canhour? Is it honour to engage in an unjust war? not yield any of her territory. What is hoIs it honour to refuse a inoderate peace? Is ment? An unprovoked, unjust, offensive at-it honour to assist on the right of plundering tack on a nation, then struggling with the most monstrous power in the world. But what was this war in its commence That nation now freed from all its other enemies, at perfect liberty to punish the injustice and ineanness of our cabinet, finding us exhausted by the war, our public credit Agone, our financiers at their wits end to get a dollar, the payment of the interest on our public debt Suspended; congress attacking those manufactures which they professed to favour, running their hands into every man's pocket, to see if they can seize any cash, and opening every pantry door to find objects of taxation. That nation, finding us in this condition, offers to restore all she has taken, and merely asks cecurity against our ï, turo injustice, disclaims all wish of gaining territory, alleges her fears of our future power, and proves the sincerity of both, by the very nature of the propositions she makes, which are simply to remove us to a distance from her, and we call this insolence and injustice. We too, gracious heaven! who two years since in a moment of exultation, finding our enemy occupied abroad, and weak in our country threatened and boasted, that we would rob her of all her American territories! If we could not conscientiously appeal to heaven before, for the justice of our cause, what, shall we now say, to a God of mercy, when our enemy offers to stay the destroying arm and to sheathe the bloody sword, and only demands security and protection for the Indian tribes, on whose plundered lands this nation how subsist? the Indians of the lift, which a common father in heaven has given them? All that Britain insists upon, is that she will protect these ludians. She does it because she is bound to them as her allies. She does it for the nobler reason which heaven must approve, that by removing her borders form ours, our peace, that peace which ought to subsist between all christian nations will be more durable. Is this the reason we reject it? Yes, I fear it is the real reason. PACIFICUS. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED, EVERY SATURDAY, 34 CEDAR-STREET. I......It will contain sixteen large octavo pages, about one half of which will usually be de voted to original essays. II....It will be published every Saturday, at five dollars a year, payable by city subscribers, at the end of six months from the publication of the first number; by country subscribers in advance. III...All applications for the Examiner, must be directed to the editor; and if by mail, postage paid. END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. |