penalties might be recovered, it is necessary to provide that those owners of vessels whose names appear on the register or licence, should continue to be reputed as such, and liable to the penalties in case of infraction of the laws, until the register or licence shall have been actually surrendered and new papers shall have been regularly granted by the collector to the purchaser, and in every such case of purchase, a sufficient bond that the embargo shall not be infringed, to be previously required.

3. The power to seize unusual deposits now vested in the collectors of districts adjacent to the territories of forein nations should as well contemplated in the bill passed by the House of Representatives, be extended to all the districts. That this is an arbitrary power which nothing but the unremitted efforts in some places to evade the law can publicly justify, cannot be denied; and it should, like that of detention be placed under the control of the president, and be executed only in conformity with such general rules as he would prescribe.

4. Exclusively of the assistance which may be derived from gunboats and from the armed vessels of the United States, it would be advisable to authorise the president to add ten or twelve cutters to the present establishment. Fast sailing vessels of every draft of water, and requiring only from 15 to 30 men each, are mostly wanted, and would, for the object contemplated, be as useful as the largest frigates.

5. It is with regret that the necessity of authorising, on the application of the collectors, an immediate call of the local physical force of the country, must also be stated. VOL. LI.

But such partial acts of violence as have taken place in some of the seaports, cannot be prevented by the circuitous manner in which the public force must now be brought out in support of the laws. And no doubt exists that the mass of the citizens, whether they approve or disapprove of the embargo, would in every port instantaneously suppress any such outrage, they can be called upon to act in a legal manner.

Some other provisions appear also necessary for the purpose of carrying the laws more completely into effect along our land frontiers.

1. The exportation of specie by land should be expressly prohibited.

2. The power of detaining deposits should be so expressed as to leave no doubt of the authority to detain waggons and other carriages laden and actually on their way to a foreign territory. Although I cannot perceive any reason for the distinction, it has been supposed in one of the districts, that the law which authorised the detention of flour, beef, or potash deposited in a warehouse, did not extend to the case of their being deposited in a waggon although evidently on its way to Canada.

3. The offence now published by law is that of exportation. This is not consummated till after the property has been actually carried beyond the lines, where being in a foreign jurisdiction, it cannot be seized: so that forfeiture, which is the most efficient penalty, can never apply to exportations by land; and the bond being required, as in the case of vessels, the only remedy is the uncertain one of recovering penalties against apparent offenders who either absconded or have no pro2 U

perty

perty. How far it may be practicable to make the act of preparing the means of exportation punishable, or provide some other remedy, is submitted to the committee.

But it must also be observed, that every degree of opposition to the laws, which falls short of treason, is now with but few exceptions, an offence undefined and unprovided for by the laws of the United States.Whence it follows that such offences remain unpunished when the state authorities do not interfere. necessity of defining those offences by law as misdemeanors, and of providing an adequate punishment, appears obvious.

The

I will beg leave here to add that it does not appear necessary to continue any longer the indulgence granted to the British merchants to import for the use of the Indians articles of which the importation is generally prohibited by law, as that privilege is liable to great abuse, and affords just ground of dissatisfaction to American citizens.

Whether it be advisable to continue the permission given to those Indian traders to export furs and peltry, is a question to be decided by political considerations.

The last branch of the subject to which I wish at present to call the attention of the committee, relates to interruptions and certain injurious proceedings attempted under colour of law.

1. Vexatious suits are brought against collectors, which not only perplex faithful officers, but have the effect of intimidating others, and prevent an energetic perform ance of their duties. The only provisions which have occurred to me on the subject are, to enable the collectors who may be sued, always

to remove the cause before a court of the United States; to make a certificate issued by the proper authority, that there was reasonable cause of detention, protect them against damages in cases of detention, in the same manner as is now provided in cases of seizures; and to provide for the safe keeping, and restoring when proper, and on security being given, the vessels and property which may be detained.

2. Attempts have in several instances been made to wrest from the collectors, by writs of replevin, issued by the state courts or officers, property detained or seized by said collectors, or which in any other manner, is in their possession in conformity with some law of the United States. It is evident that such attempts, ifsubmitted to, would defeat not only the embargo, but also the revenue laws of the United States; that whenever property is by virtue of the law of the United States in the possession of a collector, marshal, or any other of their officers, no process in rem, which will take the property away, whether of replevin, attachment, or any other, can be legally issued by a state authority; and that the sheriff or other person executing the same must be considered as a mere trespasser, and be resisted accordingly. But there is no other way at present to resist such illegal process but actual force. And it appears necessary that another remedy should be afforded, by providing a summary mode of superseding any such process, through the interference of the courts of justice of the United States; and by making it penal for any sheriff or other person, to execute the same, er in any manner to attempt to take property

property which by virtue of any law of the United States is in the collector's possession.

3. In some instances where vessels and cargoes libelled for infractions of the embargo have been restored to their owners on their giving security for the appraised value, the valuations have been so low as to reduce the forfeiture to an inconsiderable sum, thereby defeating altogether the law. It is suggested that this might be prevented by a provision authorising and directing the district judges to set aside on motion of the district attorney, such valuation, whenever in their opinion falling short of the

true value.

On the subject of mandamus, I will only observe that, in the only instance which has taken place, the court, supposing they had jurisdiction, could not from the manner in which the question was brought before them have decided otherwise than they did, but that it is desirable that the question of jurisdiction, as it relates either to the courts in whom the power ought to be vested, or to the courts to which it should extend, should be precisely defined by law.

I have not in this communication taken into consideration the technical defects of the existing embargo laws, because prosecutions do not fallwithin myimmediatecognizance, and I do not feel competent to the task of pointing out the necessary alterations. Measures have, however, been taken to procure on that subject and from the proper sources, information which will hereafter be laid before the committee.

To the remaining inquiry of the committee, whether the inconve niences of the present system may

not in some degree be removed, I can only answer, generally, that a law which lays such extensive restrictions as the embargo, cannot be carried into effect without imposing serious inconveniences even on the domestic intercourse of the United States; and that these must necessarily be increased in proportion to the opposition and efforts to evade or violate the law. It has already been stated that provisions which will render the bond given by coasting vessels a complete security against violations of them, will diminish the necessity and extent of more arbitrary restrictions. An authority to permit on proper security being given, such vessels when they arrive in port, to keep their cargoes on board, would afford some relief. And I think that the credit on duties accruing on the importation of some articles which was allowed by the act of 10th March last, should be extended to all importations of the same articles made after the passing of the act, those made in vessels which sailed under special permission only excepted. With respect to this last class of importations, as they were permitted by special indulgence, as it is understood that it has been impossible in many cases to prevent its being abused, and as in almost all the parties having a species of exclusive privilege, have made sufficiently profitable voyages, the propriety, particularly in the existing situation of the revenue, of allowing them also the advantages of an extended credit on duties, is not perceived.

Report of the Embargo Committee.

After a period of 15 years of 2U2 peace

peace hardly interrupted by transient hostilities, and of prosperity unparalleled in the history of nations; the United States are for the first time since the treaty which terminated the revolutionary war, placed in a situation equally difficult, critical and dangerous.

Those principles recognized by the civilized world, under the name of Law of Nations, which heretofore controlled belligerent powers, regulated the duties of neutrals, and protected their rights, are now avowedly disregarded or forgotten by Great Britain and France. Each of those two nations captures and condemns all American vessels trading with her enemies or her enemy's allies, and every European power having become a party in the contest, the whole of our commerce with Europe and European colonies, becomes liable to capture by either one or the other. If there be any nominal exception, it is made on a condition of tribute, which only adds insult to the injury.

The only plea urged in justification of those hostilities, is that of retaliation, grounded on a presumed acquiescence of the United States in previous aggressions by the other party. Waving a discussion of the correctness of the principle of retaliation, a principle doubtful in itself, and altogether inadmissible to the extent to which it has been carried, and when operating on the neutral rather than on the enemy: it is altogether untrue that the United States havevoluntarilyacquiesced in the unlawful aggressions of either nation; omitted or delayed any measures calculated to obtain redress, or in any respect deviated from that impartiality to which they were bound by their neutrality,

France has alluded to the violations of the national flag, and of the sovereignty of the United States, in the instances of Pierce's murder, of the outrage on the Chesapeake, and of the destruction of the Impetuous. The measures taken to obtain redress in those cases are of public notoriety, and it may be added, that with the exception of the last, those aggressions on the sovereignty of the United States did not affect their neutrality, and gave no right to France either of complaint or interference. Setting aside irregularities of less importance, and equally chargeable to both nations, such as the British order of June 1803, and the decree of the French General Ferrand; the principal violations by England of the neutral rights of America, prior to the Berlin decree of November 1806, and which if acquiesced in might havegivengrounds of complaint to France are the capture of American vessels laden with colonial produce, founded on a renewal of that pretended principle generally called the Rule of 1756,' the impressment of American seamen, compelled thereby to become the auxiliaries of England against France, and proclamation of nominal blockades, particularly that of the coast from the river Elbe to Brest notified in May 1806.

It will not be asserted that the United States have ever tamely acquiesed in either of those pretensions. It will not be denied, that with respect to the two first, the most strenuous efforts were incessantly made to procure an alteration of the British system.

It is true that to the nominal proclamation blockades of England, the United States had opposed only spirited andrepeatedremonstrances,

and

and that these had not always been successful. But the measures which a neutral nation may be supposed bound to take against the infractions of its neutrality, must always bear a certain proportion to the extent and nature of the injury received, and to the means of opposition. It cannot certainly be pretended that a hasty resort to war, should in every such instance have become the duty of America. Nor can the irregularities of England, in declaring in a state of blockade, a certain extent of coast, part of which was not, and the whole of which could not, even by her powerful navy, be actually invested and blockaded, be pleaded in justification of that decree, by which France, without an efficient fleet, pretends to announce the blockade of the dominion of a power which has the incontestible command of the sea, and before no port of which she can station a sin gle vessel.

The Milan decree of 1807 can still less rest for its defence on the supposed acquiescence of the United States in the British orders of the preceding month, since those orders which have not certainly been acquiesced in, were not even known in America at the date of the decree. And it is proper here to add, that the French have, particularly by the sequestration of certain vessels in their ports, and by burning our ships on the high seas, gone even beyond the tenor of their own extraordinary edicts.

The allegation of an acquiescence in the Berlin decree of November, 1806, by which alone the British government pretends to justify the orders in council, is equally unfounded. In the note on that subject addressed on the 31st December,

1806, by the British government to the American ministers, after having stated that "they could not believe that the enemy would ever seriously attempt to enforce such a system," the following declaration is expressly made, « If, however, the enemy should carry these threats into execution, and if neutral nations, contrary to all expectation, should acquiesce in such usurpations, his majesty might probably be compelled, however reluctantly, to retaliate in his just defence, &c." The two requisites necessary in the opinion of Great Britain to justify retaliation, are stated to be the execution of the decree, and the acquiescence of neutral nations. Yet, within eight days after, and in the face of that declaration, without waiting for ascertaining either of those facts, the retali ating British order of January 7, 1807, was issued, which, contrary to the acknowledged law of nations, subjected to capture, vessels of the United States sailing from the port of one belligerent to a port of another belligerent.

The United States in the meanwhile and without delay, had taken the necessary steps to ascertain the manner in which the French government intended to execute their decree.

That decree might be construed merely as a municipal law, forbidding the introduction of British merchandize, and the admission of vessels coming from England. Under that aspect, and if confined to that object, the neutral rights of America were not affected by its operation.

A belligerent may, without any infraction of neutral rights, forbid the admission into his ports of any vessel coming from the ports of his

enemy.