that when they got there, Edes pulled off his shirt, and SHOWED DEPONENT HIS BACK, WHICH WAS BRUISED FROM HIS SHOULDERS TO HIS HIPS!!! He then informed he had just been whipped with rope's ends !! as deponent was going up the ship's sides, by the boatswain and his mates, by orders of the lieutenant; that deponent remained on board the Brunswick all that day and the next night, during which no surgical or medical assistance was given to the wound he had received on his head, nor to the bruises of the said Edes, who, during the night called out several times from extreme pains, and the next morning was barely able to move himself; that between nine and ten o'clock the next morning, the whole of the impressed men were again ordered on the quarter deck, and stationed, except deponent and Edes; that while the examination was going on, the captain of the Thomas and Sarah was coming on board; but was prevented by the lieutenant, who ordered the centinel to keep him off: that at about eleven o'clock the captain of the Brunswick came on board, and at three o'clock deponent was discharged, but Edes retained,

Sworn before

William Savage, Justice of the peace, &c.

ELIPHALET LADD."

Further extract from the preceding report of Timothy Pickering, Esq. secretary of state, to Congress.

Richard Carter, of the Pomona, of Portsmouth, impressed at the same time with Ladd and Edes, among other items of his deposition, swore he was viclently forced into a boat, and STRUCK TWICE WITH A DRAWN CUTLASS by one of the officers of the press gang; and two men with pistols placed over this deponent, who loaded their pistols in the presence of this deponent, and threatened to blow out his brains if he attempted to move or speak and then they carried this deponent, and John Edes, one of the seamen of the ship Thomas and Sarah, an American citizen, whom they had also seized, on board the said ship of war, the Brunswick; and this deponent saith, on getting on board the Brunwick, this deponent and the said John Edes were ordered to go on the quarter deck, where Mr. Harris, the first lieutenant of the said ship, abused this deponent and said John Edes; and gave them in charge to the master of said ship, while he went to look for the boatswain's mate; and soon after returned with the boatswain's mate, whom he ordered to take this deponent and the said John Edes, and to beat them; in obedience to which orders, the said John Edes and this deponent were severely beaten, particularly this deponent, the said boatswain's mate doubled a rope of about three inches and a half thick, and BEATING THIS DEPONENT WITH GREAT VIOLENCE ÖVER THE HEAD, FACE, NECK, SHOULDERS, BACK AND STOMACH, UNTIL HE HAD TIRED HIMSELF!!! and then he gave the same rope to one of the mariners of the said ship Brunswick; and he also severely beat this deponent in the same manner!! and this deponent saith, he received upwards of a hundred blows!! and was thereby greatly bruised, and his face cut, and his stomach, as well internally es externally injured, so that this deponent brought up a quantity of blood for sexeral days. Sworn before me,

WILLIAM SAVAGE.

To avoid prolixity, I have omitted the residue of this depo sition. The deponent was liberated by habeas corpus.

Annexed to this deposition is that of the physician, who at tended Richard Carter, who declared, that

"From the situation in which he found the said Carter, he verily believed he had been very severely beaten some days previous, his blood being very much extravasated and from the appearance of the bruises, it must have been d ne with a thick rope."

I know not in what terms to pour out my abhorrence and indignation at the abominable scenes depicted in the preceding

T

depositions and narratives. Language fails in the attempt.Shame, disgrace, dishonor, and infamy, will attend the councils and counsellors of America, for the base submission to such monstrous cruelty. The outrage ought to have been met at the threshold.—Atonement to the sufferers ought to have been made at the public expense, that is, as far as such horrible inju ries can be atoned for-and a demand for the re-payment of the money thus employed. If not complied with, full and com plete retaliation ought to have taken place.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

Letter

Impressment during the administration of Mr. Jefferson. from Rufus King. Arrangement with Lord St. Vincent rejected by Mr. King. Memorials from Salem, New-York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New-Haven. Murder of Captain Pearce. Proceedings of Federal Republicans of New-York.

From Rufus King, Esq. to the secretary of state.

New-York, July, 1803. Sir-As soon as the war appeared to me unavoidable, I thought it advisable to renew the attempt to form an arrangement with the British government for the protection of our seamen. With this view, I had several conferences, both with lord Hawkesbury and Mr. Addington, who avowed a sincere disposition to do whatever might be in their power to prevent the dissatisfaction on this subject, that had so frequently manifested itself during the late war: with very candid professions, I, however, found several objections, in discussing the project with the first lord of the admiralty. Lord Hawkesbury having promised to sign any agreement upon the subject that I should conclude with lord St. Vincent, I endearored to qualify and remove the objections he offered to our project: and finally, the day before I left London, lord St. Vincent consented to the following regulations

1. No seaman or seafaring person shall, upon the high seas, and without the jurisdiction of either party, be demanded or taken out of any ship or vessel belonging to the citizens or subjects of one of the parties, by the public or private armed ships or men of war, belonging to or in the service of the other party; and strict orders shall be given for the due observance of this engagement."

"2. Each party will prohibit its citizens or subjects from clandestinely concealing or carrying away from the territories or colonial possessions of the other, any seamen belonging to the other party.

3. These regulations shall be in force for five years, and no longer. "On parting with his lordship, I engaged to draw up, in the form of a convention, and send him these articles, in the course of the evening, who promised to forward them, with his approbation, to lord Hawkesbury. I accordingly prepared and sent the draft to his lordship, who sent me a letter in the course of the night, stating that on further reflection he was of opinion, that the narrow seas should be expressly excepted, they having been, as his lordship remarked, immemorially considered to be within the dominion of Great Britain; that with this correction he had sent the proposed convention to lord Hawkesbury, who, his lordship presumed, would not sign it before he should have consulted the judge of the high court of admiralty, Sir William Scott.

"As I had supposed, from the tenor of my conferences with lord St. Vincent, that the doctrine of the mare clausum would not be revived against us on this occasion, but that England would be content with the limited jurisdiction or dominion over the seas, adjacent to her territories, which is assigned by the law of nations to other states, I was not a little disappointed on receiving this communication; and after weighing well the nature of the principle, and the disadvantages of its admission, I concluded to abandon the negotiation rather than to acquiesce in the doctrine it proposed to establish.

"I regret, not to have been able to put this business on a satisfactory footing, knowing, as I do, its very great importance to both parties. But I fatter myself that I have not misjudged the interests of our country, in refusing to sanction a principle that might be productive of more extensive evils than those it was ou aim to prevent."

0

THIS is a most important document, and must never for an instant be overlooked in forming a decision on the question of impressment. Mr. King was united with, and a leader among those men who were lately hunting down Mr. Madison, and preparing the way for anarchy and civil war and the chief pretence was the stand Mr. Madison made against impressment. Nevertheless, we find that he took the same ground himself→→ and that it is indisputably true, that more than one half of the miseries of our poor, oppressed, and enslaved seamen are chargeable to his account. And whatever may be the maledictions which his friends are showering down upon Mr. Madison, a double portion of them has been richly earned by Mr. King.For it appears, that had he been so disposed, he might have rescued our sailors from the horrors of slavery, every where but on the narrow seas, which would have greatly abridged their sufferings, as well as our complaints against Great Britain.And yet lately with a most wonderful and hideous degree of inconsistency, he was, as I have stated, persecuting and trying to crush Mr. Madison for the attempt to protect our seamen, in whose favor he formerly displayed such a high degree of solicitude!

To evince how universal has been the indignation of our mercantile citizens against the oppression of, and the cruelties perpetrated upon, our seamen, I annex impressive extracts from documents on the subject.

Extract from a Memorial to Congress of the inhabitants of Salem, January 20, 1806.

"Your memorialists are sorry, that other instances of hostile conduct have been manifested by Great Britain, less direct in their nature, but not less derogatory from our sovereignty than those enumerated. THE IMPRESSMENT OF OUR SEAMEN, notwithstanding clear proofs of citizenship, the violation of our jurisdiction by captures at the mouths of our harbors, and insulting treatment of our ships on the ocean, are subjects worthy of the serious consideration

of our national councils; and will, we have no doubt, receive an early, prompt, and decisive attention."

Signed in behalf of the inhabitants, by their authority,

John Hathorne,
Joseph Sprague,

Jonathan Mason,

Benjamin Crowninshield, Junr.
Joseph White, junr,
Joseph Story.

of merchants of New-York, Déc.

"But it is not on account of our pecuniary lossess alone that we complain.— The constancy and valor of the searien of the United States are justly themes of patriotic exultation. From their connexion with us, we consider their cause as our cause; their rights as our rights; their interests as our interests. Our feetngs are indignant at the recital of their wrongs."

This beautiful and sublime piece of composition, which does equal honor to the head and heart of the writer, is signed by a committee of forty-nine persons, whose names may be seen, page 90 of this work. Many of these gentlemen have betrayed their honor. They have not redeemed the solemn pledge that accompanied this morceau. They have most indubitably done all in their power to fasten the horrors of impressment, with adamantine chains, on those illustrious men, " whose cause whose rights-whose interests--they considered as their own cause their own rights-their own interests." For no man beyond the rank of an ideot, can doubt that every step taken to cripple the goverment-which game they lately played on a large scale-was a step towards laying the nation, tied neck and heels, at the feet of England, to prescribe what terms she pleased, and of course to perpetuate the miseries of impressment.

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Extract from the Memorial of the merchants of Philadelphia to Congress, Decem ber, 1805.

"That our seamen should be exposed to the MEANEST INSULTS, AND MOST WANTON CRUELTIES, and the fruits of our industry and enterprize, fall a prey to the profligate, cannot but excite both feeling and indignation, and call loudly for the aid and protection of government."

Some of the gentlemen who signed this petition, stand in precisely the same situation as some of the signers of NewYork. The observations made on these-of course apply to those.

Extract from the Memorial of the merchants of Baltimore, dated January 21, 1806.

"Your memorialists will not trespass upon your time with a recital of the various acts by which our coasts and even our ports and harbors have been converted into scenes of violence and depredation-and our gallant countrymen oppressed and persecuted."

Extract from a Memorial to Congress of the merchants of Newhaven, agreed to Feb

ruary 7, 1806.

"In regard to THE IMPRESSMENT OF AMERICAM SEAMEN, your memorialists feel in common with their fellow cilizens, a lively indignation at the

bases of power often exercised by British officers upm American citizens. We have full confidence that the government of the United States will adopt and pursue such measures for restraining these injurious proceedings as the honor and interest of the United States may require."

After the murder of Captain Pearce, entering the port of New-York, by Captain Whitby, of the Leander, within the jurisdiction of the United States, there were meetings held in various parts of the country, to express their abhorrence of the outrage. On the 26th of April, 1806, at the Tontine Coffee House in New-York, there was a numerous and very respectable meeting of federalists, who appointed Rufus King, Ebenezer Stevens, Oliver Wolcott, William W. Woolsey, and William Henderson, to draw up and report a set of resolutions for the occasion. In their report, which was unanimously agreed to, was the following phillippic against the administration for permitting IMPRESSMENT, among other grievances.

"Resolved, That the suffering foreign armed ships to station themselves off our harbour, and there to stop, search, and capturè our vessels-to IMPRESS, WOUND, AND MURDER OUR CITIZENS, is a gross and criminal neg lect of the highest duties of government; and that an administration which patiently permits the same, is not entitled to the confidence of a brave and free people."

"Resolved, That the murder of John Pearce, one of our fellow citizens,by a shot from a British ship of war, at the entrance of our harbour, and within half a mile of the shore, while he was engaged in peaceably navigating a coasting vessel, laden with provisions for our market, was an act that excites our detestation and abhorrence; and calls upon our government for the adoption of prompt and vigorous measures to prevent a repetition of such nanton and inhuman conduct, and so flagrant a violation of our sovereignty."

Some of my readers may not know-but it is perfectly proper that all should know, that Captain Whitby was brought to trial in England, and honourably acquitted. For the murder of Pearce, no atonement has been made. It still cries shame andı disgrace on his countrymen..

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Documents on Impressment continued."
Deposition of Isaac Clark.

I, Isaac Clark, of Salem, in the county of Essex, and commonwealth of Massachusetts, on solemn oath declare, that I was born in the town of Randolph, in the county of Norfolk; have sailed out of Salem aforesaid, about seven years; that on the 14th of June, 1809, I was impressed and forcibly taken from the ship Jane, of Norfolk, by the sailing master (his name was Car) of his majesty's ship Porcupine, Robert Elliott, commander. I had a protection from the customhouse in Salem, which I showed to captain Elliott : he swore that I was an Englishman; tore my protection to pieces before my eyes, and threw it overboard, and ordered me to go to work. I told him I did not belong to his flag, and I would