The Sun.
London, England, 1841-03-12 00:00:00

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PRICE 5(1.

GREAT BRITAIN AND THE

UNITED STATES.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF FOREIGN RELATIONS.

(From the New York Express of the 19th ult.)
"'rho Report in the House of the Chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations iT one of the trashiest
officiid farrago of words we ever riad—so trashy even,
that it would hardly pass muster for an editorial article
in the loudest demand for, and absence of, all other
copy. It has in it neither dignity nor a good construc-
tion of the English language, and were it the work
of a college Sophomore, it would be discreditable to the
writer. 'llere'is an air of smartness in it, very peculiar
to the Honourable Member for South Carolina, but
very disreputable to the Hon. Chairman of a Com-
mittee of the Douse of Representatives, so that. it is
in many respects as improper and as mean a public
document as ever emanated from any tenth-rate public
functionary. It comes nearly up to the blustering
bravado of GoVertior Fairfield, the hero of the cam-
pa;gn of the Madawaska, though the logic in it is not
half so meritorious as that of the Maine Commander-
in-Chief.

" The reasoning. of Air. Pickens upon the case of
the steam-boat Caroline, and M'Leod, will pass for
what it is worth, though he has very poorly argued here
upon the claims of nations to viol►te each other's terri-
tory, and made but a miserable case for his country-
men, when he might have made a good one ; but we
pass from all this to comment upon the style, tone,
and manner of the Report, which is a disgrace 4 ) the
House of Rvrezentativcs for even sand io,iing its pub-
lication.

" In the opening of the Report, Mr. Pickens speaks
of an insinuation' of the British Minister, which might
well be retorted,' and then goes on sneeringly, in a
grave official report, to.speak of Great Britain 4in the
plenitude of its power,' casting the aerie of British
jurisdiction over American soil,'—following on with the
idea that ' the British Minister is pleased to call the
Caroline,a piratical steam-boat,' to cone!ude the
remark, that the loose epithets of any one, no matter
how high in place, cannot make that pitaey which the
law of nations does not ..recognise as such.' We are
then told in a subsequent paragrarh what is disgraceful
to us if true, and which, therefore, a Committee on
Foreign Rd itions should not publish to the world, that
There is an assumption in most of our iota, course
with Great Britain revolting to the prid,.: and spirit of
independence in a free people' (a flourish of rhetoric
this, sadly out of place) whereupon we are urged
further on, not in words though, but in the tone
of the style, and the rhetorical sputter of the
sentences to be mighty smart in showing off our
pluck—at least so to swagger as to seem
to be born insensible to fear.' Fuither on, we arc
told, the demand for M'Leod is preposterous in the
extreme,' as if this were fit diplomatic language, and
not disgraceful to the parties employing it ; when Mr.
Pickens•, in the progress of his logic, concludes with
the remark, that in this case, the demand for libera-
tion has' been made by the accredited agent of a great
Power, and under circumstances of peculiar aggrava
tion and excitement.'

" The most absurd and out-of-place part of the Rea
port, however, is, the dissertation of the Hofrourable
Gentleman, political and geographical, upon the power
of Ureat Britain, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Ame-
rica ; as if, when his Committee was charged with two
specific case, that of the Caroline' and of ' M•Leod;
he had a right to print a trCatise upon Gibraltar,'
4 Malta," the lonian Islands,' St. Jean d'Acre,' St.
Helena,' Halifax,' Bermuda,' China,' Trinidad,'
and the ' Caribbean Sea'—with steam power' to boot,
and some additional grave dissertations, t 3 vvi'a that
arice and ,ambition are the ruling passions of im-
am times,
.and it is in vain to shut our eyes to the
state of things around us.' [lndeed I—important, too,
it is so new I]
" It is in vain to shut our eye?,. though, to the fact,
that Mr. Pickens is a very great swaggerer in words,
and has made a Report in Congress disreputable in logic,
disreputable in tone, expression, and character, and in
the worst of taste. What does the man mean ? If there
be assumption' in oura intercourze with Great Britain
revolting to the pride and spirit of independence in a
free people, it was the duty of this great swaggerer to '
end his Report with a resolution for the declaration of
war, or for direct taxes forthwith, and an appropriation
of a hundred millions of dollars to prepare. " If Great
Britain's accredited agent' makes deaaantls of us pre-
posterous ha the extreme, aud' under circumstances of
peculiar aggravation,' why not forthwith recommend a
conscription of one hundred thousand men, a fortified"
garrison of ten thousand for Detroit, another of twenty
thousand for Buffalo, and so on, with twenty millions
of dollars for steam-ships to defend the coast? If Great
Britain demands what is revolting to our spirit and pride
as a free p mple, preposterously, and in the extreme, aggra-
vating us toe, the remedy at least is preparation for
war, for which this Boanerges of South Carolina makes
not the least preparation.
" The object of the South Carolina swaggerer is pal-
pable, however, in all this utterance of words. Mr.
Granger, in the course of the debate, beat what he well
called the bag of wind,' aud Mr. Adams let it out of
the bags. Mr. Pickens was making a party Report, he
told us, and it came from the Committee by a party
vote. ' A defeated enemy in war was abandoning a
tenement, and setting fire to it upon their retreat.'
Now that Mr. Pickens's party had lost the control of
the Government, if words would set it on fire in new
hands, he meant to leave enough to burn it up. To a
bankrupt treasury her wished to add the bequest of a
war. To foreign affairs, now already complicated enough
by the want of management, he wished to add more of
complication. The train might not reach—the fire
might not catch well. Mr. Pickens would prepare it
all, apply the torches, and run to South Carolina ; the
last we should probably ever hear of him in case of war
though born insensible to fear.' "
CASE OF THE AMISTAD. The following cor-
respondence between the British Minister and the Se-
cretary of State has been communicated by the Pre-
sident to Congress :

" MR. FOX TO MR. YORSYTII.

" WasLington, Jan. 20, 1840.

" Sir—l am instructei to represent to you that the at-
tention of her Majesty's Government has been ser:ously
directed to the case of ecri&n African negrocs, found on
board the Spanish ship Amistad, the same persons whose
case had been brought before the Courts- of law of the
United States, and tor whom a powerful and humane in-
terest appears to be felt in this country as well as in Eng-
land.

" It is known to her Majesty's Government that those ne-
groes were imported into Cuba direct from the coast of
A frier, in a Portuguese slave-vessel, called the Tecora, in
the summer of 1839, and that shortly after their arrival, they
were purchased as slaves at the Havannah by two Spaniards
of the names of Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montez. Ruffs and
Montez then placed the negroes on board the Amistad, in-
tending to convey them to another port in Cuba. It ap-
pears that during the voyage, the negroes, with a rew of
recovering their liberty, seized possession of the vessel, put
the master to death, and ordered the remaining whites to
navigate the vessel to the coast of Africa. The whites,
however, directed their course towards North America, un-
til they were fallen in with by the United States brig of
war Washington, when the Amistad was finally brought
into the port of New London, in Connecticut. The pro-
ceedings which have taken place subsequently to the ar-
rival of the negroes in the United States are sufficiently
well known to you.
" Now her Majesty's Government have to observe that,
since the year 1820, it has become unlawful, according to
the law of Spain, to import negroes from Africa as slaves
into the Spanish dominions, and that, as the negroes here
referred to had been newly imported from Africa into
Cuba, and could not by law be imported as slaves, they
must, in tho eye of the law, be considered as free persons.

" And Great Britain is also bound to remembet: that the
law of Spain, which finally prohibited the slave trade
throughout the Spanish dominions from the date of the
30th of May, 1820 (the provisions of which law arc con-
tained in the King of Spain's Royal Cedula of the 19th of
December, 1817), was passed in compliance with a treaty
obligation to that effect, by which the Crown of Spain bad
bound itself to the Crown of Great Britain, and for which
_a valuable compensation in return was given by Great
Britain to Spain, as may be seen by reference to the se-
cond, third, and fourth articles of a public treaty con-
cluded between Great Britaikand Spain on the 23d of Sep.
tember, 1817.
" Her Majesty's Government, therefore, are moved by
special and peculiar reasons to take an interest in the fate
of these unfortunate Afiicans, who are known to have
been illegally and feloniously reduced to slavery by sub-
jects of Spain.
"It is next to be observed that Great Britain and the
United States have mutually engaged themselves to each
other by the tenth article of the Treaty of Ghent, to use
their best endeavours for the entire abolition of the African
slave trade ; and there can be no doubt of the firm inten-
tion of both parties religiously to fulfil the terms of their
engagement.
" Now the unfortunate Africans, whose case is the rub-
jaececti
doefnttahle
eiPrcrcusmesnttanc representation,
of the authotities
of the United States ; and it may probably depend upon
the action of the United States Government, whether those
•pen*ds shall recover tt:e freedom to which they are en-
titled, or whether-they shall be reduced to elavery, in vio-
es into
the
hands liav e been thrown by
lation.of known laws and contracts publicly passed,
pro-
hibiting the continuance of the African slave trade by Spa-

•
nigh subjects.
66 It is under these circumstances that her Majesty's
in behalf of the aforesaid Africans, as shall secure
u s
Govornmsetantt anxiously
o:i,,,illfia hope
dilimsetlhfatemtphL President
eredtota of
ue such
rUoent3ihtseedmre the possession of their liberty, to which, without
doubt, they are by law entitled.
I avail myself of this occasion to renew to you the as-
surances of my distinguished consideration.
IL S. FOX."

The Hon. John Forsyth," &e. &c.