Virginia Argus. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1796-1816, 1812-06-22


discipline. To be exiled to the most distant
and deadly chimes to risk their lives in the
battles Of their oppressors, and to be the
melancholy Instruments of taking away
those of their own brethren.
Against this crying enormity, which G.
Britain would be so prompt to avenge if
Committed against herself, the United States
have IN vain exhausted circumstances and
eNposiuations. And that no proof might be
wanting ofthc,fconciiatory dispositions, and
no prereNt left for a continuance of the praC-
lice, the British government was formally
assured ~ the readiness CT the u. States to
enter .eto arrangements, such as could not
DC rejected, II the recovery of British sub
J,cts were he real and the sole object. The
communication passed without effect.
british crulzers have been in the practice
also Of violating the rights and the peace of
our Coasts They hover ever and harrass
our entering and departing commerce. To
The most insulting pretensions they have adj
ded the most lawless proceedings in our We
ry harbors; and have wantonly split Anne
rlcan blood within the sanctuary of our ter
| ritorial jurisdiction. The principles and
rules enforced by that nation, when neu-
trial nation. against armed vessels of bellige
rents lowering near her coasts, and disturb
called on, nevertheless, BY the United States
to punish the greater offences committed by
her own vessels, her government has bes-
towed on therCommanders additional marks
of honor and confidence.
Under pretended blockades, without the
presence or an adequate force, and some
times without the practicability of applying
one, our commerce has been plundered i'm
overy sea; the great staples of our country
have been cut off FROM their legitimate mar
kets; and destructive blow aimed at our
agricultural and maritime interests. In ag-
gravation of these predatory measures, they
have been considered as in force from the
dates of their notification retrospective
effect being thus added, as has been done in
otherimportant cases, to the unlawfulness of
the course pursued. And to render the out
rage the more signal. these mock-blockades
have been reiterated and enforced IN the face
of official communications from the British
government. declaring, as the true deiniti-
on of legal blockade that particular
ports must be actually invested, and previ-
Gus warning given to vessels bound to them,
not TO enter"
Not content with these occasional expedi-
ents Tor laying waste our neutral trade, the
Cabinet Of Great Britain resorted, at length
to the sweeping system of blockades, under
the name of Orders in Council, which has
been moulded and managed, as might best
suit ITS political views, its commercial jea-
| iousies, or the avidty of British cruisers.
To cur remonstrances against the compl-
Gated and transcendant INJUSTICE of this limo
yati9n. the first reply was that the orders
were reluctantly adopted by Great Britain as
a accessory retaliation On DEGREES of her G.
| nemy prociaim,ng a general blockade of the
British isles, at a time when the naval force
of that enemy dared not to issue from his
| own ports. She was reminded, without eff
feet, chat her own prior blockades, unsup-
ported ny an adequate naval force actually
| applied and continued, were a bar to this
| plea: that executed edicts against millions
Of our property could not be retaliation ON
edcts, confessed,y impossible to be eXecut-
ed that retaliation, to be just, should fall
on the party setting the guilty example. not
on an nccent party, which was not even
| chargeable with an acquiescence in it.
| When deprived of this flimsy veil for a
prohibition of our trade with her enemy, by
the repeal of his prohibition Of cur trade
with Great Britain, her cabinet, instead of
corresponding repeal or a practical discon-
| tinuance of its orders, formally avowed
determination to persist in them against the
United States, Until the markets of her enc
my should be laid open TO British products
| thus asserting an obligation on a neutral
power to require one be!ligerent 20 encou-
| rage, by its internal regulations, the trade
1 Of another belligerent contradicting her
own practice towards all nations in peace as
| we'll as in war ; and betraying the insince-
! rity OF those professions which inculcated a
| belief that, having resorted TO her orders
| with regret, she was anxious TO find an oc-
| casion for phtting an erd to them.
4 ..fI 4,
/ neutral rights of the United States, and for
its own consistency, the British government
| now demands as prerequisites to repeal of
| its orders, as they relate to the y. States,
| that formality should be observed in the
| repeal of the French DEGREES nowise neces-
! sary to their termination, nor exemplifed
by British usage and that the French rer
peal, besides including that portion of the
! DEGREES which operates within a territorial
| jurisdiction as we'll as that which operates
on the high seas against the commerce of
the United States, should not be a single spe-
| cial repeal in relation TO the United States,
but should be extended 10 whatever ether
| neutral nations unconnected with them may
be affected by those decrees: And as All
additional insult, they are called on for "A
formal tiisavowal of conditions and preten-
sions advanced by the French government,
for which the United States arc so far from
having made themselves responsible, that,
in official explanations, which have been
published to the world, and in a correspon-
dence of the American Minister at London
with the British Minister for Foreign AT
fairs, such responsibility was explicitly
and emphatically disclaimed.
1t has become indeed sufficiently certain
that the commerce of the United States is to
be sacrificed, not as interfering with the bel
/ lgerent RIGHTS Of Great Britain. not as SUD