one heart and one mind; let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection, without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things; and let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic as wicked, and capabie of as bitter and bloody persecutions. During the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, during the agonising spasms of infuriated man, seeking through blood and slaughter his long lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agi tation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore -that this should be more felt and feared by some and less by others and should divide opinions as to measures of safety; but every difs ference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans, all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong-that this govern ment is not strong enough. But would the honest, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, in the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not; I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest go

vernment on earth. I believe it the only one where every man at the call of the law would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order, as his own personal concern. Some times it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of him self-Can he then be trusted with the government of others? or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer the question. Let us then with courage and confidence pur sue our own federal and republican principles; our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe ; too high-minded to endure the degra dations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisition of our own industry, to honour and con, fidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions; and their sense of them enlightened by a benign religionprofessed indeed and practised in various forms, yet all of them in culcating honesty, truth, tempe rance, gratitude, and the love of man-acknowledging and adoring an over-ruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one thing more fellow-citizens; a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them

atherwise

otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labour the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good govern ment and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. "About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend every thing dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our government, and consequently those which ought to shape its administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear: stating the general principle, but not all its limitations :-Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with. all nations; entangling alliances with none; the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administration for our do mestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies; the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional vigour, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people; a mild and safe corrective of abuses, which are lopped by the sword of revolution, where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia our best eliance in peace, and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense,

that labour may be lightly burthen. ed; the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture and commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of informa tion and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of the person, under protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impar tially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of all our sages, and blood of our he roes, have been devoted to their attainment: they should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps, and regain the road which alone leads to peace, li berty, and safety.

"I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you have assigned me. With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this, the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favour which bring him into it. Without pretensions to that high confidence you reposed in your first and greatest revolutionary charac ter, whose pre-eminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love, and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often

go

go wrong through defect of judgment: when right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. Lask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage is a great consolation to me for the past; and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance; to conciliate that of others, by doing them all the good in my power; and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all,

"Relying, then, on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choices it is in your power to make; and may that infinite Power, which rules the destinies of the universe, lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favourable issue for your peace and prosperity!"

bona fide neutral property, were of the growth of Spain, having been sanctioned, and the principles extended by the prize-courts of the British islands, and particularly by the court of Jamaica, has been deemed sufficient authority to the commanders of the ships of war and privateers cruizing in those seas to fall upon and capture all American vessels bound to an enemy's colony, and having on board any article of the growth or manufac ture of a nation at war with GreatBritain.

These captures, which are vindicated by what is termed the belligerent's right to distress his enemy, by interrupting the supplies which his habits or convenience may re quire, have produced the strongest and most serious complaints among the American merchants, who have seen with indignation a reason assigned for the capture and confiscation of their property, which is totally disregarded in the open trade carried on between the British and Spanish colonies by British and Spanish subjects, in the very artis cles, the supply of which, by neu tral merchants, is unjustly inter rupted.

The law of nations, acknowledge ed in the treaty of amity, com, merce, and navigation, between the United States and Great-Bri tain, allows the goods of an enemy to be lawful prize, and pronounces those of a friend to be free.

While the United States take no measures to abridge the rights of Great-Britain, as a belligerent, they are bound to resist with firm ness every attempt to extend them at the expense of the equally in

contestable

contestable rights of nations, which find their interest and duty in living in peace with the rest of the world. So long as the ancient law of nations is observed-which protects the innocent merchandise of neutrals, while it abandons to the belligerent the goods of his enemy-a plain rule exists, and may be appealed to, to decide the rights of peace and war: the belligerent has no better authority to curtail the rights of the neutral than the neutral has to do the like in regard to the rights of the belligerent; and it is only by an adherence to the ancient code, and the rejection of modern glosses, that fixed and precise rules can be found defining the rights and regulating the duties of independent states.

This subject is of such importance, and the essential interests of the United States, whose policy is that of peace, are so deeply affect ed by the doctrines which, during the present war, have been set up, in order to enlarge the rights of belligerents, at the expense of those of neutrals, that I shall, without loss of time, submit to your lordship's consideration such further reflexions respecting the same as its great importance appears to demand.

In the mean time, as the decisions referred to cannot, from the unavoidable delay which attends the prosecution of appeals, be speedily reversed, and as the effect of those decrees will continue to be the unjust and ruinous interruption of the American commerce in the West Indian seas, it is my duty to require that precise instructions shall, without delay, be dispatched to the proper officers in the West Indies and Nova Scotia, to correct the abuses which have arisen out of these illegal decrees, and put an end to

I have the honour to acknow. ledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th of last month, and to inform you, that, in consequence of the representation contained in it, a letter has been written, by his majesty's command, by his grace the duke of Portland, to the lords commissioners of the admiralty: a copy of which letter I herewith enclose to you for the information of the government of the United States. I have the honour to be, with great truth,

Sir, your most obedient humble servant, (Signed) HAWKESBURY. Rufus King, esq. &c. &c.

Whitehall, 30th March, 1801. My Lords,

I transmit to your lordships here. with a copy of the decree of the vice-admiralty court of Nassau, condemning the cargo of an American vessel going from the United States to a port in the Spanish colonies; and the said decree having been referred to the consideration of the king's advocate-general, your lordships will perceive from his report, an extract from which I enclose, that it is his opinion, that the sentence of the vice-admiralty court is erroneous, and founded in a mis apprehension or misapplication of the principles laid down in the

decision

decision of the high court of admiralty referred to, without attending to the limitations therein contained.

In order, therefore, to put a stop to the inconveniences arising from these erroneous sentences of the vice-admiralty courts, I have the honour to signify to your lordships the king's pleasure, that a communi cation of the doctrine laid down in the said report should be immediately made by your lordships to the several judges presiding in them, setting forth what is held to be the law upon the subject by the superior tribunals for their future guidance and direction.

I am, &c.

PORTLAND,

The Lord Commissioners of the Admiralty.

Extract of the Advocate-General's Report, dated March 16, 1801.

I have the honour to report, that the sentence of the vice-admiralty court appears to me erroneous, and to be founded in a misapprehension or misapplication of the principles laid down in the decision of the court of admiralty referred to, with out attending to the limitations therein contained.

The general principle respecting the colonial trade has, in the course of the present war, been to a certain degree relaxed in consideration of the present state of commerce.

country may, in this circuitous mode, legally find their way to the colonies. The direct trade, however; between the mother country and its colonies has not, I apprehend, beer! recognised as legal, either by his majesty's government, or by his tribunals.

What is a direct trade, or what amounts to an intermediate importation into the neutral country, may some time be a question of some dif ficulty. A general definition of either, applicable to all cases, cand not well be laid down. The ques tion must depend upon the parti cular circumstances of each case: Perhaps the mere touching in the neutral country to take fresh clearances may properly be considered as a fraudulent evasion, and is, in effect, the direct trade; but the high court of admiralty has express ly decided (and I see no reason to expect that the court of appeal will vary the rules), that landing the goods and paying the duties in the neutral-country breaks the continuity of the voyage, and is such an importation as legalises the trade, although the goods be re-shipped in the same vessel, and on account of the same neutral proprietors, and be forwarded for sale to the mother country or the colony.

A true copy from the files of the department of state.

JACOB WAGNER, chief clerk.

it has been repeatedly so decided, by the high court of appeal, that the produce of the colonies of the enemy may be imported by a neutral into his own country, and may be re-exported from thence even to the mother country of such colony; and, in like manner, the produce and manufactures of the mother

Sir,

Hammond.

Whitehall, May 27th, 1801.