The enquirer. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1804-1815, 1815-04-08
AN EXPOSITION
. OF THE
CAUSES AND CHARACTER OF THE
LATE WAR WITH G. BRITAIN.
Prehared by the Government Of the U. S.
(coNCLuDED.)
OF THE

. As an appropriate introduction to the kind
of war, which Great Britain intended to wage
against the inhabitants of the United States,
transactions occurred in England, under the
avowed direction of the government itself,
that could not fail to wound the moral sense
of every candid and generous spectator. All
the officers and mariners of the American
marchant ships, who, having lost their vessels
in other places, had gRne to England on the
way to America or who had been employ
cd in British merchant ships, but were desi-
rors of returning home or who had been
detained, in consequence of the condemnation
of their vessels under the British orders in
council or who had arrived in England,
Through any of the other casualties of the
seafar;ng life were condemned to be trca-
ted as prisoners of war nay, some of them
were actually impressed, while soliciting
their passports although not one of their
number had been in any way, engaged in
hostities against Great Britain and altho'
che American government had afforded eve
~ facility to the departure Of the same class,
AS well as every other class, Of British sub
jects, from the United States, for reasona-
BILE period after the declaration OF war. (a)
But this act of Unjust ce, for which even the
pretext Of retaliation has not been advanced,
was accompanied by another Of still greater
cruelty and oppression. The American sea-
men, who had been enlisted, or impressed,
into the naval service of Great Britain, were
long retained, and many of them are yet re-
tanned, On board of British ships Of war,
where they are compelled to combat against
their country and their friends: and even
when the British government tardiy and re-
luctantly recognized the citizenship of i'm
pressed Americans, to number exceeding
1000 at single naval station, and dismissed
hon, nv~xys~ fta va%<
only to immune them as prisoners of war on
the shore. These unfortunate persons, who
had passed into the power of the British go
vernment, by a violation of their own rights
and inclinations, as well as of the rights of
their country, and who could only be regard
ed as the spoils of unlawful violence, were,
e!ess treated the fruits es aRf:!
war. Such was the Naturalization, which
Great Britain offered for the wrongs, that she
had inflicted and such the reward, which
she bestowed, for services that she had re-
Ceived. (6)
Nor has the spirit of British warfare been
confined to violations of the usages of civilized
nations, inrclation to the United States: The
system of blockade, by orders in council, has
been revived and the American coast, from
Maine to Louisiana, has been declared, by
the proclamation of a British admiral, to be
in state ofblockade, which e,ery-day's OBJ
servation proves to be, practically, inehec-
sual, and which, indeed, the whole of the Bril-
fish navy would be unable TO enforce & MAIN
tain. (c) Neither the orders in council, ac-
knowledged to he generally unlawful, and de-
cls,ed to be merely retaliatery upon France !:
por the Berlin and Milan DEGREES, which
placed the British islands in state of block
ade, without the free of single squadron
to maintain it /; were, in principle, more in
furious to the rights of neutral commerce,
chan the existing blockade of the United
States. The revival, therefore, of the sys-
TEN, without the retaliatory pretext, must
demonstrate to the world, a determi-
nation, on the part of Great Britain, to
acquire commercial monopoly, by every
demonstration of her naval power. The
trade of the United States with Russia, and
with other northern powers, by whose go
vernments no edicts, violating neutral rights,
had been issued, was cut off by the operation
Of the British orders in council of the year
1907. AS efectually as their trade with Fr.nce
and her allies, although the retaliasory prin-
ciple was totally inapplicable to the case
And the blockade of the year 1914, IS an at
tempt to destroy the trade of those nations,
and, indeed, of all the other nations of Eu-
rope, with the United States while Great
Britain, herself, with the same policy and ar
dor, that marked her illicit trade with
France, when France was her enemy, en-
courages a clandestnc traffic between her
subjects and the American citizens, where
yer her possessions come in contact with the
territory If the u. S.
But approaching nearer to the scenes of
plumber and violence, of cruelty and conf1a-
grafton, which the British warfare exh bits
on the coast of the United States, it must be
again asked, what acts Of the American 90
vernment, fits ships of war, or Of its armies,
had occurred, or were even alledged, as
pretext for the preparation Of this series of
.outragess 1t viii not be asserted, that they
were sanctioned by the usages Of modern war
because the sense Of all Europe would re-
volt AZ the assertion. It will not be said. that
they were the unauthorized ezcesses Of the
British troops because scarcely an act of
pirndcr and violence, of cruelty and conAa-
grafton, has been committed, except in the
immediate presence, under the positive or
ders, and with the personal agency, of British
officers. it must not be again insinuated.
that they were provoked by the American
example; because 1t has been demonstrated
that ali such ineinuations are without color
and without proof Aud, after all, the dread
full add disgraceful progress of the British
arms, will be traced, as the eff ct Of that a.
nimOsity, arising out Of recollections connect
ed with the American revolution, which has
already been noticed /; or, as the fleet of
that Jealousy, which the commercial enter
prise, and native resources, of the United
States, are calculated 60 excite I'm the conn
~ e ~.