Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1845-1854, 1852-12-15

Ip closing this, my last annual communication,
permit me, felow-citizens, to congratulate you on
the prosperous condition of our beloved country.
Abroad its relations with all foreign nations are
friendly: its rights respected and its high place
in the family of nations cheerfully recognized.
Family of Nations Is Mr.. FILLMORE after all
convert to the doctrine of the solidarity of peo
pies. Looking from any other stand point of re-
Election, one would almost be led to consider that
if aoe belong to the 'famly of nations" we are
acknowledged as only step-child. Boosting of
our high place among all foreign powers, argues
in Mr.. FILLMORE wonderful degree Of proud hu-
milty. What is the history of those questions
which lave arisen under whig rule, in which our
high rank has been vindcated! Let us hastily
enumerate:
1. There is the Clayton and Bulwer Treaty
which was made to supercede the Hise Treaty
the latter democratic document. BY lhe latter
convention the British government were to be
ousted of all protectorates, territory, claims, &C.,
in Central America. The United States were to
acquire certain exclusive rights over the same
country, from which England and all other coun-
tries besides the American Republic were shut
out. But the willy British Minister at Washing
ton, SIR HENRY BULwER, Intercepted action on
the Hise treaty. 1t was deposited duly in the
hands of the whg Secretary of State But it nev-
er was allowed to see daylight. Mr.. BULwER
entered into negotiations with CLAYTON, TAT-
LoR's Secretary of State Mr.. CLAYTON 'ssold US
to the British suppressed the Hise treaty eectn
ally, England got all she wanted, and by a whig
bungle, Joined to British shrewdness, all that we
had gained by the Hise treaty was lost to the
try.
Instead of our enjoying the exclusive advanta-
ges plighted in the Hise treaty, England, our
great commercial rival, conspres with a Wing
Secretary of State, to trample down the MONROE
principle and comes in for the lions share A 'high
we occupy, indeed, Mr.. FILLMORE, among the
rank famiIy of natons,' and the step child under
Whig rule expresses its content with its humble
lot ''Glad its well with US, as it is."
2.~The Fishery trouble, in which either the
Wing administration made ridiculous bluster,
about rights we never enjoyed, or abandoned to
England (again y among the most important COM
mercial rights of the country, and submitted to be
waters of disputed sovereignty.
8. The clause in the treaty with Mexico, rela-
tive to claims and right of transit. The Ameri-
cans were ordered from the territory, and the
privileges we possessed allowed to other nations,
under stipulations no more solemn and expressive
than the conventional guarantees to American
citizens.
4. Our Consul, Mr.. RICE, at atAcapulco, is arrest
ed by the Mexican municipal authorities, and
thrown into prison for defending the rights of
American property.
s. Our Greean Consul, the past summer, ar
rested and thrown into JAIL on charge unknown
to the,law of nations. The American Govern
ment has taken no satisfactory steps for redress.
6. MI. BRACE, an American citizen, imprison-
ed in an Austrian dungeon, and kept it solitary
confinement. Charges amount to nothing more
than frivolous political suspicion. An act of es-
pionage and oppression was involved in this pro-
ceeding, which rendered HULsEMAN letters idle
braggadocio, followed by craven Indifference on
the part of the Wing administration.
7. France stands frowning upon the Sandwich
Islands, which asking protection. Their
petition was offered during the whig canvass For
Presidential nomination and the powers that be
knuckled down, giving any foreign Government
every opportunity to lay an embargo upon the
sovereignty of the Islands.
8. A positive claim is set up for our right to
visit the Lobos Islands. The claim is insisted
on until England quietly informs the FILLMORE
Cabinet that certain other capitalists are inter-
ested in the solvency of the Peruvian Govern
ment. Then the American Republic discovers,
but not before, that our claim is nothing-and
after warranting the departure Of an expedition,
lust in time to be shot into by Peruvian cannon,
the whig Cabinet confesses its blundcr, and as
sents to the entire claims Of Peru to the guano.
What wisdom, what ability, what national spirit
g. England and France unite in sending armed
squadrons into the West Indies, avowedly to
take at their discretion the enforcement of the
public law into their own hands. No apology
the whole outrage submitted to, after an idle and
timid protest, which left the matter worse than it
was before.
10. Our flag torn down, and trampled into the
sand OF Tigre Island, by British file of marines
the rights it signifed seorned; and to make the
matter worse, the American Charge, for resent
ing this insult, was actually recalled by the whig
Cabinet.
In all this we have said nothing about Cuba.
The nation has turned the whig party out OF pow
er in hopeless disgrace, in consequence of its
cringing conduct in that business. We said moth
ing about the proclamation, declaring the CRIT
rEsDEN party pirates, denouncing them to sum-
mary death, and inviting CoNcHA to play the de-
lightsome part of Notwithstanding of the
firing into the American ship Falcon, of which no
notice was taken; the firing into the Prometheus
by British war ship, likewise unnoticed by the
American government-nothing of the THRASH