summer. If then the embargo has not produced the effects calculated from it, we have every reason to believe that its failure to produce these effects has been connected with causes wholly adventitious, and which may give way if the nation adheres to the measure. If, however, there be any probability that these causes will be continued for a long time, we ought to abandon it. I am not in favor of continuing any measure of this kind, except there be a probability of its producing some effect on those who make it necessary for us to exercise this act of self-denial. When I first saw the account of the revolution in Spain, my fears were excited lest it should produce the effect which it has done. As soon as I saw the stand made by the Spanish patriots, I was apprehensive that it might buoy up the British nation under the sufferings arising from the effects of their iniquitous orders, which, compared with the sufferings which we ourselves have borne, have been as a hundred to one. If there be evidence that the effects of this measure will yet be counteracted by recent events in Spain, I will abandon it, but its substitute should be war, and no ordinary war—I say this notwithstanding the petitions in the other branch of the Legislature, and the resolutions of a State Legislature which have lately been published. When I read the resolutions, called emphatically the Essex resolutions, I blush for the disgrace they reflect on my country. We are told there that this nation has no just cause of complaint against Great Britain; and that all our complaints are a mere pretext for war. I blush that any man belonging to the great American family should be so debased, so degraded, so lost to every generous and national feeling, as to make a declaration of this kind. It is debasing to the national character.

How are these orders and decrees to be opposed but by war, except we keep without their reach? If the embargo produces a repeal of these edicts, we effect it without going to war. Whenever we repeal the embargo we are at war, or we abandon our neutral rights. It is impossible to take the middle ground, and say that we do not abandon them by trading with Great Britain alone. You must submit, or oppose force to force. Can arming our merchant vessels, by resisting the whole navy of Great Britain, oppose force to force? It is impossible. The idea is absurd.

By way of ridiculing the embargo, the gentleman from Connecticut, in his familiar way, has attempted to expose this measure. He elucidated it by one of those familiar examples by which he generally exemplifies his precepts. He says your neighbor tells you that you shall not trade with another neighbor, and you say you will not trade at all. Now this, he says, is very magnanimous, but it is a kind of magnanimity with which he is not acquainted. Now let us see the magnanimity of that gentleman, and see if it savors more of true magnanimity than our course. Great Britain and France each say that we shall not trade with the other. We say we will not trade with either of them, because we believe our trade will be important to both of them. The gentleman says it is a poor way of defending the national rights. Suppose we pursue his course. Great Britain says we shall not trade to France; we say we will not, but will obey her. We will trade upon such terms as she may impose. "This will be magnanimity indeed; this will be defending commerce with a witness!" It will be bowing the neck to the yoke. The opposition to taxation against our consent, at the commencement of the Revolution, was not more meritorious than the opposition to tribute and imposition at the present day. I cannot, for my soul, see the difference between paying tribute and a tacit acquiescence in the British Orders in Council. True, every gentleman revolts at paying tribute. But where is the difference between that and suffering yourself to be controlled by the arbitrary act of another nation? If you raise the embargo you must carry your produce to Great Britain and pay an arbitrary sum before you can carry it elsewhere. If it remains there, the markets will be glutted and it will produce nothing. For it appears, from the very evidence to which I have before alluded, that at least four-fifths of our whole exports of tobacco must go to England and pay a tax before we could look for a market elsewhere, and that out of seventy-five thousand hogsheads raised in this country, not more than fifteen thousand are consumed in Great Britain. Where does the remainder usually go? Why, to the ports of the Continent. I ask, then, if the whole consumption of Great Britain be but fifteen thousand hogsheads, if an annual addition of sixty thousand hogsheads be thrown into that market, would it sell for the costs of freight? Certainly not. The same would be the situation of our other produce.