THE

BOSTON REVIEW,

FOR

JANUARY, 1810.

Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui annotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.

Plin.

ARTICLE 1.

Works of Fisher Ames, compiled by a number of his friends, to which are prefixed notices of his life and character. Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. Boston, T. B. Wait and Co. 1809. 8vo. 519 pages.

(Continued from vol. vii. page 410.)

THE detestation, which at all times he expresses against the temporizing, irritating course of policy, which the Jefferson administration chose to adopt towards the British government, and in which, without any essential injury to her, and without any imaginary benefit to the United States, such a state of things was preserved, as was neither friendly nor hostile, neither calculated to obtain redress for past wrongs, nor to attain security against future, gave those who hated, or feared the influence of his genius and virtue, an opportunity to represent him, according to the usual artifices of political animosity, as willing to abandon the interests of the United States to those of Great Britain, and desirous to prostrate our independence at the foot of her supremacy. These calumnies, which assailed him while living, begin to draw away now reluctantly from his sepulchre.

The integrity of his political and the purity of his private life, no man, who has any character to stake, will now dare to take upon himself the responsibility of impeaching. His opinions, such as they were, are open to candid censure or wise reproof. If he mistook the interest or was blind to the

real prospects of his country, they were the errours of a mind zealous, perhaps in over measure, for its prosperity and honour; of a mind that applied to political conduct, possibly, too high and nice a standard of political duty, and that allowed itself in deploring casual and temporary, as though they were necessary and permanent aberrations from patriotick obligations.

The evidence is abundant in every part of this volume, that, the noble sentiment, with which he closed his speech against Mr. Madison's resolutions, in 1794, was a predominating principle, at every period of his life.

• "Let us assert a genuine independence of spirit; we shall be false to our duty and feeling as Americans, if we basely descend to a servile dependence on France or Great Britain.”

It was ever the aspiration of his heart and struggle of his life to make his countrymen really independent. And for this purpose, he dared to look into all the consequences of political conduct, and to expose them to their contemplation, whether the truth, which he thought he had discovered, was palatable, or disgusting. He perceived that the affairs of the world were involved in an extraordinary crisis, and that the fates of his own country could not be regarded abstractedly from those which awaited the nations, with which it was connected. Of the men, who sat at the helm, he could not forget by what means they had attained power, nor fail to be jealous of such men, in the exercise of it. Of the justice of some of the claims they advanced, he was doubtful; the prudence of asserting others, in all their theoretick extent, he questioned; as the only means proposed of maintaining them were calculated to injure his own countrymen, without materially affecting foreign nations, he was indignant at them. No where does he oppose the augmentation of any efficient means of offence, or defence. On the contrary, the uncertainty of a revenue, solely dependent upon commerce, the insufficiency of our army, the destruction of the hopes of our navy, were the perpetual themes of his regret and censure. And this at a time, when the resources he desired to establish, and the force to be increased, would have tended only to give strength and patronage to an administration, in which he had no confidence and over which he could hope to have no influence. The in

* Page 57.

dependence of his country he wished to see resting, not on temporary expedients, on popular excitements or the utterance of vain declamations, but on the basis of pecuniary resources, and on naval and military means and skill, which should be seasonably put in preparation.

That this was without reference to any thing else than the assurance of our liberties and rights against any aggressor, is sufficiently apparent from the general tenour of his writings. We shall, however, cite only two instances, in one of which he looks definitely at preparation against Great Britain, in the other against France. We know not, in what language patriotism can better express its honest zeal for national independence, or how its truth or impartiality can be less dubiously displayed. In relation to the aggressions of the former upon our neutral rights, he thus, in 1806, expresses himself.

"A solicitude about the ability of Great Britain to resist France, will be understood by some of the weak, and will be misrepresented by all the base and unprincipled, as implying a desire, that the United States, in respect to maritime rights and national dignity, should lie at the mercy of the mistress of the ocean. On the contrary; let every real American patriot insist, that our government should place the nation on its proper footing, as a naval power. With a million tons of merchant shipping, and a hundred thousand seamen, equally brave and expert, it is the fault of a poorspirited administration, that we are insignificant and despised. It is their fault, that our harbours are blockaded, by three British ships, and that outrages are perpetrated within the waters that form part of our jurisdiction, such as no circumstances can justify. Can there exist a stronger proof, that our insignificance is to be ascribed to a bad administration, than this single fact with the greatest merchant marine in the world, except one, and, of consequence, capable of being soon the second naval power, (in our own seas, the first,) we are utterly helpless: that, in the opinion even of our rulers themselves, our only mode of redress, when our commerce is obstructed, is TO DESTROY OUR COMMERCE !! We have the means for its protection, which our administration, unhappily, think it would prove more expensive to use, than its protection would be worth. They would provide against the violation of our territory by tribute, and of our commerce by non-importation."

:

His views of the duty in relation to French aggressions are perfectly consentaneous with those expressed in the preceding passage, and he thus exhibits them.

"Supposing, then, that the French empire is, in its very structure and principles, a temporary sway, that the causes, whatever they may be, which have made its action irresistible, produce and prolong a re-action sufficient † Page 367.

* Page 342.

in the end to counteract their impulse, ought we not, as men, as patriots, to hope, that Great Britain may be able to protract her resistance, till that re-action shall be manifested? And, as mere idle wishes are unbecoming the wise and the brave, ought not the American nation to make haste to establish such a navy as will limit the conqueror's ravages to the dry land of Europe? We have more than a million tons of merchant shipping; more, much more, than queen Elizabeth of England, and Philip II. of Spain, both possessed, in the time of the famous armada. We may be slaves in soul, and possess the means of defence, without daring to use them. We do possess them, and, if our spirit bore proportion to those means, in a very few years our ships could stretch a ribbon across every harbour of France, and say with authority to the world's master, stop; here thy proud course is stayed."

This surely is not the language of a man who despaired of the means, or held at a cheap rate the spirit of his countrymen. Yet this is among the last writings of our author, and, considering the nature of its subject, the duration of the despotism and the dangerous power of France, is perhaps of all others the one, in which those dispositions had they existed, as has been pretended, would have appeared in their fullest strength. But the truth is, that he never, in fact, for one moment, abandoned the belief both of our competency to defend ourselves, and of the adequacy of our national spirit to such a result, provided our means were not suffered to lie inactive, and our spirit were not broken by a timid, and time-serving administration. It is true, that he was a believer in the practicability of the establishment of that universal empire, toward which Buonaparte, with no short strides, was advancing. And his great purpose was to make his fellow citizens contemplate such an event, and reason and act in reference to its possibility. He looked at the French conqueror, and saw that on the continent he was omnipotent. He inquired what stood between the United States and collision with this colossal chieftain. He found nothing but Britain and her navy. These removed, or commanded by Buonaparte, his empire touched our shores; he could step from his own territory upon ours. Concerning our competency to cope with such a power, he reasoned, he doubted; not because he set at a cheap rate the natural prowess of his countrymen, but because they made no preparation, neither encouraged military men, nor augmented military means.

"Far be it from us to believe that our fellow citizens in the militia are not brave. Their very bravery, we apprehend, would ensure their defeat ; they would dare to attempt, what militia cannot achieve.”

That he did not believe, that the United States would be able solely to resist a power, before which Europe was humbled, after the last retreat of its independence had been subjugated with Great Britain, has been imputed to him as a crime. To some it seems little less than treachery, to represent the continuance of our liberties, as dependent on the maintenance of any proportion of power among foreign nations. Yet absolute independence is no more the lot of a nation than of an individual. Our liberties, like those of every other nation, depend upon our physical strength. This is always comparative. In proportion as the powers of all other nations are absorbed by one nation, do the dangers of our independence grow more imminent.

Foresight was given to man to enable him to shape his conduct by distant consequences. It is the duty of men of talents to estimate and weigh them. Shall he alone be permitted to express the result of his inquiries, who coincides with our prejudices, flatters our pride, or panders to our passions? If a preponderating power is about to overthrow the last obstacle to ambition, is it for the interest of truth, or the people, that those wise men, who think they see in its success, the destruction of their country's safety, should be prohibited from uttering the result of their inquiries, accompanied by the considerations, on which their convictions are founded? And who will speak, or who will reason, in coincidence with the interest of the people and contrary to their prepossessions, if, on these accounts, they are to be made obnoxious to insinuations of treachery and corruption? The malign shafts, to which such men are naturally subject, where the publick sentiment does not interpose a shield in their behalf, will be found an obstacle, which very few men have the nerve to attempt to surmount. When any one, as in the present instance, at the hazard of popularity and influence, gives such eminent examples of his love of truth and sincerity, he deserves our admiration and applause, even if we do not coincide in the result of his judgments, and doubt the reasonableness of his apprehensions.

Whether Britain will be able to maintain the combat alone against Buonaparte, is a natural subject of solicitude and inquiry. The patriot, who believes that she may be brought into subjection, and that her marine will, at no very distant period, be at the command of the iron-crowned conqueror, has surely as much right to support his opinions as he, who believes in