nations of the same language, of similar manners, of almost the same laws, the one being a country of overflowing population, and the other of a boundless extent of vacant land to receive it: the two first maritime states in the world, the one habitually belligerent, under the necessity of manning her prodigious navy by very rigorous means; the other disposed to commerce and neutrality, alluring seamen by every temptation of emolument into her growing mercantile marine. Never was there such a dangerous conflict between the rigorous principle of natural allegiance, and the moral duty of contributing to the defence of a protecting government. To reconcile these jarring claims by general reasoning, or by abstract principles, was a vain attempt. To effect a compromise between them, would be an arduous task for the utmost caution, and the most conciliatory spirit. Yet it must be tried, unless we were willing that in every future war America should necessarily become our enemy.

He proceeded to examine the causes of delay after the Congress was assembled at Ghent. These were all reducible to one, -a pretension set up by the British negociators, to guarantee what was called the independence of the savages whom we had armed, and to prohibit the Americans from purchases of land from them. The first remark on this pretension was, that it ought never to have been made, or never abandoned. If honour and humanity towards the Indians required it, our desertion of it is an indelible disgrace. It is abandoned. The general words of the Treaty are of no value, or amount to no more than the Americans were always ready to grant. Having been abandoned, it can have been made only as a philanthropic pretext for war.

But, in truth, it was utterly untenable, and it must have been foreseen that it was to be abandoned. It amounted to a demand for the cession of the larger part of the territory of the United States, of that territory which is theirs by positive treaty with Great Britain. Over the whole of the American territory, even to the Pacific Ocean, the Crown of Great Britain formerly claimed the rights of sovereignty. By the Treaty of 1783 the United States succeeded to the rights of the British Crown. The Indian tribes, who hunted in various parts of that vast territory, became vassals of the United States as they had been vassals of the King of Great Britain. Possessed (VOL. XXX.)

doubtless of the most perfect right to jus tice and humanity, entitled like all other men to resist oppression, undisturbed, in regulating their internal concerns, or their ordinary quarrels with each other, rather to be considered as subjects of their own chiefs, than as directly amenable to the paramount authority of the territorial sovereign; they had still, in all treaties respecting America, been considered as vassals and dependents, bound by the stipulations of their superior state. However undefined this character might be, whatever doubt might be entertained of the original justice of such treaties, it was not now for Great Britain to deny the existence of rights which she had herself exercised, and which she had solemnly ceded to the United States; and once more, if the Indians were her independent allies, it was disgraceful in the highest degree to surrender them at last into the hands of the enemy. Never was a proposal in fact so inhuman made under pretence of philanthropy. The western frontier of North American cultivation is the part of the globe in which civilization is making the most rapid and extensive conquests on the wilderness. It is the point where the race of men is most progressive. To forbid the purchase of land from the savages, is to arrest the progress of mankind-it is to condemn one of the most favoured tracts of the earth to perpetual sterility, as the hunting-ground of a few thousand savages. More barbarous than the Norman tyrants, who afforested great tracts of arable land for their sport, we attempted to stipulate that a territory twice as great as the British Islands should be doomed to be an eternal desert! We laboured to prevent millions of millions of freemen, of Christians, of men of English race, from coming into existence. There never was such an attempt made by a state to secure its own dominion by desolation, to guard by deserts what they could not guard by strength. To perpetuate the English authority in two provinces, the larger part of North America was for ever to be a wilderness. The American ministers, by their resistance to so insolent and extravagant a demand, maintained the common cause of civilised men-and the English, who by advancing so monstrous a pretension protracted the miseries and the bloodshed of war, who had caused the sad defeat of New Orleans and the more disgraceful victory of Washington, had ren dered themselves accountable to God and (2 M)

their country for all the accumulation of evils which marked the last months of an unfortunate and unnatural war.-For these reasons he heartily concurred in the amendment of his right hon. friend.

The

Lord Castlereagh said, he had purposely abstained from rising at an earlier period of the debate, from a wish to hear what objections could be made to the conduct of his Majesty's ministers, before he entered on their justification. They must all feel, that at the close of a transaction which was happily wound up in peace, it would not be advisable to argue it in any feeling calculated to disturb the amicable relations that at present subsisted. But it was hard that ministers should have to defend themselves against a disclosure on the part of the American Government, made under circumstances which it would now be injudicious to argue. The right hon. member who had examined the discussion of the negociators, guided by the result, was such an economist in point of time as to take advantage of events which, having subsequently taken place, ought not to be applied to the negociations by which they were preceded. But would the right hon. member undertake to say that it was not right to send a force then disposable into America, in the month of May? If he would now do so, it should be recollected that he did not do so at the time. concessions on the part of this country were all made at the period when our successes were most conspicuous; and such was the spirit of conciliation on our part, that we even agreed to an arrangement by which his Majesty's Government was bound, while it was left to the discretion of the American Government to agree or not. So far was the desire of peace exemplified on our part. As to the mediation of the emperor of Russia, it was declined, not from any doubt of the liberality of that monarch, but on the ground that England was the best and only competent judge of her own rights. With respect to the charge of delay, he could state, that down to the 9th of last August, the American commissioners had no instructions from their Government on the subject of the maritime rights; and he had no hesitation in admitting that it was his wish, and the wish of those with whom he acted, that the transactions which had taken place in Europe should be known in America. Another circumstance worthy of remark was, that his Majesty's negociators had stated all their objects at once. From the

principle of the maritime rights they never could depart; but they had never refused to go into any question of modification. If the frontier could be established, it would have been a great object; but with all its importance, it never occurred to them to make it an object of war. The great end they had in view was one that affected the honour of the country, that of protecting those who had fought and bled with us. We owed to the Indians to replace them in a state of peace, and in the enjoyment of such possessions as they had before. This was done, and the result was at least so far advantageous to the Indians, as to make their interests an object of regulation to a country which was capable of protecting them. Besides, the negociation was almost exclusively occupied in discussing questions that originated with the Americans themselves. Nothing had been stated that could impeach the Treaty itself, or render the House and the country dissatisfied with its provisions. In the conduct of the negociation every thing was done by this country to facilitate those amicable regulations which it was the wish of Government to establish. Even our military exertions were made with a view to peace. Seeing that the war could be concluded at that period, we had concluded it; and he trusted that, from all these considerations, the House would be disposed to reject the Amendment, and agree to the Address.

Sir James Mackintosh, having been accused of sacrificing justice and humanity to his sanguine views of progressive civilization, observed, in explanation, that if in the year 1600 any European Powers at war with England, under pretence of humanity for the Indians, and of the injustice which they always suffered from Europeans, had compelled us to promise by treaty that we should make no purchases of land from these Indians, the whole of North America would at this day have contained fifty thousand cannibals, instead of ten millions of British freemen, who may be numbered among the most intelligent, the most moral, the bravest, and the most happy of the human race. Sentence of desolation and barbarism would have been passed on a considerable portion of the globe. Our ministers in this proposal had tried to doom to the same fate all that yet remained to be reclaimed.

Mr. J. P. Grant supported the Amendment, on the ground of the delay with which the negociators of this country were

two children whose ages are not mentioned in the returns from their parishes.

Before they enter on the subject of what has become of these children, your Committee beg leave to observe, that from all the parishes within the city of London, only eleven apprentices have been sent to masters at a distance in the country ;that of the five parishes in Southwark, only one (Saint George's) has sent any considerable number;—that in Westminster, the parish of St. Anne, has not sent any since the year 1802; those of St. Margaret and St. John, since the year 1803; and the largest and populous parish of St. Pancras has discontinued the practice since the year 1806. From those of Newington, Shadwell, Islington, and several others, no children have at any time

been sent.

The Committee directed precepts to be sent to the various persons in the country to whom the parish apprentices, to the amount of 2,026, were bound, directing them to make returns, stating what bad become of them, to the best of their know ledge. These returns have in general been complied with, but in some instances have not, owing probably to the bank ruptcy or discontinuance in business of the parties to whom these children were apprenticed; and in some cases the information required has been furnished by the overseer of the poor, to whom the charge of assigning the apprentices devolved, on the failure of the master. The general Classification may be made as follows:

Now serving under indenture ........ 644 Served their time, and now in the same employ.........

Served, and settled elsewhere...................
Dead............

Enlisted in the army or navy
Quitted their service, chiefly run

last head, consisting of 433, some few of Of the number comprised under the the masters have sent a return, but without giving an account of the whole of the apprentices; so that it may be fairly accounted for at all. judged that one third of these cannot be

whole list of parish apprentices bound Your Committee having abstracted the more full, by enumerating the particular into the country, might make this Report returns made by each master or by the overseer, as well as the names of such masters as have not given any answers conceive that it might be invidious to do at all, or unsatisfactory ones; but they so, especially as those details would

make no difference in the state of the

before the consideration of the House.

question which it is their object to bring
They therefore abstain from inserting any
that the House will give them credit for
such returns in their Appendix, satisfied
the reason of such omission. They think
of the children bound in ten years, the
it right, however, to state generally, that
trades and employments:
following is the proportion of the different

Silk Throwsters.........
Silk Manufacturers.

Flax Dressers
Flax Spinners

Flax Manufacturers....
Sail-cloth Manufacturers....

108

118

26

86

174

away.........

166

Not bound to the person mentioned in the return kept by the company of Parish-clerks ....

Frame-work Knitters ........ Earthenware Manufacturers .... Cotton Spinners

9

3

353

Cotton Weavers

67

Sent back to their friends

parts of the kingdom

Transferred to tradesmen in different

Incapable of service.....

Not accounted for or mentioned
In parish workhouses

Not satisfactorily or intelligibly accounted for by the persons to whom they were bound, or by the overseers where the masters have