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SUMMARY OF POLITICS. AMERICAN STATES (continued from p. 921.) Enough has, I think, been said to convince the reader, if, indeed, he wanted conviction upon the subject, that, in case of a war with the American States, no injury would arise to England; because, it has been shewn, in the article above referred to, and in others which have recently been published in this work, 1st, That it is impossible for America (let us get rid of the long compound name) to dispense with most of the goods which she can receive from no other country than England, or through English permission. 2nd, That, as to navigation, supposing our mercantile marine to be conducive to our naval strength, we derive no benefit from our commercial con nection with America, seeing that all the goods which go either from England or from her colonies to America are carried in American ships; and, under the present system, must be so carried, because those which should be carried in our ships would be more heavily taxed there, where there exists a law for the purpose; so that, upon the supposition that a mercantile marine tends to give naval power to a state, our commercial connection with America tends to create unto ourselves a formidable rival upon that element, where it is, on all hands, agreed, that we ought to endeavour, at the expense of almost any sacrifice, to maintain an unrivalled superiority. 3rd, That, as to manufactures, made here for America, the hands employed therein, if not so employed, would, in a short time, find other employment, and, that, in the meanwhile, there would be, in our country, the same food for them to subsist upon, whereon they now subsist, 4th, That it is, however, within the compass of no earthly power, except ourselves, to put a stop to the supplying of America with English goods; that, if prohibited, they would be smuggled, as they were during the rebellion; that the sea coast, in case of war, would be in the quiet possession of our cruizers; that the mouths of the rivers and the rivers themselves to a considerable distance up, would be under our

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controul, and that while we thus kept open an inlet for goods, we should keep open an outlet for provisions for our ships. 5th, That a hundred thousand men, constantly kept in arms, would not be able to prevent this intercourse. 6th, That nineteen-twentieths of the amount of the American revenues are levied upon goods imported; that, in case of a war with us, the taxes (which would require to be augmented fivefold, at least) must be laid upon the land and upon the few manufactures of the country, and this, too, at a time, that the price of Woollens, Rum, and Coffee, would, from the prohibitions against the former, and the obstacles thrown by us in the way of the latter, be doubled. 7th, That, in such a state of things the union of the States could not be preserved, except through our folly, as, to effect a separation, we should only have to issue a proclamation, permitting any particular State or States to trade with the West-Indies, with England, and, indeed, with all the world, upon the conditions proposed by us to the Federal Government; this being all that would be necessary to confine the authority of that government to the States Southward from the Delaware, and to less than one half of the population of the country, it being evident, that the States upon the Mississippi, which have only that single outlet to the sea, only that one channel through which to receive their salt, their cloathing and their rum, must have that channel open, or must lose its inhabitants. All this has, I think, been fully proved, in the several articles, recently published and referred to by me; but, be cause it be proved, that England would sus-, tain little or no injury from a war with America, and that America herself would be speedily reduced thereby to a state that would compel her to submit to our terms, it does not hence follow, that those terms ought to be exorbitant; that they ought to contain any new or unjust demand; that they ought to exhibit any thing insulting to America, any thing to submit to which would degrade her in the eyes of the world: it does not follow, in-short;-that we ought

assistance to the French frigate, the Ambuscade, in a battle, fought by her, against the English frigate, the Boston. It will be remembered, that the former, which was lying under the forts of New York, received a challenge from the latter, lying then out at the mouth of the harbour; that the battle ended in the death of the gallant Captain Courtenay, who had given the challenge, and in the defeat of the Ambuscade, which, though of 44 guns against her enemy's 36 (I believe), saved herself from capture by a flight, which she effected, while the Boston was obliged to lye-to, having a mast gone by the board. Previous to the combat, which the French delayed for the purpose, assistance of all sorts was sent to the French frigate from the shore; several port pilots agreed, by lot, to serve on board of her; men were taken from the American ships in the harbour to add to her crew; additional surgeons from the shore were provided; and, at last, out she went under the French and American flags entwined, while the people on shore, under banners entwined in a simiJar manner, shouted an anticipated triumph. When she returned, without the prize; beaten and shattered, and stained with the blood of many of the malignant wretches, who had volunteered to give England a stab, a public contribution was made to provide wine, linen, and other things for those who had been wounded in the combat; and, while, from public meetings, consisting in part of men in authority, revenge for the failure and disgrace was sought in abuse the most infamous against the English nation and name, the general government, which, in the observance of its solemn promise of impartial neutrality, was bound to animadvert upon these proceedings, suffered all to pass in a silence which indicated that its secret wishes but too well corresponded with those of the open violators of that neutrality, and that, in short, the line of neutrality had been adopted merely for the purpose of tying the hands of England- -The laws of neutrality demand, a perfect impartiality, not only in granting and refusing, but also in resenting injuries. It is notorious, and I have hundreds of proofs to produce of the fact, that, while remonstrance upon remonstrance was made by the American government against what it called the agressions of England, the well known and outrageous aggressions of France produced no complaint or remonstrance at all; that the sufferers were referred to the great and sovereign balm of hurt minds, patience; and that, finally, when, under the Presidentship of Mr. Adams, a shew of obtaining redress for the

thousands of injuries, received from France, was made, no redress was obtained, but that, in the accommodation, the government sub. mitted to new injuries to America, and that, too, for the obvious purpose, of producing injury to England.--During the nine years beginning in 1792 and ending 1800, there were many flagrant outrages committed in America against the English envoys, not one of which was noticed by the government. During the same period, publications against the king and people of England, such as never were conceived unless in an American mind, teemed in the newspapers, in pamphlets, and in books. The abuse contained in these publications it is impossible to describe. Never did the government notice one of them; but, the moment a publication appeared against their allies, (for so they called France, and, afterwards, Spain), it armed itself with all its powers; the general government and the under government fastened upon the offender both at once, for one and the same publication; in their bills of indictment, their attorney general shared the paragraphs of the same publication between them, so that if one failed the other might succeed! And, yet, did this people, at that very time, carry on its commerce, to all parts of the world, under the guise of neutrality; and of all this, too, were our ministers at home duly informed, though they never resented it, a forbearance, an acquiescence under injustice, for which we have since dearly paid, and shall continue dearly to pay. Let us now come to the treaty of 1794, and see how it was fulfilled by this nation, to whom we are now called upon, by the Morning Chronicle and its Whig writers, to make further concessions of our maritime rights, for the sake of preserving that harmony, which they assert (and, I have proved, assert falsely) to be absolutely necessary to the prosperity of England.The principal stipulation in that treaty related to reciprocal pecuniary claims. Upon the bare mention of this the reader will think that he anticipates the sequel; but, unless he be already well informed upon the subject, I defy his imagination to arm him against the astonishment that will arise from the hearing of what I am going to relate.The stipulation, here mentioned, arose out of the following circumstances. At the breaking out of the rebellion (for, I love to call things by their right names), there were large sums of money, as there necessarily must be, due from merchants and others in America, to merchants and manufacturers in England. There was money due to others; but this may serve as a general description. As soon

as Franklin, the arch-rebel, had felt the pulse of France, sufficiently to ascertain that that country would take part with America, the Congress passed a law, according to which the debtors above-mentioned, were, upon the payment of the amount of the debts into their state treasury in paper money, to be for ever released from the claim of their English creditors. This paper money was not, at the time, worth more, perhaps, than sixpence in the pound; so that here was a most powerful and extensively operating motive for adhering to the Congress, for, if England triumphed, these claims of the English creditor resumed all their former vigour. Indeed, thus to get rid of their just debts was the principal motive of the rebellion itself; and this is a fact that no honest man in Ame⚫ rica will deny. It suited those debtors to feign other motives; to persuade other people that a stamp-duty was the most burdensome and disgraceful of badges; but, if their eyes had not before been open, they would have been in the reign of Mr. Adams, when a stamp duty, a thousand times heavier than that proposed by England, was imposed by the Congress, and quietly paid.When peace came to be made, the English minister, Lord Shelburne, in consequence of a promise solemnly, but very foolishly, made to the above-mentioned creditors, obtained a stipulation, that the Congress (or general government of America) should cause to be adopted, in the several States, such laws, or regulations, as would open the way for those creditors to recover their due. It was unjust towards this nation to obtain any such stipulation, because it must have cost something to its general interests, or honour, at the expence of which these creditors had no better claim to be indemnified than any other description of persons had to be indemnified for any losses, in taxes, or otherwise, that they might have sustained from the war. It was to lay down a precedent for indemnifying speculators against risks, than which nothing could be more unjust in itself, or more pernicious in its consequences, though, I would fain hope, that those consequences will not extend to an indemnification of the merchants trading to Buenos Ayres and to Denmark. It was, however, more foolish, if possible, than unjust; because, any man, with one grain of sense in his head, might have perceived, that it was morally impossible that the stipulation should ever be fulfilJed. When the treaty of 1794 came to be negociated, these debts remained in the same state that they were found in at the peace.

It was agreed, therefore (and now we come to the interesting point), that a

board of commissioners should be formed, which board (to sit in America) was to ascertain, and, finally, decide upon, the amount due to each creditor; that their decision should be final and without appeal; and, that, according to such decision, the general government of America was to cause the sums due to be fully paid.But, there had arisen, in 1794, claims of certain Ameri- . can merchants and others upon England for the amount of ships and goods, which, as they alledged, had been unjustly taken from them by our navy during the war then going on (that is, the last war with France); and, therefore we agreed, that another board of commissioners should be formed to ascer tain those claims; this board was to sit in London; was to decide in the last resort like the other board; and our government agreed to pay the sums due agreeably to such decision.The manner of forming the boards was this: each government was to name two commissioners for the first board. These four commissioners, when. met, were to name another on each side, and then, by ballot, they were to determine, which of these two should be the fifth commissioner. The second board was to be formed in the same manner; and, it happened, that, for the board to sit in America, the ballot was. in favour of the fifth commissioner named by us; while, for the board to sit in Eng-. land, the ballot was on the contrary side. Thus, then, both the boards were formed, we having named three out of the five for one board, and the Americans having named three out of five for the other. Nothing could be more fair; nothing could promise. a fairer termination, especially as the decision was, in all cases, to be by a majority of voices of the commissioners present, three: of whom, to provide against cases of sick-: ness, were to form a quorum for the transaction of business.But, in the tail of: this stipulation, there was a little member of a sentence worked in, that, no award for any payment should be inade, without one, at least, of the commissioners, nominated by each government respectively, being pre-. sent; and, as the reader will see, this little bit of a sentence was turned to such excellent account by the Americans, that, by the help of it, they made shift to render thewhole of the stipulation, as far as it ope rated against themselves, perfectly nugatory.

-The boards met, and that which assembled in America, was, after a year, or more (I believe more than two years), spent upon preliminary matter, just coming to a decision upon one out of perhaps, five