vessels with his companions, but that it would be improper to permit him to carry out a cargo, which was not at all necessary to his views of propagating the gospel; that his voyage would be contrary to the policy of existing laws, independent of the embargo policy, because Sierra Leone was a British settlement; that as this was a British settlement, in the possession of a nation claiming and asserted to be the bulwark of our religion, there was no occasion for cargoes departing from the United States, to enable him to carry her views into effect, &c.

Intermingled in this debate was considerable controversy, and something like asperity as to the character of the British nation for religion and humanity, in which Mr. Pickering of Massachusetts, on the one side, and Mr. Kerr, of Virginia, and Mr. Fisk, of Vermont, on the other, were the principal debaters, and also on the evil which might result from transporting liberated slaves from this country to a British settlement. The question, however, appeared principally to turn on the expediency of permitting, under the existence of the restrictive system, a cargo to go out which must necessarily sail under British licence, which it was argued would not be granted unless it were considered advantageous to the interest of the enemy that such trade should be carried on.

The debate having been extended to the usual hour of adjournment, the committee reported the bill to the house with certain amendments, and on the question on the passage of the bill to a third reading, which was decided by yeas and nays, the vote was as follows:

CHAPTER II.

§ 1. Bill for encouraging enlistments. § 2. Debate on its passage. § 3. Increase and organization of the army. § 4. The militia. 5. Augmentation of the marine corps. 6. Officers in the flotilla. § 7. Additional navy pay. § 8. Bounty for prisoners. § 9. Navy and privateer pensions. 10. Purchase of the squadron captured on lake Erie. § 11. Tribute to valour. § 12. Increase of navy. § 13. Steam frigates.

1. ONE of the most important objects that occupied the attention of congress this session, was the adoption of measures for filling the ranks and re-organizing the army establishment.

On the 10th of January Mr. Troup, of Georgia, from the committee on military affairs, reported a bill for encouraging enlistments, and authorizing the re-enlistment for longer periods of men whose terms of service were about to expire.

This bill enacted, that, in order to complete the present military establishment to the full number authorized by law, with the greatest possible dispatch, $124 should be paid to each effective able-bodied man who should enlist for five years or during the war at his election, in lieu of the bounty in money and of the three months' pay at the expiration of the service, now allowed by law; fifty dollars to be paid on enlistment, fifty on joining the regiment, and twenty-four on his discharge, which last sum was to be paid to his widow and children in case of his death in the service. A bounty of eight dollars was also to be paid to each person furnishing a recruit.

2. The passage of this bill was opposed on a variety of grounds. The government, it was said, was conducting the nation to poverty and ruin. The public treasury has been exhausted, and the resources of the nation dried up in non-intercourse, non-importation, and embargo, and now the nation was involved in a war which was to be carried on at a most enormous expense, by means of loans. The expences of the war, it was said, from its commencement, and what will be incurred, in the prosecution of it, under the present arrangements, the ensuing year, will amount to not less than 100 million of dollars,— a monstrous debt, and one too which must be left as a legacy to our children.

This army, it was likewise urged, was not to be employed in the defence of the country, but in vain attempts to conquer the provinces of Canada. If the army was required for the protection of the country, and the safety of its citizens, and there

was reasonable ground to believe that the force, when raised, would be applied to yield that protection, no considerations of expence would induce an opposition to the measure. But what is the object of the bills? To what service is the army destined, when its ranks shall be filled? It is said that the frontier is invaded, and that troops are wanting to repel that invasion. It is too true that the frontier is invaded; that the war, with all its horrors, is brought within our own territories. But was it the purpose of government by this measure to provide defence for the frontiers? No. The rejection of the amendment limiting the service of the troops to objects of defence*, showed that this was not the purpose to be effected, but that the real object was to act over again the scenes of the two last campaigns.

The object of the war was said to be fruitless and unattainable. Sailors' rights was the pretended, the conquest of Canada the real object. Before the war, that conquest was represented to be quite an easy affair. The valiant spirits who meditated it, were only fearful lest it should be too easy to be glorious. And now what is the state of the case? With all the blood and treasure that have been expended, not one foot of Canada is in our possession, nay we are not even free from invasion ourselves.

The war was said to be an unpopular measure. While it was allowed that both its professed objects, and the manner of prosecuting it, had received the nominal approbation of the majority of the people, it was urged, that any inferrence from that circumstance in favour of the real popularity of the measure would be extremely fallacious. In times like these, it was said, a great measure of a prevalent party becomes incorporated with the party interest. To quarrel with the measure would be to abandon the party. Party considerations therefore induce an acquiescence in that on which the fate of party is supposed to depend. But party support is not the kind of support necessary to sustain the country through a long, expensive, and bloody contest; and this should have been considered, before the war was declared. The cause, to be successful, must be upheld by other sentiments, and higher motives. It must draw to itself the sober approbation of the great mass of the people. It must enlist, not their temporary or party feelings, but their steady patriotism, and their constant zeal. Unlike the old nations of Europe, there are in this country no dregs of population, fit only to supply the constant waste of war, and out of which an army can be raised, for hire, at any time and for any purpose. Armies

An amendment to this effect had been offered by Mr. Sheffey, of Virginia, which was negatived by a considerable majority.

of any magnitude can here be nothing but the people embodied-and if the object be not one for which the people will embody, there can be no armies. It is too plain that the conquest of Canada is not such an object. The people do not feel the impulse of adequate motives, and thence, and thence alone, the necessity of offering such enormous bounties, which after all will prove unavailing.

The disasters of the American arms, it was said, have been attributed to the opposition. This is the fashionable doctrine both here and elsewhere. It is the constant tune of every weak or wicked administration. What minister ever yet acknowledged that the evils which fell on his country were the necessary consequences of his own incapacity, his own folly, or his own corruption? What possessor of political power ever yet failed to charge the mischiefs resulting from his own measures, upon those who had uniformly opposed those measures? The people of the United States may well remember the administration of lord North. He lost America to his country. Yet he could find pretences of throwing the odium upon his opponents. He could throw it upon those who had forewarned him of the consequences from the first, and who had opposed him, at every stage of his disastrous policy, with all the force of truth, and reason, and talent. It was not his own weakness, his own ambition, his own love of arbitrary power, which disaffected the colonies. It was not the tea act, the stamp act, or the Boston port bill, that severed the empire of Great Britain. Oh, no!-It was owing to no fault of administration. It was the work of opposition. It was the impertinent boldness of Chatham; the idle declamation of Fox; and the unseasonable sarcasm of Barre! these men, and men like them, would not join the minister in his American war. They would not give the name and character of wisdom to that which they believed to be the extreme of folly, They would not pronounce those measures just and honourable, which their principles led them to detest. They declared the minister's war to be wanton. They foresaw its end, and pointed it out plainly both to the minister and to the country. He pronounced the opposition to be selfish and factious. He persisted in his course, and the result is in his history.

Whoever would discover the causes, which have produced the present state of things, must look for them, not in the efforts of opposition, but in the nature of the war in which we are engaged, and in the manner in which its professed objects have been attempted to be obtained. Quite too small a portion of public opinion was in favour of the war, to justify it origi

nally. A much smaller portion is in favour of the mode in which it has been conducted. This is the radical infirmity. Public opinion, strong and united, is not with you in your Canada project. Whether it ought to be, or ought not to be, the fact that it is not, should, by this time, be evident to all; and it is the business of practical statesmen, to act upon the state of things as it is, and not to be always attempting to prove what it ought to be. The acquisition of that country is not an object generally desired by the people. Some gentlemen indeed say it is not their ultimate object; and that they wish it only as the means of effecting other purposes. But a large portion of the people believe that a desire for the conquest and final retention of Canada is the main spring of public measures. Nor is the opinion without ground. It has been distinctly avowed by public men, in a public manner. And if this be not the object, it is not easy to see the connexion between your means and ends. At least that portion of the people, that is not in the habit of refining far, cannot see it. You are, you say, at war for maritime rights and free trade. But they see you lock up your commerce and abandon the ocean. They see you invade an interior province of the enemy. They see you involve yourselves in a bloody war with the native savages: and they ask you, if you have in truth a maritime controversy with the western Indians, and are really contending for sailors' rights with the tribes of the prophet.

The bills were also opposed on the ground of the incompetency of the administration to conduct the war to a successful issue. It was said that the administration deserved no credit on account of the navy, which was not an object of their creating, and that the military operations exhibited one connected series of disasters and defeats. The plan as well as the execution of both campaigns was wrong. The object was conquest, the means of the country were applied as if for defence. The army was scattered all along the frontier, from Detroit to Lake Champlain, and thus divided was so weak as not to present an efficient force at any given point. Instead of concentrating the army, and then seizing and fortifying a position which would have cut off the communication between the upper and lower provinces, by which the upper country would have fallen without a blow, the plan of operations had been to take Canada in detail, a plan no less cruel than weak.--. If the event gives character to military operations, it was said, our men in power are totally unfit for a war administration. They have shown neither talent in projecting nor promptness