with a threat of retaliation against the pacific measures adopted by the United States to bring us to reason. The horrible and insupportable impressment of their seamen, in which the French never had a share, was continued by us alone.

Goaded to war, and obliged, if they embarked in it, to choose their enemy; there could be no doubt, on which, hostilities must fall in the first instance. But the remarkable abstinence from any connexion with France, and the continued injunctions of the President to avoid it, through all the scenes of prosperity and adversity which that power has encountered; the particularly good understanding that he has maintained with Russia, the enemy of that power; the immediate offer of an armistice to us, as soon as the sword was drawn, on terms that posterity will be astonished were not accepted; the policy of the government of the United States at this hour, of excepting from the pressure of the war those portions of our force that are employed against France, by allowing supplies to the Peninsula; all indicate that that government is seeking the redress of its grievances here, not only without the desire of aiding the enemy of England, but with the desire of annoying him. And the subjoined extract from the National Intelligencer, which is supposed by good judges to be from the pen of the President, will show to every man, who is willing to be informed, what may be expected to be opposed to the common enemy, in case of an honorable adjustment of the differences between this country and the United States.

As one of the points at issue, and the prominent point indeed, seems to be that which relates to the naturalised seamen ;-(a bagatelle in respect to the numbers of this description of persons that can be supposed to

have passed the Ordeal of the American law;) a refer ence to the following extract from our own statute book, while it demonstrates the much greater facility with which we admit foreign seamen into all the privi leges of a British subject, in which, having specially invited, we are specially bound to protect them; will also demonstrate that, with a sincere desire to accommodate, there can be no difficulty, on the score of national honor, in a reciprocal agreement to forbear the practice in future, without any retrospect to the past.

"And for the better encouraging of foreign mariners and seamen, to come and serve on board ships belonging to the kingdom of Great Britain; be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every such foreign mariner or seaman, who shall from, and after the said twenty-fifth day of April, have faithfully served on board any of her Majesty's ships of war, or any privateer, or merchant, or trading ship or ships, vessel or vessels, which at the time of such service shall belong to any of her Majesty's subjects of Great Britain, for the space of two years, shall, to all intents and purposes, be deemed and taken to be a natural-born subject of her Majesty's Kingdom of Great Britain, and have, and enjoy, all the privileges, powers, rights, and capacities which such foreign mariner, or seaman could, should, or ought to have had and enjoyed, in case he had been a natural-born subject of her Majesty, and actually a native within the Kingdom of Great Britain." (6. Anne. c. 37. sec. 20.)

The same privilege is re-enacted 13. Geo. II. c. 3. with the exception required by the intermediary statute of 1. Geo. 1. c. 4. of all naturalised subjects from becoming members of parliament, or of the privy council.-It is twice mentioned by Blackstone with the emphatical

words that such foreign seaman is ipso facto naturalised; and referred to in a treatise published in the present century by Mr. Abbott, on the law relative to merchant ships and seamen.

Let this be compared to the tedious process of five years' residence under record, and all the formalities of the American law, which a seaman must encounter like every other man; and it will hardly be asserted, by an assertor of our own rectitude, that undue encouragement is held out by the American government, to entice our seamen into their service.

April 19, 1818.

ANTICIPATION

OF

MARGINAL NOTES, &c.

Paragraph 1.-" The earnest endeavours of the Prince Regent to preserve the relations of peace and amity with the United States of America having unfortunately failed, his Royal Highness, acting in the name and on the behalf of his Majesty, deems it proper publicly to declare the causes and origin of the war, in which the Government of the United States has com pelled him to engage.”

Have any such been shown?-Your Government has adopted no measure at all calculated to avoid the long threatened War; but such as it was reluctantly compelled to adopt by the cries of the Nation; and this in two cases liable to objection; 1st, as not explicitly renouncing the illegal Blockades; and 2dly, in reserving the right of restoring the Orders in Council on a contingency depending not on America, but on France.

Par. 2.-"No desire of conquest or other ordinary motives of aggression, has been, or can be with any color of reason, in this case, imputed to Great Britain; that her commercial interests were on the side of peace, (if war could have been avoided, without the sacrifice of her maritime rights, or without an injurious submission to France,) is a truth which the American Government will not deny."

Take away this parenthesis, and the fact asserted here, that the com mercial interests of Great Britain were on the side of Peace, is a

truth which the American Government will not deny.-Neither is it probable that any Government can be mad enough to contemplate conquests in America, three times as populous, and ten times as powerful, as she was when you made the attempt to keep her in a state of subjugation.

Par. 3.-"His Royal Highness does not, however, mean to rest on the favorable presumption, to which he is entitled. He is prepared by an exposition of the circumstances which have led to the present war, to show that Great Britain has throughout acted towards the United States of America with a spirit of amity, forbearance, and conciliation; and to demonstrate the inadmissible nature of those pretensions which have at length unhappily involved the two countries in war."

The spirit of amity, forbearance, and conciliation, here generally asserted, and the inadmissible nature of the American pretensions, will be adverted to as they present themselves in the sequel.

Par. 4." It is well known to the world, that it has been the invariable object of the Ruler of France to destroy the power and independence of the British Empire, as the chief obstacle to the accomplishment of his ambitious designs."

What has America to do with that? just so much and no more than with the equally well known object of the ruler of Great Britain to destroy the power and independence of the French Empire; i. e. nothing at all.

Par. 5." He first contemplated the possibility of assembling such a naval force in the Channel as, combined with a numerous flotilla, should enable him to disembark in England an army sufficient, in his conception, to subjugate this country; and through the conquest of Great Britain he hoped to realize his project of universal empire."

Par. 6." By the adoption of an enlarged and provident system of internal defence, and by the valor of His Majesty's fleets and armies, this design was entirely frustrated; and the naval force of France, after the most signal defeats, was compelled to retire from the ocean."

Par. 7.-" An attempt was then made to effectuate the same purpose by other means: a system was brought forward, by which the Ruler of France hoped to annihilate the commerce of Great Britain, to shake her public credit, and to destroy her revenue; to render useless her maritime superiority, and so to avail himself of his continental ascendancy, as to constitute himself in a great measure the arbiter of the ocean, notwithstanding the destruction of his fleets."

Answered in the 4th Paragraph.

Par. 8.-" With this view, by the Decree of Berlin, followed by that of Milan, he declared the British territories to be in a state of blockade; and