The Sun.
London, England, 1812-01-04 00:00:00

zIALERIC4N PA IiER4

(Continued from yesterday.)

• •In this yfqvionable expectation we have, however,
been disappointed: A . year -lids elapsed since the
French Decires were rL schided, and yet Great Bri-
tain, instead of retracting part pciiSu that course
of unjustifiable attack on neutral rights, in which
she professed to be only the reluctant follower of
Urance, has advanced with bolder and continually
increasing slt ides. To the categorical demands lately
made by our Government tbr the repeal of her Orders
in Council, she IYIs atieaed to deny the praCliCel ex-
tinEtion of the French Decrees ; and she has, more-
over, advanced a new and unexpected demand, in-
creasing in hostility the Orders themselves. She has
insisted, through her accredited' Minister at ibis
pl:ice, that the repeal of the Orders in Council must
be preceded,not only by the pradical abandonment Of
thedecrees of Berlin and Milan,so far as they infringe
the neutral rights of the United States; but by ihe
renunciation on the part of FranCe of the whole of
her system of commercial warfare against Great Bri-
tain, of which those Decrees originally formed a
part.

This system is understood to consist in a course
of measures adopted by France and the other powers
on the Continent subject to, or in alliance with her,
calculated to prevent the introduction into their
territories of the productS and manufactures of
Great Britain and her colonies, and to annihilate
her trade with them. However hostile these regu-
lations may be, on the part of France towards Great
Britain, or however sensibly the latter mty feel their
effects, they are, nevertheless, to be regarded only
as the expedients ,of one enemy against another,
for which the United States, as a neutral power
can in no respect be responsible : they are, too,
in exalt conformity with those which Great. Bri-
tain has herself adopted and aFted upon in time
of peace as well as war. And it is not to he re-
sumed that France would yield to the unauthorised
demand of America, what she seems to have con-
sidered as cne of the most powerful engines of the
•
present war.

Such are the pretensions upon which Great Bri-
tain founds the violation of the maritime rights of
the United Stales—pretensions 'not theoretical mere-
ly, but followed up by a desolating war upon, our
unprotelled commerce. The ships of the United
States, ladvn with the produls of our own soil and
labour, navigated by our own citizens, and peace-
ably pursuing a lawful trarie, are seized on our own
coasts, at the very mouths of our harbours, con-
demned and confiscated.

Your Committee are not, however, of that sea
whose ,worship is at the shrine of a calculating ava-
rice. And while we are laying. before you the just
complaints of our merchants against the plunder, of
their ships and cargoes, we cannot refrain from pre-
senting to the jus,ice and humanity of our country
the unhappy case of our impressed seamen. Al-
though the groans of these victims of'barbarity for
the toss of (what should be dearer to the Americans
than life) their liberty—although the cries of their
wives and children in the privztion of proteators and
parents, have, of late, been drowned in the louder
clamours a: the loss of property ; yet is the practice
of forcing our mariners into tee British navy, in vio-
lation of the rights of our flag, carried on with una-
bated rigour and severity.
If it be our duty to encourage the fair and
legiti-
mate commerce of this country by prate ling the
property of the
.niercliant, then indeed, by as much
adife•and liberty are more estimable than ships and
goods, so much more impressive Is the duty to shield.
the persons of wit- seamen; whose hard and honest
services :ire employed, equally with those of the
merchants, in advancing, under the mantle of its
laws, the intertets of their country.
To sum up, in a wee A, the great causes of com-
plaint apoist Great Britain, your Committee need
only say—That the United States, as a sovereign
and independent power, e.laim the right to use the
ocean, which is the common and acknowledged
highway o nations, for the purposes tit transporting,
in their own Vessels, the products of their own Soil,
and the acquisitions of their industry, to a market
in the ports of frizndly nations, and to bring home,
in return, such articles as their uccessiiies or conve-
nience may require always regarding the rights of
belligerents, as. defined by , The established laws of
nations.
Great Britain, in defiance of this incontes-
tible right, captures every American vessel bound
to, or returning from, .a port where her commerce
is not favourecr; enslaves our seamen, and, in spite
of our remonstrances, perseveres in these aggres-
sions.

To wrongs so thring in chbraeler, and so disgrace-
ful in their execution, it is impo.sible. that the peo-
ple of the United States should remain indifferent.
We must now tamely and quietly submit, or we
must xesist by those means Which God has placed
within our reach.

Your. Committee would not cast a shade over the
American name, by the expression of a doubt
which branch of this alternative will be embraced.
The occasion is , now presented when the national
charatier; misunderstood and traduced for a time by
foreign and domesric enen•ies, should be vindicated.
If we have not rushed to the field of battle like the
nations who are led by the mad ambition of a single
Chief, or the avatice of a corrupted Court, it has
not proceeded tram a fear of war, but from our love
of justice and humanity. That proud spirit cf
berlyand independence, which sustained our fathers
in the successful assertion of their rights against fo-
reign aggression is not )et sunk. The patriotic fire
of the revolution stilt burns i❑ the American breast
with a holy and unextinguishable flame, and 'will
conduct this nation to those high der.tinies, which
are not less the reward of dignified moderation, than
of exalted valour.

But we have borne with injury until forbearance
has ceased to be a virtue. .The sovereignty and in-
dependence of these states, p.urchased.aad sandified
by tbe.blood of our fathers, from whose We receiv-
ed them, not for ourselves only, bw as the inheri-
tance of our, poster iiy, aredelinerately and systema-
tically. violated. And the perind has arrived, when
in the opinion of your .Committee, it is the sacred
duty of Congress to call forth the patriotism and re-
SOU CILIS of the country. By the, aid' of these, and
with the blessing. pf God, we confidently trust we
shall be enabled to procure that redress, whi,:ll has
been sought for by jii4ti%;eo by remonstrance arid
turbexance, in yaiD,