The Arkansas advocate., 1830-04-14

j. We are iaise to ourselves, when our commerce or our territory is invaded with inpunity.s
 About this time, however, remarka- ble change was observable in tie tone and temper of those who had been en- deayorlng to force tic country into war. The language of complaint was changed into that oI insult, and calls for protection, converted into reproaches, Smoke, smoke," Says one writer,) my life on 1t our Executive have no more Idea of declaring war. than my grandmother.'' < The Committee of
 Ways N Means,' (says another,) have come out with their Pandora's Box of taxes, and yet nobody dreams of war.n :. Congress do not mean to declare war; they dare net-' But why multiply ex- ainpies? An honorable member of the other House, rom the city of Boston, Mr. Quincy,] in speech delivered on the 3d April, iSi2, says Neither pro- mlses nor threats, nor asseverations, nor paths, viii make me believe that you will go to war. The navigation States are sacrificed, and the spirit and char acter of the country prostrated by fear and avarice,' tyou cannot" said the same gentleman on another occasion. s' be kicked into a war war. y
 We'll, sir, the war al length came, and what did we behold2 The very men who had been for six years claniaTous for war, and for whose protection it was waged, became at once equally clamor- oas against it. They mad received a miraculous visitation; new light sud- denly beamed upon their ids, the scales fell from their eyes, and it was discovered that the war was declared from subserviency to France:'' and 1 that Congress and the Executive " had sold themselves to Napoleon;' that oreat Britain had in fact, < done us no essential injury;;" that she was the buiwark of our religion;7 that where "she took one of our ships, she protect cd twenty;" and that if Great Britain had impressed a few o!s our seanen, it was because < she could not distinguish them from her own.7 And so far did this spirit extend, that committee of the Massachusetts Legislature actually fell to calculation, aid discovered, to their infinite satisfaction, but to the as- tonislment of all tic world beside, that 1 oily eleven Massachusetts sailors had ever been impressed. Never shall | forget the appeals that had been made to the sympathies of the South, in behalf of the S thousands of impressed Ameri- cans,' wlio had been torn from their families and friends, and < immured in the floating dungeons of Britaiil.D The most touching pictures were drawn of the hard condition of the American saiI- or" treatedlike a slave forced tofipht
 the battles of his enemy, 6 lashed to Ihe mast to be shot at like dog. kut, sir, the very moment we had taken up arms Tn their defence, it was discovered that all these were mere z ictions of the brain" and that the whole number in
 the State of Massachusetts was but e
 leven; and that even these had been ," taken by mistake.' Wonderful dis- coyery! The Secretary ofState had col-
 lected authentic lists of no less than six thousand impressed Americans. Lord 1 Castlereagh himself acknowledged six
 teen hundred. Calculations os, the ba-
 sis of the number found on board of ouerriere, ,theMacedonian the ava, and other British ships, Captured by the 1 skill and gallantry of those heroes whose achievements are the treasured mo,,u- ments oi their country glory, fixed the humber at seven thousand, and vet. it seems, Massachusetts had lost but e leven. Eleven Massachusetts sailors taken by mistake! A cause of war in- deed! Their ships too, the capture of
 which had threatened "universal bank ruptcy," it was discovered that Great
 Britain was their ndand protector "where she had taken ono, ,she had pro- tected twenty. Then was the discov- Eery made, that subseryieney to France,
 hostility to commerce, "a determination
 on the part of the South and the West to break down the Eastern States, and
 especially {as reported by a committee
 oi the Massachusetts Legislattre) Hto
 force the sons of commerce to populate
 the wilderness" were the. true causes
 of the war; But let us look little
 farther into the conduct of the Peace I Party of New England, at that impor- l,anf crisis Nhaffsss. f3;;ff!!ssr...,....s <.<