"It is immaterial, whether it be a tax on stamps, or on cotton. This question has been the subject of a long and bloody war." Pimento Pitch Barilla Goods allowed to be bonded. 10s per cwt. or Bark (Peruvian) 6s Cochineal 78 -Cocoa nuts Coffee Ginger. 7s Gum Arab, and Senegal 10s. Hemp 15s Hides (raw) 3s per hide Jalap 6d per lb. Indigo 2$ Iron (in bars) 13 32 4 96 22 45 45 15 30 2 22 14s 3 11 Tallow 75 1 57 Tar 4s 4d per 31 1-2 gal. 96 Tobacco 1d 1-2 per lb. 3 Turpentine (common) 3s 6d per cwt. 78 Wine Wood (mahogany) Cotton 9d per lb. 17 per 50 c. feet 2 22 1 7s 5.98 Goods not allowed to be bonded, and upon which the home-consumption duties Prize goods prohibited. Goods not enumerated, but which may be used in this country on the present duties 40 per cent. A letter from Rathbone, Hughes and Duncan, of Liverpool, dated in the beginning of April, 1808, has this paragraph: "These duties to attach to the cargoes of all vessels bound from the United States to those ports on the continent, which are under the influence of France, and arrive in this country, in compliance with the orders in council of the 11th November." A Synopsis of part of the Effects of these Duties. A cargo of cotton, of 1000 bales, of 300 lbs. each, which is about the common weight, paying 9d sterling per lb. in England, would amount to the precise sum of 50,000 dollars. The same cargo of cotton at 14 1-2 cents, the average price for fine Louisiana cotton, would not cost at New-Orléans more than 43,500 dollars. Thus the exporter would have to pay 6,500 dollars in London, as a duty for liberty to proceed to the continent, more than the original cost-to this might be added the various other charges of tonnage, &c. amounting to about 2000 dollars more. A cargo of tobacco may be said to consist of 400 hogsheads-for the sake of round numbers, we will suppose each hogshead only to weigh 1000 lbs. and the account stands thus-400,000 lbs. Tobacco, atld 1-2 sterling per pound, is 12,500 sterling, or Tonnage, at 12s per ton on 400 tons, is 1210 sterling, or Light money and various other charges and attendant expenses, would amount to Amount of tribute on a cargo $11,100 00 1,065 00 800 00 12,965 00 Of the 80,000 hogsheads we generally exported, about 12,000 were consumed in the British islands. The rest went to the continent. Put them, as before, at 1000 lbs. each, and what is the amount of tribute on this single article? 68,000 hogsheads tobacco, weighing each 1000 lbs. is 68,000,000 lbs. at Id 1-2 sterling per pound, is 1425,000, or $1,998,000 00 340,000 00 170 ships' tonnage, &c. at 2090 dollars each Amount of annual tribute on tobacco 2,338,000 00 A ship would carry about from 3000 to 3500 barrels of flour; say for the sake of calculation, 6000 cwt. 6,000 cwt. at 5s sterling per cwt, amounts to l1500, or Tonnage and charges, as above Amount of tribute on one cargo of flour 8,525 60 A ship load of fish would cost about 3500 or 4000 dollars, including the duties and charges.* CHAPTER XXIII. cans. The orders in council of November 11, 1807, defended by AmeriFounded on the untenable plea of American acquiescence in the Berlin Decree. Enquiry into their causes and consequences by A. Baring, Esq. M. P. 'PERNICIOUS as were the orders in council to the most vital interests of the United States-degrading as was the condition of paying a transit duty in English ports and unjust and unfounded as was the allegation on which these orders were predicated, there were defenders of them in this country-Americans born. Among the number were men in high and elevated stations, possessing a great degree of public confidence and po *For all these statements and calculations I am indebted to Niles' Weekly Register, vol. 3, page 79.. litical influence. It is a most singular fact, that the cause of England has been far more ably supported in our debates, and in our political speculations and essays, than in London itself. There is no man of character or standing in society in that city, or in the British parliament, that has attempted to deny the magnitude of our wrongs. The ministry and their friends have palliated their proceedings by the miserabe plea of necessity— and of retaliation-a plea that Barbarossa, or Koulikan, or Bonaparte, could with equal justice advance. But such respectable men as the Roscoes, the Whitbreads, the Barings, have bestowed on the outrageous measures of their government, the most unqualified reprobation. I have it not in my power at present to refer to the debates in parliament. But I perfectly well recollect, and such of my readers as have access to them will see at once, that the rectitude of the conduct of our government, and its mild endeavors to procure redress, have received the most unequivocal encomiums from some of the most illustrious characters in Great Britain. The respectability of Mr. Alexander Baring is a matter of public notoriety throughout the commercial world. There is no man in England more attached to the honor and the interests of his country, His testimony has been, as I have said, uniformly borne in our favor, and against the enormous injustice of the orders in council-and as it cannot fail to have a weight proportioned to his talents, integrity, and character I shall very freely quote from such an unexceptionable source. The orders in council of Nov. 11, 1807, were, as we have seen, predicated upon our acquiescence in the Berlin decree.Mr. Baring having stated the fact,* that this decree not having been put into operation against our commerce, we had had no right to remonstrate against it, proceeds, "Unless, therefore, his majesty's ministers have some information of which the public is not possessed, and which contradicts the very clear evidence the public do possess, we must conclude that the assertion in the orders in council that America had been guilty of that acquiescence in the decrees of France, which was to draw down, and has drawn down upon her, our menaced retaliation, totally void of foundation."+ is The fallacy of the allegation of an acquiescence in the Berlin decree having been proved, Mr. Baring thus accounts for the Milan decree, which was the offspring of the orders in council of November 11, 1807. "If what has been stated, be correct, that our orders in council are not justifed by any previous provocation, They must be evidently acts of original aggression; and France retaliated much in the same manner and with the same right as we ourselves should have done, had the Berlin decree been rigidly exé cuted." * See page 121. Baring's Enquiry, page 70. #Ibid. The following masterly analysis of the orders in council is taken from Mr. Baring's pamphlet. "All trade directly from America to every port and country at war with Great Britain, or from which the British flag is excluded, is totally prohibited In this general prohibition, every part of Europe, with the exception at present of Sweden, is included: and no distinction whatever made between the domestic produce of America, and that of the colonies, re-exported from thence ! ! ! "The trade from America to the colonies of all nations, remains unaltered by the present order. America may export the produce of her own country, but that' f no other, to Sweden. "With the above exception, all' articles, whether of domestic or colonial produce, exported by America to Europe, must be landed in this country [England] from whence it is intended to permit their exportation, under such regulations as shall be hereafter determined. "By these regulations it is understood that duties are to be imposed on all articles so re exported. But it is intimated that an exception will be made in favor of such as are the produce of the United States, cotton excepted. "Any vessel, the cargo whereof shall be accompanied with certificates of French consuls abroad, of its origin, shall, together with its cargo, be liable to seizure and condemnation."* It is here proper to make a solemn pause. The subject deserves the deepest, the most serious reflection. Let us examine this sketch, drawn by a masterly hand, beyond the reach suspicion. Let us consider the despotic, the lawless claims it asserts the prostrate, the base, the despicable state it places the commerce and the rights of a sovereign, an independent, and unoffending nation-a nation whose trade was of incalculable importance to the power thus daring to legislate for us, and destroy our dearest rights of sovereignty, When this is all fairly and duly weighed, let us correctly appreciate the conduct of so many Americans, who have asserted with a zeal worthy of a good cause, that England "has really done our commerce no essential injury?" The annals of the world can produce nothing more indefensible-nothing more astonishing. The end proposed by the British government in this stupendous project of usurpation, is thus ably sketched. ་་ The Americans are to bring to this country all the produce of their own, and at that of our enemies' colonies, which they export to Europe. We are here to form a grand emporium of the costly produce of Asia and America, which is to be dispensed to the different countries of Europe, under such regulations as we may think proper, I suppose, according to their good behavior. Taxes are to be raised from the consumers on the continent; and they are to be contrived with such judicious skill as to secure our own West India planters a preference to those of Cuba and Martinique."‡ "The American merchant, with the best intentions of trading legally, cannot always know what this country permits; for we admit that upholding a general principle which we never enforce, we may and do vary our permission to neutrals under it as we please. Supposing him in this respect not liable to error, he is exposed to unjust decisions in our vice admiralty courts-a danger of no common magnitude, if we are to believe the assertion of lord Hawkesbury in the house of *Baring's Enquiry, page 12. † Mr. Pickering's letter to goy. Sullivan, page 12.. Baring's Enquiry, page 16. commons, the 29th of April, 1801, that of 318 appeals from these courts, only 35 of the condemnations were confirmed."¶ What a hideous picture of the rapacity and piratical proceedings of the British privateers is here exhibited It is not unfair to suppose that of the number of vessels captured and brought in for adjudication, one-fourth were cleared in the West-Indies. Admitting this calculation, the whole number of captures embraced in the statement of Lord Hawkesbury, was probably 420, of which about 100 were cleared in the West Indies283 unjustly condemned there, and afterwards cleared in Great Britain and only 35 really and bona fide lawful prize-so that it appears, that of every twelve vessels brought in for trial, eleven were unjustly captured! "If we had maintained and defended this doctrine boldly and fairly against all nations, good arguments in favor of it could not be wanting. But when we have uniformly yielded it, and indeed forborne to claim it, can it be consistent either with magnanimity or good policy, to bring it forward now, BECAUSE THE ONLY REMAINING NEUTRAL HÅS A DEFENCÈLESS COMMERCE? If such cowardly injustice is to be one of our resources in these trying times, when elevation of sentiment and of national character are more than ver wanted, the means and strength of this powerful empire are indeed strangely misunderstood."* "This decision [in the case of the Essex, Orme,] although the distinction was not made to catch the common eye, was well known to embrace the whole foreign trade of America, excepting that in her own produce. It circulated rapidly. among our cruisers and privateers; and in the course of a fortnight the seas were cleared of every American ship they could find, which now crowded our ports for trial; and our West India merchants were gratified by neutral insurance and freights being at least doubled by this ingenious discovery."t This decision laid the foundation of all the complaints of America of our vexatious measures against her trade, as it introduced a totally new line of conduct towards it; and that change produced the non-importation act at which we affect so much indignation." "Nor was the injury to the Americans confined to the application of these new and vexatious principles; for our privateers, apprehending little danger of being made answerable for their error, were not disposed to make nice distinctions; but detained and sent in every vessel they met with, under the most frivolous pretences; in which they were also encouraged by the expectation of actual war. Of the extent to which this was carried, some idea may be formed, when it is stated, that cargoes, wholly of American produce, and of the produce of neutral countries trading with America, were captured, and even brought to trial."{ The owners of privateers are in the daily practice of bringing in valua ble cargoes, and offering immediately to release them for one or two hundred guineas. They sometimes require a much larger sum. The London merchant is either obliged to acquiesce in THIS INIQUITOUS ROBBERY, or let his correspondent suffer the more expensive vexations which it is unfortunately in the power of these people to inflict."'|| "The measurss resorted to by America, under these circumstances of provocation, were certainly of the mildest species of hostility, and such as evidently showed a desire of peace. A law was passed prohibiting the importation of certain articles of British manufacture; by which a demonstration of commercial warfare was certainly intended. But it is such as every independent nation, evea in time of peace, has a right to resort to without giving offence: and if the ¶ Baring's Enquiry, page 43. Idem, * Idem, page 47. + Idem, page 50. |