Extracts from the Memorial of the Merchants of Philadelphia, I PROCEED to state the sentiments of the merchants of the great city of Philadelphia, on this invasion of their rights and those of the nation. We shall see that they felt the same sense of the injustice of these measures, with their brethren of Boston and New-York-made the same strong requisition for protection and gave an equal pledge of full support. They state that a submission to these claims of Great Britain, "would produce the ruin of individuals-the destruction of their commerce-and the degradation of their country." To prevent these mighty evils, they required the interference of the government, which, at their requisition, did interfere. We shall see the result. “A jealousy of our enterprise and prosperity has excited a design of checking the commercial growth of our country, the fruit of which has been an attempt to innovate upon ancient and approved principles, and introduce unheard of articles and provisions into the code of public law. "It becomes your memorialists to state, that the pressure of these evils has greatly increased, and that others, of even superior magnitude, have arisen, which assume a most alarming and distressing form. What were considered as irregularities, insusceptible of prevention, have, by continuance and success, strengthened into regular and systematic plunder What were regarded as mischiefs incident to a state of war, temporary though not remediless, are vindicated upon the ground of right; and their practice is reiterated under the authority of government, and receives the solemn sanction of the law. "They moreover foresee, in the prevalence of the principles, and the continuance of the practices alluded to, nothing but THE RUIN OF INDIVIDUALS, THE DESTRUCTION OF THEIR COMMERCE, AND THE DEGRADATION OF THEIR COUNTRY. "Could the judgment, or even the charity of your memorialists see, in the new doctrines of the British Court, nothing but the revival and enforcement of an ancient and established principle, which friendship had relaxed, or favor permitted to slumber, they might regret the departed good, but could impute no injustice to the hand that withdrew it. They are struck, however, with the novelty of these doctrines; THEIR UNEQUIVOCAL HOSTILITY TO NEUTRAL INTERESTS AND RIGHTS ; THEIR INCONSISTENCY WITH FORMER DECLARATIONS OF THEIR MINISTRY, and decisions of their courts; and with the extraordinary time and manner of their annunciation. "That policy, not justice-that interest, not fair and admitted precedent, have given birth to the principle, that neutrals should be restricted to the same commerce with a belligerent, which was allowed to them by that power in time of peace, is conceived by your memorialists to be true. Incompatible with the general freedom of neutral commerce, this rule has the sanction of no common observance by civilized nations, and cannot bear that faithful test which every fair and righteous principle of the law of nations will abide. "The effect of this novel principle upon neutral interests is of the most serious and alarming character. IT GOES TO NOTHING SHORT OF THE DESTRUCTION OF NEUTRAL COMMERCE; and from the well known neutral situation and character of the United States, to NOTHING SHORT OF INFLICTING A MOST DEEP AND DEADLY WOUND UPON THEIR TRADE, "But your memorialists cannot but consider, that this principle has not the weight of a consistent and uniform support by the government which professes to uphold it. In 1801, the declarations of its ministry and the decisions of its courts, were, unequivocally, "that the produce of the colonies of the enemy may be imported by a neutral into his own country, and be re-exported from thence, even to the mother country of such colony ;" and also," 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 vessels, and on account of the same neutral proprietors, and forwarded for sale to the mother country." In 1805, it is decided, that landing and paying the duties does not break the continuity of the voyage; and that the course of trade pointed out to the neutral, four years before, as legal and safe, is now unsatisfactory to the belligerent, and ATTENDED INFALLIBLY WITH CONFISCATION. What clear and immutable principle of the law of nations, can that be, your memorialists would ask, which is supported by the high court of admiralty, and avowed by the ministry in 1801, and which is prostrated by the ministry and the high court of appeals in 1805? SUCH A PRINCIPLE MUST BE CONSIDERED AS RATHER PARTAKING OF THE SHIFTING CHARACTER OF CONVENIENCE, THAN OF THAT OF PERMANENT RIGHT AND ESTABLISHED LAW. At "The time and manner of announcing it accord with the principle itself. a moment when mercantile enterprise, confiding in the explanations on this point given by the British ministry to our ambassador, was strained to the utmost, a new decision of the court of appeals is announced, and EVERY SAIL IS STRETCHED TO COLLECT THE UNWARY AMERICANS, WHO ARE UNSUSPECTINGLY CONFIDING IN WHAT WAS THE LAW OF NA TIONS. "In the principles they have here submitted to your consideration, they feel all the confidence of justice, and all the tenacity of truth. TO SURRENDER THEM, THEY CONCEIVE, WOULD DEROGATE FROM THE NATIONAL CHARACTER AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES. FROM THE JUSTICE OF GOVERNMENT THEY HOPE FOR THEIR AVOWAL; FROM THE SPIRIT OF GOVERNMENT THEY HOPE FOR THEIR DEFENCE; AND FROM THE BLESSINGS OF HEAVEN THEY HOPE FOR THEIR ESTABLISHMENT. "As citizens, THEY CLAIM PROTECTION; and they conceive that the claim is enforced by the consideration, that from their industry and enterprise is collected a revenue which no nation has been able to equal, without a correspondent expense for the protection of the means. "To preserve peace with all nations, is admitted, without reserve, to be both the interest and the policy of the United States. They therefore presume to suggest, that every measure, NOT INCONSISTENT WITH THE HONOR OF THE NATION, by which the great objects of redress and security may be attained, should first be used. IF SUCH MEASURES PROVE INEFFECTUAL, WHATEVER MAY BE THE SACRIFICE ON THEIR PART, IT WILL BE MET WITH SUBMISSION. But whateves measures may be pursued by their government, your memorialists express the firmest faith, that every caution will be used to preserve private property and mercantile credit from violation." Thos. Fitzsimons, chairman, Robert Ralston, Jacob Gerard Koch, Thomas W. Francis, William Montgomery, Abraham Kintzing. Philip Nicklin, Daniel W. Coxe, Manuel Eyre, R. E. Hobart, sec The preceding list embraces decided men of both the hostile parties, and of various nations-Americans, English, Irishy French, and Dutch. CHAPTER XIV.. Extracts from the Baltimore Memorial. THE memorial of the merchants of Baltimore is more diffuse and argumentative than any of the preceding. It is a most masterly composition, and may be regarded as a complete and unanswerable defence of neutral rights against belligerent pretensions and encroachments. Its maxims ought to be committedto memory by every statesman, in all countries whose interest it is to preserve a neutral situation.. "It would not be desired, that the state of things which Great Britain had: herself prescribed, and which use and habit had rendered familiar and intelligible to all, should be disturbed by oppressive innovations; far less that these innovations should, by a tyrannical retrospection, be made to justify the seisure and confiscation of their property, committed to the high seas, under the protection of the existing rule, and without warning of the intended change. In this their just hope, your memorialists have been fatally disappointed. THEIR VESSELS AND EFFECTS, TO A LARGE AMOUNT, HAVE LATELY BEEN CAPTURED BY THE COMMISSIONED CRUISERS OF GREAT BRITAIN, upon the foundation of NEW PRINCIPLES, SUDDENLY INVENTED, and applied to this habitual traffic; and suggested and promulgated, for the first time, by sentences of condemnation by which unavoidable ignorance has been considered as criminal, and AN HONOURABLE CONFIDENCE IN THE JUSTICE OF A FRIENDLY NATION, PURSUED WITH PENALTY AND FORFEITURE. "Your memorialists are in no situation to state the precise nature of the rules to which their most important interests have been thus sacrificed and it is not the least of their complaints against them, that they are undefined and undefinable; equivocal in their form, and the fit instruments of oppression, by reason of their ambiguity, "Your memorialists will not here stop to enquire upon what ground of law or reason the same act is held to be legal, when commenced with one intention, and illegal when undertaken with another. But they object, in the strongest terms, against this new criterion of legality, because of its inevitable tendency to injustice; because of its peculiar capacity to embarrass with seizure, and ruin with confiscation, the whole of our trade with Europe in the surplus of our colonial importations. "If the consequences to that traffic were not intended to be serious, and extensive, and permanent, your memorialists search in vain for a motive, by which a state, in amity with our own, and moreover connected with it by the ties of common interest, to which many considerations seem to give peculiar strength, has been induced to indulge in a paroxysm of capricious aggression upm our rights, by which it dishonours itself, without promoting any of those great interests for which an enlightened nation may fairly be solicitous, and which only a steady regard to justice can ultimately secure. When we see a powerful state, in possession of a commerce, of which the world affords no examples, endecvouring to interpolate into the laws of nations casuistical niceties and wayward distinctions, which forbid a citizen of another independent commercial country to export from that country what unquestionably belongs to him, only because he inported it himself, and yet allow him to sell a right of exporting it to another, which prohibit an end, because it arises out of one intention, but permit it when it arises out of two;-which, dividing an act into stages, search into the mind for a correspondent division of it in the contemplation of its author, and determine its innocence or criminality accordingly; which, not denying that the property acquired in an authorized traffic by neutral nations from belligerents, may become incorporated into the national stock, and, under the shelter of its neutral character, thus superinduced, and still preserved, be afterwards transported to every quarter of the globe, reject the only epoch, which can distinctly mark the incorporation, and point out none other in its place ;-which, proposing to fix with accuracy and precision, the line of demarcation, beyond which neutrals are trespassers upon the wide domain of belligerent rights, involve every thing in darkness and confusion; there can be but one opinion as to the purpose which all this is to accomplish. For the loss and damage which capture brings along with it, British courts of prize grant no adequate indemnity. Redress to any extent is difficultto a competent extent impossible. And even the costs which an iniquitous seiz ure compels a neutral merchant to incur, in the defence of his violated rights, be fore their own tribunals, are seldom decreed, and never paid. "The reasons upon which Great Britain assumes to herself a right to interdict to the independent nations of the earth, a commercial intercourse with the colonies of her enemies (out of the relaxation of which pretended right has arisen the distinction in her courts, between the American trade from the colonies to the United States, and from the same colonies to Europe,) will, we are confidently persuaded, BE REPELLED WITH FIRMNESS AND EFFECT BY OUR GOVERNMENT. "She forbids us from transporting in our vessels, as in peace we could, the property of her enemies; enforces against us a rigorous list of contraband; dams up the great channels of our ordinary trade; abridges, trammels, and obstructs what she permits us to prosecute; and then refers us to our accustomed traffic in time of peace for the criterion of our commercial rights, IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY THE CONSUMMATION OF THAT RUIN, WITH WHICH OUR LAWFUL COMMERCE IS MENACED BY HER MAXIMS AND HER CONDUCT. "This principle, therefore, cannot be a sound one. It wants uniformity and consistency; is partial, unequal, and delusive. It makes every thing bend to the rights of war, while it affects to look back to, and to recognize, the state of things in peace, as the foundation and the measure of the rights of neutrals. Profess ing to respect the established and habitual trade of the nations at peace, it af fords uo shadow of security for any part of it. Professing to be an equitable standard for the ascertainment of neutral rights, it deprives them of all body and bstance, and leaves them only a plausible and unreal appearance of magnitude and importance. It delivers them over, in a word, to the mercy of the states at war, as objects of legitimate hostility; and while it seems to define, does in fact extinguish them. Such is the faithful picture of the theory and practical operations of this doctrine. "The pernicious qualities of this doctrine are enhanced and aggravated, as from its nature might be expected, by the fact that GREAT BRITAIN GIVES NO NOTICE OF THE TIME WHEN, OR THE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH, SHE MEANS TO APPLY, AND ENFORCE IT. Her orders of the 6th November, 1793, by which the seas were swept of our vessels and effects, were, for the first time, announced by the ships of war, and privateers, by which they were carried into execution. "The late decisions of her courts, which are in the true spirit of this doctrine, and are calculated to restore it in practice, to that high tone of severity, which milder decisions had almost concealed from the world, came upon us by surprise; and the captures, of which the Dutch complained, in the seven years' war, were preceded by no warning. THUS IS THIS PRINCIPLE MOST RAPACIOUS AND OPPRESSIVE IN ALL ITS BEARINGS. Harsh and mysterious in itself, it has always been, and ever must be, used to betray neutral merchants into a trade, supposed to be lawful, and then to give them up to pillage, and to ruin. "But there can be no security while a malignant and deceitful principle like this hangs over us. It is just what the belligerent chooses to make it, lurking, unseen, and unfelt, or visible, active, and noxious. It may come abroad when least expected: and the moment of confidence may be the moment of destruction. It may sleep for a time; but no man knows when it is to awake, to shed its baleful influence upon the commerce of the world. It clothes itself, from season to season, in what may be called relaxations; but again, without any previous intimation to the deluded citizens of the neutral powers, these relaxations are suddenly laid aside, either in the whole, or in part, and the work of confiscation commences. Nearly ten months of the late war had elapsed before it announced itself at all: and, when it did so, it was in its most formidable shape, and in its fullest power and expansion. "Your memorialists feel themselves bound to state that, according to authentic information lately received, the government of Great Britain does, at this moment, grant licenses to neutral vessels taking in a proportion of their cargoes there, to proceed on trading voyages to the colonies of Spain, from which she would exclude us; upon the condition, that the return cargoes shall be carried to Great Britain, to swell the gains of her merchants, and to give her a monopoly of the commerce of the world. This great belligerent right, then, upon which so much has been supposed to depend, sinks into an article of barter. It is used, not as a hostile instrument wielded by a warlike state, by which her enemies are to be wounded, or their colonies subdued, but as the selfish means of commercial aggrandisement, for the impoverishment and ruin of her friends; as an engine by which Great Britain is to be lifted up to a vast height of prosperity, and the trade of neutrals crippled, and crushed, and destroyed. Such acts are a most intelligible commentary upon the principle in question. They shew that it is a hollow and fallacious principle, susceptible of the worst abuse, and incapable of a just and honourable application, They shew that, in the hands of a great maritime state, it is not, in its ostensible character of a weapon of hostility, that it is prized; but rather as one of the means of establishing an unbounded monopoly, by which every enterprize calculated to promote national wealth and power, shall be made to begin and end in Great Britain alone. Such acts may well be considered as pronouncing the condemnation of the principle against which we contend, as withdrawing from it the only pretext, upon which it is possible to rest it-Great Britain does not pretend that this principle has any warrent in the opinion of writers on public law. She does not pretend, and cannot pretend, that it derives any countenance from the conduct of other nations. She is confessedly solitary in the use of this invention by which RAPA |