The wealth which the
embargo brought home safely, has now been thrown back into the laps of
our enemies; and our navigation completely crushed, and by the unwise
and unpatriotic conduct of those engaged in it. Should the orders prove
genuine, which are said to have been given against our fisheries, they,
too, are gone: and if not true as yet, they will be true on the first
breeze of success which England shall feel: for it has now been some
years, that I am perfectly satisfied her intentions have been to claim
the ocean as her conquest, and prohibit any vessel from navigating it,
but on such a tribute as may enable her to keep up such a standing navy
as will maintain her dominion over it. She has hauled in, or let herself
out, been bold or hesitating, according to occurrences, but has in
no situation done any thing which might amount to an acknowledged
relinquishment of her intentions. I have ever been anxious to avoid
a war with England, unless forced by a situation more losing than war
itself. But I did believe we could coerce her to justice by peaceable
means, and the embargo, evaded as it was, proved it would have coerced
her, had it been honestly executed. The proof she exhibited on that
occasion, that she can exercise such an influence in this country, as to
control the will of its government and three fourths of its people,
and oblige the three fourths to submit to one fourth, is to me the most
mortifying circumstance which has occurred since the establishment of
our government.
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