The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-12-21 00:00:00

TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN

CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

In addressing you in this my second annual Message, I in-
form you that you cannot sufficiently express your thanks to
me, for preserving you in health, wealth, and prosperity. It
is owing to ins that the planetary system of government in
this tremendous creation remains in unity, and that round me,
as your common centre, you all think light and life and glory
from my aspect—that's a fact.
In taking a review of past events, and in appointing what
shall happen for the future, I shall tread in the footsteps of
my illustrious predecessor, whom to have served, is glory
enough; and you will, therefore, regard this important State
Paper as a mere domestic document, with which foreigners
have nothing to do, except to be humbugged the►eby—that's
a fact.

I cannot sufficiently felicitate you on the success of my ef-
forts to prevent the doucing of our glim, by diverting the
citizens—silly folks call them subjects—from studying home-
spun despotism to the study of despotism of foreign manufac-
ture, under Kings, Bishops, Priests, and Deacons; all and
each of whom fancy they have a right to even six feet by two
of American soil wherein to rot—that's a fact.
Groaning themselves with gout and dietary gruel, these
persons—all of whom are paupers—vainly imagine they get
rid of disease and starvation by emigrating to my dominions;
;t therefore became my pleasure as well as duty to put a rifle
•.h

and a ballot-ticket in t
fact.

e hand of every ex-patriot—that's a

I have convinced the "boy's" that it is their interest not
to cut one another's throats about the laud I do possess, but
to cut the throats of the aliens not within the planetary sys-
tem on my continent, touching the land 1 do not possess—
that's a fact.

This policy is now carried out from Labrador to Cape
Horn, and whether the French grab the island of Cuba,under
pretence of blockading Mexico, or the English kick up a row
in Canada, under pretence of—no matter what—the end
will be the same: both French and English, and all sub-
lunatic things, are but factors of my future glory—that's a
fact.

Upon the superfices, my diplomatic relations with France
are as per last—that's a fact.
With Russia I have, above and below the superfices, a per-
fect understanding. Dallas versus Clanricarde are the ace of
trumps against the deuce of diamonds, which is not a trump
—that's a fact.

With Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Naples, Hol-
land, and the Pope, things are in statu quo. My claims on
Portugal, although acknowledged to be just, I have ordered
my Chancellor of the Exchequer to mark on his balance
sheet as a bad debt. Portugal is not worth powder nor shut—
that's a fact.

The civil war in Spain has not yet produced its intended
fruits, namely, the transfer to me of the Spanish colonies on
my continent, as a compromise forthe non-transfer ofßritish
colonies on the same continent and on my Archipelago. My
Ambassador at Madrid must sleep but seldom, and then
with one eye open. My claims on the province, nicknamed
the kingdom of Belgium, have not yet been paid, but as the
English are going to set up a bank in Brussels, in order, 1
suppose, to benefit the coal-mongers of Durham, the instant
that bank shall be in discountable operation I shall send in
my bill to Leopold, and demand instant payment, or adopt
proceedings—that's a fact.
With Brazil, and all our southern neighbours, we are on
the most friendly footing, with the exception that some of
you occasionally walk into their cotton, corn, and baccy
plantations. Give the savages rum, make them drunk, then
make them go a-head, and then no treaties with me will be
violated; and when these savages, as your vanguard,-shall
have squatted, tell them to depart or die, they may take
their choice—that's a fact.

How are you off for slaves? Do you breed enough for
exportation as well as que home use? I have large orders for
them from my own Archipelago in the West, and also from
my friend Nick's Archipelago in the East. Sound policy is
that, which breeds slaves in the East to die on their passage
to the West, and thereby make a new market for me—that's
a fact.

But the subject on which I chiefly claim your gratitude,
and on which my heart jumps fur joy, is the prostrate con-
dition of Great Britain. Sprung directly from common pro-
genitors. What have I accomplished. I have brought down
what was the first power in the world, dependent for national
existence on my friendly disposition. In the hopes of making
a convenience of Queen Victoria, I sent my son to court
her; but there bein,, no spittoons in the room, he spat on
the carpet, and offended her refinement. But both he and I
shall be revenged. lam revenged already. I have placed a
padlock on Upper Canada, whereof the Erie Canal, planned
by Scotchmeu, dug by Irishmen, and paid for by English-
men, is the key—that's a fact.

They talk of impeaching John George Lambton. They
dare as soon impeach Old Nick. Where is the man in the
British Parliament with clean hands to do it? Is not every
man, yea, and every woman, in England, supplying me
with the sinews of war ?—and yet the legislature has not yet
made it high treason to do so—that's a tact.
I have ordered my Ambassador in London to propose for
my present purposes, the purchase of all Queen Victoria's
nominal dominions in this hemisphere, and I shall then bor-
row money in London to pay for them. I must always have
the Londoners in advance to both the sun and the planets.
Extracting a tooth a•day will bring even a Jew to reason—
that's a fact.

If Queen Victoria cannot keep her subjects on my conti-
nent quiet, other nations, as my illustrious predecessor said
with regard to Texas, then a province of Mexico, must inter-
fere. When one's next door neighbour's house is on fire,
the law of self-preservation suggests the idea of an engine.
But I will precipitate nothing. So sure as my contemporary,
the sun in the firmament, rises in the east and sets in the
west, so surely do I know bow many beans make five. At
present I have nothing to do in this matter but to let the
"boys," whom the English sent here for the purpose, I sup-
pose, follow their own game ; and an occasional pop at even
a squirrel will compel the keeping in Canada a standing
army to accelerate the absolute ruin of Great Britain, while
by means of the Erie canal I shall supply that army with the
necessaries of life, and borrow the money in England to pro-
duce them—that's a fact. _ _

Then there is the Hudson Bay Company. Is it to be en-
dured that foreigners are to share in the profits of the fin-
trade on my continent? What right have they, I should
like to know, to a beaver, or any other brute, or even, in
hunting, as a singlp member thereof? Then there are the
herring fisheries too, in the Bay of Fundy, and the cod fish-
eries too, on the banks of Newfoundland—am not I as fond
of pickled herrings, and of tongues, and sounds, as anybody ?
But wait a bit. Bide Your time. Never assassinate a man
when you can murder -him by gradually breaking his heart.
That fifty-years'-old nest-egg for a quarrel, the Boundary
question, is all right. It induces the laying of fresh eggs,
and when it does not, you shall nose it in the lobby. My
illustrious predecessor, in the presence of an Englishman,
said he would not part with an inch of the ground in dispute
—he would see the British government d--d first. lam
pledged to tread in his footsteps—that's a fact.
You will expect me to say something about the currency.
Bah ! These are my resolves—you shall rob Peter of as
much as you can to pay Paul as little as possible, as the
means of dieting the rest of the Apostle's—that's a fact.
Biddle goes on well; and now Delafield is also at it.
Moreover, I have been studying theology lately to decide
what kind of church shall be established. I, myself I, incline
to Itornanistn—not as respects faith—but as respects policy.
But the point I want cleared up is this :—St. Clement wrote
Many books, all of which the Romanists would have deemed
canonical but for his belief i❑ the fable of the Phoenix ; and
when I look at New York, I confess I, myself, am bothered.
Three years ago this day, fifteen millions of dollars' worth of
property was burnt, and, according to the American alma-
neck, not one of the owners of that property broke—it was
all reinstated by means of dollar notes, issued by the Phoenix
bank, and of which notes I now make pipe-lights—that's a
fact.

The reports from my Secretaries of State, I have com-
manded to !ay before you. The report of Levi Woodbury
will show that he is playing the right game of fast and loose.
One day he demands gold from a Whig, and takes paper
from a Tory. Noble fellow. He carries out expedineey.
Strange that no foreigners—save one—can comprehend my
planetary system. And yet it is not strange. All my adopted
citizens, initiated in my mysteries, found the lands of their
birth too hot to hold them, and therefore had no animus re-
vertendi to tell the truth. That there should have been one
exception is wonderful—that's a fact.
The report of my Secretary of the Navy will realise the
prophecy, now twelve months old, in the John Bull, that when
the Pennsylvania, the largest man-of-war in the world, which
was built by British ebip-wrights, and now manned and com-
manded by British seamen, shall bombard the Southampton
river, the Conservatives of England will turn up the whites
of their eves, and say, who—who would have thought it ?
The rest of the reports will show I have done all in my
power to carry out the principles of modern philosophy in
England in respect of free trade. I have caused our domes-
tic manufactures to be bought, paid for, and consumed, and
foreign ones to be merely gambled with. I defy the world to
compete with in 3 citizens in the production of commodities,
whether bowie knives, broad cloths, or bandannas. Look at
the annual fair at New York, at which prizes are contended
for about manufactures, just as prizes are contended fur in
England about fattening cattle for candles, and bad ones too
—that's a'fact.
I have, being somewhat smothered by cotton, commanded
that mulberry trees shall be extensively planted, the growth
of which is favoured by my soil and sun; and in anticipation
of the industry of thesilk-worm, my adopted citizens, formerly
weavers at Lyons and Spitalfields, are preparing their looms
—that's a fact.
With regard to wines, brandies, and other imperfect pro-
ductions of Europe, I have commanded that the vine shall be
cultivated even in the cemeteries, and that the natural forests
of peach trees—beautiful sight when in blossom—shall be
availed of for distillation from their seed. It would be tedious
to name all my schemes for supplanting the productions of
the Old Country. Suffice it to say, that whenever any Eu-
ropean comes here to sell "notions," expecting to be paid
for them, he or his masters will be bringing coals to New-
castle—that's a fact.
To conclude. I am under the infinence of conflicting
feelings. I feel mortified at having sprung from a degene-
rated nation—for a nation degenerated is worse than original
barbarism; and I also feel proud that my nation is progress
mug to perfection, and like a light to a mariner, she beacons
the haven of safety for- all mankind. Upon the whole, I
commend you to that Being who, for some inscrutable pur-
poses, permits Nick of Petersburgh and me to dream of di-
viding dominion between us; and yet I fear that that same
Being smiles on the sweet little Cherub that sits up a-loft.
Washington, Dec. 1838 MARTIN VAN BUREN.

EXTRAORDINARY EVENT —On Sunday morning last, a
remarkable circumstance occurred at Bradgate, near Re-
therein. Whilst a boy was passing over an old well with a
lighted candle, the, foul air ignited, and, communicating
with a:barn Close by, the property of Mr. James Harris, of
Rotherain, ironfouuder, destroyed from 70 to 100 loads of
wheat and other property, the whole of the value of from
£2OO to £3OO.