vessels in French commission to carry in all Americans they meet with, because the terms of the proclamation are so indefinite, as to leave every thing to the discretion of the cruiser. Experience has too fatally proved, that property once taken into their ports, is irretrievably lost.

If this proclamation have issued under the authority of the French nation, it can only be considered as a declaration of war. If it be ultimately disavowed by the government of this agent, it must be at a distant point of time, when mischiefs great and ruinous may have been done under its authority. It is to prevent these mischiefs that your memorialists solicit the attention of government, and respectfully suggest, that this extraordinary measure might be speedily counteracted by our national force.

Under the pressure of this state of things, your memorialists have thought proper, freely to make known to their government the injuries sustained and apprehended by the commercial interest of the country. They feel themselves bound to address to you their firm persuasion, that the amount of losses sustained by the merchants of the United States, from unlawful depredations, would, of itself, be sufficient to defray the expense of an armament adequate to the protection of their commerce. As citizens, they claim protection; and they conceive that the claim is enforced by the consideration, that from their industry and enterprise is collected a revenue which no nation has been able to equal, without a correspondent expense for the protection of the means.

After this fair and candid statement of the distress and exposure of the commerce of the United States, your memorialists cannot but feel and express extreme solicitude for the possible event. In perfect confidence that their foreign commerce was sheltered not only by the law of nations, but by existing treaties, with some of the belligerents, and by the explanations given to the publick law by another, they have extended it to every sea, with no other security than a reliance upon those treaties and explanations. It is, of course, defenceless, and liable to arrestation by the most inconsiderable force. It may then be na turally supposed, that your memorialists look, with anxie ty, to the remedies which may be applied to these pressing evils. To preserve peace with all nations, is admitted, without reserve, to be both the interest and the policy of the United States. They, therefore, presume to suggest, that every measure, not inconsistent with the honour of the nation, by which the great objects of redress and security may be attained, should first be used. If such measures prove ineffectual, whatever may be the sacrifice, on their part, it will be met with submission. But whatever measures may be pursued by their government, your memorialists express their firmest faith that every caution will be used to preserve private property and mercantile credit from violation.

With these observations, submitted with deference and respect to the President and representative body, it remains only to add the hope of your memorialists, that on subjects of such deep and extensive concern, such measures will be adopted as consist with the honour and interest of the United States.

THOMAS FITZSIMONS, Chairman.

R. E. HOBART, Secretary.

Committee-John Craig, James Yard, Jacob Gerard Koch, Joseph Sims, Thomas W. Francis, Thomas English, Robert Ralston, Joseph S. Lewis, William Montgomery, Abraham Kintzing, Philip Nicklin, Thomas Allibone, George Latimer, Chandler Price, L. Clapier, Daniel W. Coxe, Robert Waln, Manuel Eyre.

MESSAGE

FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE

UNITED STATES, JAN. 17, 1806.

In my message to both houses of Congress, at the opening of their present session, I submitted to their attention,

among other subjects, the oppression of our commerce and navigation by the irregular practices of armed vessels, publick and private, and by the introduction of new principles, derogatory of the rights of neutrals, and unacknowledged by the usage of nations.

The memorials of several bodies of merchants of the United States are now communicated, and will develop these principles and practices, which are producing the most ruinous effects on our lawful commerce and navigation.

The right of a neutral to carry on commercial intercourse with every part of the dominions of a belligerent, permitted by the laws of the country (with the exception of blockaded ports, and contraband of war) was believed to have been decided between Great Britain and the United States, by the sentence of their commissioners, mutually appointed to decide on that and other questions of difference between the two nations; and by the actual payment of the damages awarded by them against Great Britain for the infractions of that right. When, therefore, it was perceived that the same principle was revived, with others more novel, and extending the injury, instructions were given to the minister plenipotentiary of the United States at the court of London, and remonstrances duly made by him, on this subject, as will appear by documents transmitted herewith. These were followed by a partial and temporary suspension only, without any disavowal of the principle. He has, therefore, been instructed to urge this subject anew, to bring it more fully to the bar of reason, and to insist on rights too evident and too important to be surrendered. In the mean time, the evil is proceeding under adjudications founded on the principle which is denied. Under these circumstances the subject presents itself for the consideration of Congress.

On the impressment of our seamen, our remonstrances have never been intermitted. A hope existed at one mo ment, of an arrangement which might have been submitted to; but it soon passed away, and the practice, though re

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laxed at times in the distant seas, has been constantly pursued in those in our neighbourhood. The grounds on which the reclamations on this subject have been urged, will appear in an extract from instructions to our minister at London, now communicated. TH: JEFFERSON.

January 17, 1806.

Extract of a Letter from the Secretary of State to James Monroe, Esq. dated Department of State, April 12, 1805.

"THE papers herewith enclosed explain particularly the case of the brig Aurora.

The sum of the case is, that while Spain was at war with Great Britain, this vessel, owned by a citizen of the United States, brought a cargo of Spanish produce, purchased at the Havana, from that place to Charleston, where the cargo was landed, except an insignificant portion of it, and the duties paid, or secured, according to law, in like manner as they are required to be paid, or secured, on a like cargo, from whatever port, meant for home consumption; that the cargo remained on land about three weeks, when it was reshipped for Barcelona, in Old Spain, and the duties drawn back, with a deduction of three and a half per cent. as is permitted to imported articles in all cases, at any time within one year, under certain regulations, which were pursued in this case; that the vessel was

taken on her voyage by a British cruiser, and sent for trial to Newfoundland, where the cargo was condemned by the court of vice-admiralty; and that the cause was carried thence, by appeal, to Great Britain, where it was apprehended that the sentence below would not be reversed.

The ground of this sentence was, and that of its confirmation, if such be the result, must be, that the trade in which the vessel was engaged was unlawful, and this unlawfulness must rest, first, on the general principle assumed by Great Britain, that a trade from a colony to its parent country, being a trade not permitted to other nations in time of peace, cannot be made lawful to them in time of

war; secondly, on the allegation that the continuity of the voyage from the Havana to Barcelona was not broken by landing the cargo in the United States, paying the duties thereon, and thus fulfilling the legal prerequisites to a home consumption; and, therefore, that the cargo was subject to condemnation, even under the British regulation of January, 1798, which so far relaxes the general principle as to allow a direct trade between a belligerent colony, and a neutral country carrying on such a trade.

With respect to the general principle which disallows to neutral nations, in time of war, a trade not allowed to them in time of peace, it may be observed

First, That the principle is of modern date; that it is maintained, as is believed, by no other nation but Great Britain; and that it was assumed by her under the auspices of a maritime ascendency, which rendered such a principle subservient to her particular interest. The history of her regulations on this subject, shews that they have been constantly modified under the influence of that consideration. The course of these modifications will be seen in an appendix to the fourth volume of Robinson's Admi-* ralty Reports.

Secondly, That the principle is manifestly contrary to the general interest of commercial nations, as well as to the law of nations settled by the most approved authorities, which recognises no restraints on the trade of nations not at war, with nations at war, other than that it shall be impartial between the latter, that it shall not extend to certain military articles, nor to the transportation of persons in military service, nor to places actually blockaded or besieged.

Thirdly, That the principle is the more contrary to reason and to right, inasmuch as the admission of neutrals into a colonial trade shut against them in times of peace, may, and often does, result from considerations which open to neutrals direct channels of trade with the parent state, shut to them in times of peace, the legality of which latter

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