Now let the committee attend to the chapter of negotiation, which produced the rejected treaty. First, the subject of blockade is proposed, and a definition demanded. We denied the doctrine of paper breastworks, spurious and illegitimate blockades, to be executed in every sea by the British Navy, of which our neutral rights were the victims. Such as the blockade of the coast of Europe from the Elbe to Brest, of the Elbe, the Weiser and Ems. The whole coast of Old Spain, of the Dardanelles, and Smyrna, and of Curaçoa. Upon this subject, Great Britain would yield nothing.
2. No duty can be laid upon American exports, but Great Britain imposes a duty of four per cent. upon her exports to the United States, under the name of a convoy duty; by which duty the citizens of the United States pay to Great Britain an annual amount of $1,300,000; but upon this unfriendly discrimination she will yield nothing.
3. Upon the search of merchant vessels she would yield nothing.
4. Upon the colonial trade she imposed new restrictions. She would yield nothing; a trade which produced the United States revenue to the amount of $1,300,000 per annum; and furnished exports from the United States of $50,000,000 annually.
5. Upon the West India trade she would yield nothing, and upon the East India trade she imposed new restrictions.
6. Upon the impressment of seamen, the subject was too delicate; she was fighting for her existence; she would yield nothing.
7. Upon the mutual navigation of the St. Lawrence, so important to the Northern States, they would yield nothing; but would demand a monopoly of the fur trade, and influence over the Indians within our own limits. Thus ended the chapter of negotiation.
I turn with indignation from this to a new species of injury, involving the events connected with and preceding the President's proclamation interdicting the armed vessels of Great Britain from our waters. I allude to the conduct of the officers of the British navy, and the evident connivance of the British Government. I will only mention three prominent cases:
1st. The Cambrian, and other British cruisers, commanded by Captain Bradley, who entered the port of New York, and in defiance of the Government arrested a merchant vessel, and impressed into the ships of war a number of seamen and passengers, refused to surrender them upon demand, and resisted the officers, served with regular process of law for the purpose of arresting the offenders.