enable congress to decide with greater advantage on the course due to the rights, the interests, and the honour of our country.'

In seventeen days after the date of this declamatory speech, the two houses of congress formally declared war against Great Britain, and empowered the president to issue letters of marque and general reprisal; and, on the very day on which this declaration arrived at New York, appeared in the London Gazette the prince regent's declaration, absolutely and unequivocally revoking the orders in council, so far as they related to American vessels. Nothing could better demonstrate to the world the different feelings which actuated the two governments.

The American declaration of war reached the British government on the 30th of July; but, in the firm reliance that the revocation of the orders in council would produce a pacific effect, no further steps were taken by the latter, than to direct that American ships and goods should be brought in and detained. It was not till the 13th of October, when the American government had disregarded the notified repeal of the orders in council, and refused to ratify the armistice agreed upon between Sir George Prevost and General Dearborn on the Canadian frontier, that the British government published an order for granting general reprisals

against the ships, goods, and citizens of the United States; and even this order concluded with a declaration, that nothing therein was to annul the authority which had been given to his majesty's commanders upon the American station, to sign a convention for recalling all hostile orders issued by the respective governments, with a view of restoring the accustomed relations of amity and commerce between the two countries. That pacific attempt failing, also, the prince regent, on the 9th of January, 1813, issued the following manifesto in reply to Mr. Madison's :

"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 compelled him to engage.

"No desire of conquest, or other ordinary motive of aggression, has been, or can be with any colour 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 mari time rights, or without an injurious submission to France, is a truth which the American government will not deny.

"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.

"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.

"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.

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"By the adoption of an enlarged and provident system of internal defence, and by the valour 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.

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.

"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 that all commerce or even correspondence with Great Britain was prohibited. He decreed that every vessel and cargo, which had entered, or was found proceeding to a British port, or which, under any circumstances, had been visited by a British ship of war, should be lawful prize: he declared all British goods and produce, wherever found, and however acquired, whether coming from the mother-country or from her colonies, subject to confiscation; he further declared to be denationalized, the flag of all neutral ships that should be found offending against these his decrees: and he gave to this project of universal tyranny, the name of the continental system.

"For these attempts to ruin the commerce of Great Britain, by means subversive of the clearest rights of neutral nations, France endeav

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oured in vain to rest her justification upon the previous conduct of his majesty's government. “Under circumstances of unparalleled provocation, his majesty had abstained from any measure which the ordinary rules of the law of nations did not fully warrant. Never was the maritime superiority of a belligerent over his enemy more complete and decided. Never was the opposite belligerent so formidably dangerous in his power, and in his policy, to the liberties of all other nations. France had already trampled so openly and systematically on the most sacred rights of neutral powers, as might well have justified the placing her out of the pale of civilized nations. Yet in this extreme case, Great Britain had so used her naval ascendancy, that her enemy could find no just cause of complaint: and, in order to give to these lawless decrees the appearance of retaliation, the ruler of France was obliged to advance principles of maritime law unsanctioned by any other authority than his own arbitrary will. ...

"The pretext for these decrees were, first, that Great Britain had exercised the rights of war against private persons, their ships and goods; as if the only object of legitimate hostility on the ocean were the public property of à state, or as if the edicts and the courts of France itself had not at all times enforced this right with peculiar rigour; secondly, that the