JAMES MADISON.
FEBRUARY 24, 1813.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
I lay before Congress copies of a proclamation of the British
lieutenant-governor of the island of Bermuda, which has appeared under
circumstances leaving no doubt of its authenticity. It recites a British
order in council of the 26th of October last, providing for the supply
of the British West Indies and other colonial possessions by a trade
under special licenses, and is accompanied by a circular instruction to
the colonial governors which confines licensed importations from ports
of the United States to the ports of the Eastern States exclusively.
The Government of Great Britain had already introduced into her commerce
during war a system which, at once violating the rights of other nations
and resting on a mass of forgery and perjury unknown to other times,
was making an unfortunate progress in undermining those principles
of morality and religion which are the best foundation of national
happiness.
The policy now proclaimed to the world introduces into her modes of
warfare a system equally distinguished by the deformity of its features
and the depravity of its character, having for its object to dissolve
the ties of allegiance and the sentiments of loyalty in the adversary
nation, and to seduce and separate its component parts the one from the
other.
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