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CHAPTER that Smith was really desirous of peace, and Smith, in his turn, could not believe that Gallatin, even if the terms it was now proposed to offer should be rejected, would be ready to go to war.

1797.

By the help of some waverers, Dayton's amendment, after some modifications, was carried in committee, fiftytwo to forty-seven. But the House, before agreeing to June 2. it, modified it still further by adding the expression of an expectation that France would be ready to make compensation for any violation she may have committed of American neutral rights.

June 3.

What might be considered as the test question of the strength of parties was an effort made by the opposition to strike out that clause of the address approving the policy of the government as "just and impartial to foreign nations," and pledging the House to support it. This motion was lost, forty-five to fifty-three; after which the address, having been debated for two weeks, was finally agreed to, sixty-two to thirty-six.

Upon the usual motion that the House wait upon the president with the address, Matthew Lyon, a new member from the western district of Vermont, took occasion to make a display of his special democracy. An Irishman by birth, Lyon, then very young, had been brought to New York, some years previous to the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, as a redemptioner, and being sold to pay his passage, had been carried by his master to the new settlements in Vermont, of which, after serv ing out his time, he became a citizen. During the British invasion under Sir Guy Carleton in 1776, he had acted as lieutenant of a company of militia stationed to guard an advanced post on Lake Champlain. Sent to headquarters to report the abandonment of this post, Lyon had been treated with great indignity, pronounced

MATTHEW LYON.

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a coward, and placed under a guard; and, with the CHAPTER other officers of the detachment, had been cashiered on a charge of cowardice and desertion, or, rather, of per- 1797. suading the men to desert as an excuse for abandoning the post. But he always insisted that he had opposed the course taken by the other officers; and it is certain that, notwithstanding this previous disgrace, he served afterward, for a short time, during Burgoyne's invasion, as a commissary in the army. Being a man of energy and ingenuity, subsequently to the peace he had established iron works and other manufactures near the foot of Lake Champlain, had acquired property, had become a colonel of militia, and had married a daughter of Governor Chittenden, who, notwithstanding his official dig. nity, continued, according to the simple state of manners prevalent in Vermont, to follow his old vocation of a farmer and tavern-keeper. Self-conceited and impetuous, with the characteristic faults as well as virtues of his countrymen, Lyon entered with great zeal into politics. To advocate ultra Democratic views, he estab lished a newspaper at Castleton, entitled "Scourge of Aristocracy and Depository of Important Political Truth," which he edited himself, and printed with types of his own casting, on paper manufactured also by himself, from the bark of the bass wood; and by the help of this organ, after a very warm contest, he had been elected to Congress over several competitors.

Taking the present opportunity to make his debut, after a long speech denouncing and ridiculing the prac tice of waiting upon the president as anti-Republican and slavish, and setting forth his own merits and services in the cause of democracy, he offered a motion that he, personally, should be excused from compliance with the standing order of the House in that respect. He had

CHAPTER indeed been told-so he stated in his speech-that he X. might absent himself and no notice would be taken of 1797. it; but he professed great reverence for the standing

rules and orders, and preferred to have express authority for his absence. This speech was not very agreeable to the rest of the opposition, over whose heads Lyon seemed disposed to exalt himself as a special Democrat. By the Federalists it was heard with contemptuous smiles. Dana, of Connecticut, declared that for his part he was by no means specially desirous of the gentleman's com pany. He believed that the president would as readily forego it, and he expressed a hope that the leave asked for would be unanimously granted, which it accordingly was. Such was the first introduction to the House of one who subsequently became a political martyr, and who, during a membership of several years, often displayed, especially towards the close of it, a practical good sense hardly to have been expected from such a beginning.

Notwithstanding the tone of the address, the House. was but slow in taking any steps of a very decided character. The news which continued to arrive from Europe was of a kind to inspire fresh alarm. The stoppage of specie payments by the Bank of England threatened destruction to the commercial and financial power of Great Britain. The mutiny at the Nore seemed to shake the very basis of British naval ascendency. Bonaparte had appeared under the walls of Vienna, and Austria had been compelled to make peace. The opposition were delighted with the opening prospect of the downfall of Great Britain; and they urged with greater zeal than ever the necessity of cautiously avoiding a rupture with France. The Federalists, on the other hand, watched the progress of events, not without alarm for their own country should England really succumb. The letters of King, American

MEASURES ADOPTED.

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embassador at London, to his Federal friends, strongly CHAPTER urged the impolicy of any involvement in the European war. Even England herself, alarmed at the terrible mil- 1797. itary power called into existence by the ill-considered attempt from abroad to suppress the outbreak of Democratic enthusiasm in France, was now seeking, with increased anxiety, to negotiate a peace.

The House, however, still adhered, though by a very small majority, to the policy set forth by the Federal leaders in the debate on the address. In a session of eight weeks, acts were passed apportioning to the states a detachment of eighty thousand militia, to be ready to march at a moment's warning; appropriating $115,000 for the further fortification of harbors; prohibiting the exportation of arms and ammunition, and encouraging their importation; authorizing the equipment of the three frigates and their employment, together with an increased number of revenue cutters, in defending the coast. Another act subjected to a fine of $10,000 and ten years imprisonment any citizen of the United States who might be concerned in fitting out, or be any way connected with any private armed vessel intended to cruise against nations with whom the United States were at peace, or against the vessels and property of their fellow-citizens. To meet the expenses that might be incurred, a loan of $800,000 was authorized, and the revenue was re-enforced by an addition of eight cents per bushel to the duty on salt, and by stamp-duties of ten dollars on licenses to practice law in the courts of the United States, five dollars on certificates of naturalization, four dollars on letters patent of the United States, two dollars on copies of the same, and one dollar on charter parties and bottomry bonds. A motion to raise the duty on certif icates of naturalization, which stood in the bill as re

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CHAPTER ported at twenty cents, to twenty dollars, brought on a lively debate as to the policy of encouraging immigration. 1797. The high duty was advocated by several Federalists as a check on the facility of acquiring the right of citizenship. Gallatin, Swanwick, and Lyon opposed it as excessive, and it was finally fixed at the amount above mentioned. A stamp-tax, varying in amount with the value of the subject matter, was also imposed on receipts for legacies, policies of insurance, bonds, promissory notes, bank-notes, bills of exchange, protests, letters of attor ney, inventories, bills of lading, and certificates of de benture. The Committee of Ways and Means, hitherto composed of one member from each State, was reduced at this session to seven members taken from the House at large, a number at which it has ever since remained.

To most of the above measures a very decided opposi tion was made. The equipment of the frigates was spe cially opposed, under the apprehension that the president might employ them as convoys to the American trade in the West Indies. The numerous French cruisers in those seas made prize of every American vessel which they met, except when those vessels had licenses granted by the French consuls, or were known to belong to zealous advocates of the French interest. Some partial protection had been obtained from convoy granted by British ships of war, but the idea of employing armed vessela of our own for that purpose was earnestly deprecated by the opposition, and even by some of the Federalists, as little less than a declaration of war against France. Gallatin admitted that depredations without number were committed in the West India seas by vessels under the French flag, but he suggested that they were chiefly by pirates, without any commissions or authority; to which it was well answered that it was hard indeed if