Alexandria daily gazette, commercial & political. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1808-1812, 1812-07-21

Oh! navis, referent in mare fe rSOt
Nuctus. O, quid agis? Fortiter occuta
Forum.
Recent events have opened on our view
a prospect as novel as it is fearful. History
does not afford a parallel IA commercial peo-
pie engaged tn a contest with nation whose
naval power is almost omnipotent-a free peo-
pie indirectly leagued with despot for the
subversion of the only other free constitution
in the world-a republican people fired with
rage for conquest, and of adding to an already
unwieldy empire and this under an admins
trAtion protesting to be the friends OF the peo-
pie and of free government; yet operating
in direct opposition to the interests of the best
portion of the people.
This consunn,ation of folly and its conse-
quent calamities, which float like dark, dis
maying phantoms before our imagination, call
on the good men of this country, for their So
and ruinous policy of their rulers. And so
far from being awed into silence by the COM
plexion of the times, we trust in Heaven, they
will raise their voices to the highest tone of
CONSTITUTE onal remonstrance, and will make in
dignant appeals to their government as their
interests demand.
bof o.I>o l..
deprecated and deplored its probable descent
if we never ceased to predict the calanities
consequent upon 1t; we find nothing in the
success of the measure which sanctihes it to
our understandings, or which shall deter us
from the expression of the sentiments with
which it inspires us. On the contrary, the
arrival OF the crisis operates on US as pow
erful reason for making a firm stand; for
pointing out the nature of that situation to
which the people appear so blind, and the pro-
foundness of that abyss into which they are
plunged, and pourtraying those evils which
appear to us intsrminable in extent as they
are portentouS IN magnitude.
1t seems to US that the people of this coun-
try, even that portion of them from principle
most averse to the war, and by their pursuits
most obnoxious to its effects, are not fully a.
live to all the horrors it drags along in its
train. The minority are willing to persuade
themselves that such system of policy, and
the supporters of it, cannot long be upheld by
the nation; and that the people must be rous-
ed from the blind confidence they repose in
them, by the deprivations and miseries atten-
dant on the contest. This, we are apprehen-
sive, will not be fully verified. There is
something in war which is level to the popu-
lar apprehension, as there is something In the
license which unhappily accompanies it, per-
fectly conformable to popular feeling. We
have deluded ourselves also with beliefthat
the course of Great Britain would be wholly
defensive, and that while we endeavor to wrest
her Canadian possessions from her, she will
lay light hand upon our commerce, and
hold our defenceless seaports sacred, lest she
rouse the feelings of this people and excite
them to unanimous sentiment of indignation
against her. We forget that our adversary
has national feelings as well as ourselves, we
forget how we violate the most deep-rooted
preiudices of that people by substantially
ranging on the side of her ancient and me-
nacing enemy--we forget in the madness of