Star.
London, England, 1812-10-17 00:00:00

the fear of Gm." Without such rulers slavery and
ruin await. us.
In every community, it is but a sniallrnalmber':
Of men and chiefly those who obtain offices, who can
be benefited by the abuse of power ; while the great
body of the people, whatever part they take, arc
common sufferers. It is therefore as impossible for
l'the people knowingly to prefer such abusers of power,
to honest men, as it is for them to prefer oppression
and suffering to freedom and happiness. But misled
by plausible but false professions of zeal for liberty,
And the public gond, the people not unfrequently
choose such deceivers for their rulers. Hence it is
essential, in a free government, that the characters
of men in power should be examined and plainly
described. Those who take the lead, and give form
and effect to abuses, are always few in number, but
supported by a greater number alike unprincipled,
and a still greater of uninformed and undiscerning
men, they are enabled to trample on the constitution,
to violate the people's rights and to load them with
oppressions.
46 As men, like trees, are known by the fruits they
bear, nothing would be more useful at this time than
-a review and display of the principal acts and pro-
ceedings cl the men who for nearly the last twelve
years have governed the United States. Such a re-
view would shew that they are the chief authors of
our sufferings, and of the ruin now impending.
• 64 We have the confession of Mr. Jefferson him.
self, when in an evil hour he gained the President's
chair, that the United States were in " the full tide
of successful experiment," and that the government,
the federal government, " had so far kept usfree and
firm."—And what has changed the scene? What
has produced years of suffering, and at length the
greatest of human calamities, war ? The fatal de-
parture from those principles of administering our
government which had brought in that full tide of
prosperity, and kept us free and fiim.
64 Our rulers, by their long manifest partialities
towards France, and enmity and ill offices towards
her principal adversary, and now by declaring war
against Great Britain, have given proofs of their &-
sire to contribute to her downfall ; though with the
moral certainty in that event, of our own ruin, of the
loss of our independence as a nation and of our indi-
vidual liberties. The government of a free people
so conducting deserves their severest reproach.—
Thus viewing the proceedings of our rulers, and in
connexion therewith the character and conduct of
the rulers of France, we make the following further
declaration of our opinions and feelings :
" 1. That most of the great political evils which
for a series of years have afflicted our country are to
be ascribed to the intrigues and pet fidy of the French
government under all its forms, monarchical, repub-
lican, and imperial, in concert with many ambitious
and some unptincipled and corrupt men among cut
own citizens, over whom that Government acquired
a dang,tz ous and pernicious influence.
" 2. That. this French influence, at one period
during our revolutionary- war, was so predominant
as to procure an instruction irom Congress to our
Ministers who were empowered to negociate a treaty
of peace with Great. Bricain, which put in jeopardy
the fisheries, so highly important to Massachusetts,
the extension of or territory to the Mississippi, and
the free navigation of that river, and exposed us to
a continuance of that distressing war, by postponing
the acknowledgement of our mdept.trdeuce (an in-
di able condit'-n cf op- -- might

lispenst_ tition of peace) so long as might suit
the convenience and the ambitious views of France.
By. that instruction by which our Ministers were dis-
honoured, and our country degraded, they were pla-
ced at the discretion of the Minister of France, being
required 44 to undertake nothing in the negotiations
for peace or truce without their concurrence ; and
ultimately to govern themselves by their advice and
opinion. This humiliating and dangerous instruc-
tion our Ministers bad the dignity, firmness, and pa-
triotism
to lay aside ; and not only. without, but in
opposition to the insidious advice and opinion d the
'French Ministers, negotiated such a treaty with ,
Great 13rttain as the honour and interests of the Uni-
ted States required. For which bold and indepen-
dent conduct the French party in congress wilh Mr. ;
Madison a principal among them, attempted to pass
a vote of censure.
" 3. That to the intrigues of France are to be as--
cribed all the difficulties and delays in our attempts,
in 1797 and 1798, to run the boundary lines between •
the United States and the Floridas, pursuant to our
treaty with Spain, and the corrupt attempts, by brim
bery to detach the State of Kentucky from the union ;
for France, it appears, had then contemplated the
recovery of Louisiana trom Spain. To the same in-
trigues is also to be attribitted the obstruction, in
1802; to the free navigation of the Mississippi.and to
our right of deposit of our merchandize at New Or-
leans ; for though Spain was then in possession, she
was no longer the owner of Louisiana, and could
have no possible motive to violate her own gcod
faith and injure the United States ; she having be-
fore that time, in October, 1800, actually reconvey-
ed Louisiana to France.
4. That to the same intrigues of France and her
'influence with her American party, the party which
Washington denounced as the curse of their coun-
try, is to be ascribed the vehement and obstinate op.
position encountered. by that patriot President in his
endeavours to maintain an impartial neutrality, and
to preserve the peace of the United States, France
and her partizans using every means in their power
to prevent a settlement, by treaty, of the differences
then existing between the United States and Great
Britain ; instead of which they urged commercial re.
etrictions and war.
44 5. That if the preseriation of the rights, pro.
petty, and interests of the United States were the
real inducement to the measures of our rulers, in
their commercial 'prohibitions and restrictions, no in-

nts (the Emperor's BerlinDeCtee), exhibited
in nue of those docunitnts th it it really presented no
great and increasing dangers, from thej inability of
France to carry its decree into execution, and which
they in fact pronounced 64 an empty threat"—de-
monstrate that the original statement was in their
own view unfounded and false; and therefore that it
was a premeditated deception. And the implicit
confidence of a majority of Congress inMr.Jefferson,
procured a ready adoption of the measure 'recom-
mended under the familiar name of Embargo—an
interruption of navigation, according to the common
understanding; of very short duration—but which
now was manifestly intended by its projector to be
of leng continuance, and vhkh did in fact, for an
unlimited period, cut off our commerce with all
parts of the world.'
i"rhis measure, thus founded in deception, so
ruinous to ourselves, but so acceptable to the French
Emperor, with the various circumstances attending
it, is to be accounted for on one ground only—that it
Iwas taken in concert with him, to further his avowed
design and attempts to destroy the commerce of
Greatßritain, by that means to subdue her, and thus
remove the 'ply barrier in his march to universal
empire. The public men capable of practising such '
deceptions, are no longer entitled to credit, whatever
may be their professions of sincere desire to preserve
the peace of our country, and to secure and promote
its welfare.
" 6. That under the same pernicious French in-
fluence, the natural sympathies of men for oppressed
and suffering humanity, for the patriotic Spaniards
betrayed into the hands of the French Emperor, but
nevertheless struggling to recover and maintain their
independence, such sympathies, if felt, were discoun-
,
tenanced and suppressed; and a multitude of Ame-
rican citizens, after the example of their rulers, exhi-
bited to the world the strange spectacle of Freemen
indifferent to, or rejoicing at ti e success of a Tyrant
usurping the dominions of an uncffending nation—
of an Ally which for many years, constrained by its
situation, •had aided his arms and laid his treasures
at his feet; Freemen thus wishing to add the stiength
of an empire'to a power already vast and gigantic,'
a power which had subjugated many ofthe states of,
continental Europe, overawed the rest, and endau.
gered the liberties and independence of every otter
nation.
" 7. That by thus furthering the views of bound-
less and unprincipled ambition in a ruthless tyrant,,
our rulers'have shewn their pretensions of superior
attachment to liberty and the rights of man to be
false and hollow ; and their often-repeated profes-,
sions of exclusive Republicanism, are made merely
te
delude
namniddeceive the people. The falseness of
these their pretensions is further proved by their un-,
ceasing and hatred towards England, the
only country in Europe, the only country in the
world beside our own, which enjoys a free Govern-
ment ; a country which for ages has been the bul
wark of the religion we profess, and is now Lbouring
more than all other christian countries, to extend the
knowledge of it and its benign influences to regions
where its voice has not been heard • a country which
has hitherto withstood the torrent of despotism issu-
ing from France to enslave a world, and whose
powerful navy alone has prevented that torrent from
rushing upon and overwhelming the United States.
The American citizen must be void of understand-
ing, or careless of his reputation as a man of sense,
the tiuth of this oni-:-

wlio will publicly question the this opinion.
" 8. That the preceding truths being so obvious
and clear—the constant and glaring partiality of our
rulers towards France, and as constant and glaring
hostility to Great Britain so manifest; while the best
interests, the commerce and prosperity of the United
States, are the sacrifice, and their liberty and inde-
pendence put in jeopardy; while they talk of honour,
and crouch at a tyrant's feet, submitting to the un-
exampled insults of the Emperor of France, who
telli them to their faces that they are destitute of
policy, of energy and of honour ; while they petu-
lantly complain of injuries from Great Britain, and
patiently submit to injuries tenfold greater and of pe-
culiar aggravation from France—while'they affect, a
clis4irin to •protect our commerce, yet by their own
acts.,have• done more than all foreign nations to de-
stroy It::
,and at'last have declared war in favour of
ii.tyranio 'against the country with whose extensive
dominions in every quarter of the globe a free com-
merce is now more interesting to us than a trade
with all the world beside : we are constrained to ex-
press our opinion that such conduct is not to be ac-
counted for on any fair and honourable principles ;
—we are constrained to believe, and do believe,
that while an ardent desire to continue in power,
clothed with all the honourable and profitable offices
in the Union, might induce them to use the same
means to maintain, which were employed to acquire
it; that is, by cultivating the known prejudices, of
the people, which are coeval with our revolution, in
favour of France—and stirring up and embittering
' every evil passion and resentment against England ;
while this might partly account for their previous
measures adopted at the expense of the solid interests
of the United States ; yet their last desperate and
atrocious act in declaring war against Great Britain,
by which an immense property of our citizens, and
thousands of our seamen now abroad are exposed to
capture; a war by which our fisheries and foreign
commerce will be annihilated, and the value of our
agricultural productions thereby greatly diminished,
and by which even our coasting trade from state to
state, and from one port to another In the same state
may be destroyed i a war by which our ordinary
revenues will be cut off, and the expences of govern-
; ment and war must, therefore, be supported by land
and other internal taxes; while complete success
against Great Britain, ending in her fall, would at
the same time seal our own fatal doom—and ill suc-
cess and disasters would reduce these states to ex-