1810 Report On Our Foreign Relations - Alarming State - War

Description: [ebay 286] REPORT, &c. The Committee of both Houses, appointed to consider and report on the expediency of expressing the sense of the Legislature on the present ALARMING STATE of our FOREIGN RELATIONS, and on the causes which have produced it; and whether any, and if any, what mensures may be adopted to prevent the evils of im- pending WAR-have attended to the duties of their appointment, and find on examination, THAT by the Message of the President of the United States to Congress, at the opening of the pre- sent session, and the documents therewith transmitted, it appears that a Minister deputed by the government of Great Britain, to this country, with full powers to negociate and conclude an accommodation of all con- troversies subsisting between the two nations, after be- ing accredited and having entered upon the object of his mission was suddenly informed by the American Minister, that no further communication would be re- ceived from him, in consequence of an alleged offence in the language used in some part of his correspondence. This event, viewed in connection with the resolutions - of Congress, and the resentment discovered, and mea- sures proposed by the friends of the administration, siwe materially changed the posture of our relations dressth Great Britain, since the last meeting of this legis- voture, and in lieu of the prospect of peace and amity, which we then hailed as so auspicious to our national … state of the country, and especially of the entire seaboard of the United States while the American flag would be driven from the ocean, our seaports would be at the mercy of the most formidable navy that ever existed, and before our fortifications or armies could be in a situ- ation to sustain the first assaults of the enemy, our cities might be buried in ruins, and our sea-coast exposed to inconceivable distress. As the miseries of such a war would be incurred without adequate motive, they must be sustained with- out a possible chance of indemnity. On the ocean Bri- tain is at present invulnerable. It is only upon the side of Canada that the American arms could come into ac- tual collision with her dominions, and if the chances of war, after a profusion of blood and treasure, should en- able the United States to add to their territory, already too extensive, this province of Frenchmen; what would be the value of the acquisition? And for whom would it be acquired? To hold it as a colony would be in- consistent with the genius of our institutions. To adopt it as a free and independent State would be equally re- pugnant to the habits and wishes of that people. Un- der what pretext could we retain this ancient and fa- vourite appendage to France, claiming it as her legi- timate estate, with the voices of a great majority of its inhabitants to second her pretensions? It is morally certain that Canada, conquered by the United States, would, under the patronage of France, become a north- ern hive pouring forth successive swarms of Goths and Vandals, which in alliance with savage tribes would encompass the Union with a belt; a favourite project of the ancient monarchy, which probably has never been relinquished. Your Committee however, do not disguise their belief, that neither an exhausted Treasu- ry, nor a ruined Commerce, nor a depopulated Sea Coast, nor the miseries of a War, without a possibility of success or definition of object would constitute the principal disasters of a rupture with Great Britain.-

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