had been in favor of the number recommended by the senate, and he would ask gentlemen, who had preferred fifteen thousand, to take a candid and dispassionate view of the subject. It was admitted, on all hands, that it was a force to be raised for the purposes of war, and to be kept up and used only in the event of war. It was further conceded, that its principal destination would be the provinces of our enemy. By the bill which had been passed, to complete the peace establishment, we had authorized the collection of a force of about six thousand men, exclusive of those now in service, which, with the twenty-five thousand provided for by this bill, will give an aggregate of new troops of thirty-one thousand men. Experience in military affairs, has shown, that when any given number of men is authorized to be raised, you must, in counting upon the effective men which it will produce, deduct one fourth or one third for desertion, sickness, and other incidents to which raw troops are peculiarly exposed. In measures relating to war, it is wisest, if you err at all, to err on the side of the largest force, and you will consequently put down your thirty-one thousand men at not more than an effective force in the field of about twentyone thousand. This, with the four thousand now in service, will amount to twenty-five thousand effective men. The secretary of war has stated, in his report, that, for the single purpose of manning your forts and garrisons on the sea-board, twelve thousand and six hundred men are necessary. Although the whole of that number will not be taken from the twenty-five thousand, a portion of it, probably, will be. We are told, that in Canada, there are between seven and eight thousand regular troops. If it is invaded, the whole of that force will be concentrated in Quebec, and would you attempt that almost impregnable fortress, with less than double the force of the besieged? Gentlemen who calculate upon volunteers as a substitute for regulars, ought not to deceive themselves. No man appreciated higher than he did the spirit of the country. But, although volunteers were admirably adapted to the first operations of the war, to the making of a first impression, he doubted their fitness for a regular siege, or for the manning and garrisoning of forts. He understood it was a rule in military affairs, never to leave in the rear a place of any strength undefended. Canada is invaded; the upper part falls, and you proceed to Quebec. It is true there would be no European army behind to be apprehended: but the people of the country might rise; and he warned gentlemen who imagined that the affections of the Canadians were with us, against trusting too confidently on such a calculation, the basis of which was treason. He concluded, therefore, that a portion of the invading army would be distributed in the upper country, after its conquest, amongst the places susceptible of military strength and defence. The army, considerably reduced, sets itself down before Quebec. Suppose it falls. Here again will be required a

And if the war be

number of men to hold and defend it. prosecuted still further, and the lower country and Halifax be assailed, he conceived it obvious, that the whole force of twentyfive thousand men would not be too great.

The difference between those who were for fifteen thousand, and those who were for twenty-five thousand men, appeared to him to resolve itself into the question, inerely, of a short or protracted war; a war of vigor, or a war of languor and imbecility. If a competent force be raised in the first instance, the war on the continent will be speedily terminated. He was aware that it might still rage on the ocean. But where the nation could act with unquestionable success, he was in favor of the display of an energy correspondent to the feelings and spirit of the country. Suppose one third of the force he had mentioned (twenty-five thousand men) could reduce the country, say in three years, and that the whole could accomplish the same object in one year; taking into view the greater hazard of the repulsion and defeat of the small force, and every other consideration, do not wisdom and true economy equally decide in favor of the larger force, and thus prevent failure in consequence of inadequate means? He begged gentlemen to recollect the immense extent of the United States; our vast maritime frontier, vulnerable in almost all its parts to predatory incursions, and he was persuaded, they would see that a regular force, of twenty-five thousand men, was not much too great during a period of war, if all designs of invading the provinces of the enemy were abandoned.

Mr. Clay proceeded next to examine the nature of the force contemplated by the bill. It was a regular army, enlisted for a limited time, raised for the sole purpose of war, and to be disbanded on the return of peace. Against this army, all our republican jealousies and apprehensions are attempted to be excited. He was not the advocate of standing armies; but the standing armies which excite most his fears, are those which are kept up in time of peace. He confessed, he did not perceive any real source of danger in a military force of twenty-five thousand men in the United States, provided only for a state of war, even supposing it to be corrupted, and its arms turned, by the ambition of its leaders, against the freedom of the country. He saw abundant security against the success of any such treasonable attempt. The diffusion of political information amongst the great body of the people, constituted a powerful safeguard. The American character has been much abused by Europeans, whose tourists, whether on horse or foot, in verse and prose, have united in depreciating it. It is true, that we do not exhibit as many signal instances of scientific acquirement in this country as are furnished in the old world; but he believed it undeniable, that the great mass of the people possessed more intelligence than any other people on the globe. Such a people, consisting of upwards of seven millions, affording

a physical power of about a million of men, capable of bearing arms, and ardently devoted to liberty, could not be subdued by an ariny of twenty-five thousand men. The wide extent of country over which we are spread, was another security. In other countries, France and England, for example, the fall of Paris or London, is the fall of the nation. Here are no such dangerous aggregations of people. New York, and Philadelphia, and Boston, and every city on the Atlantic, might be subdued by an usurper, and he would have made but a small advance in the accomplishment of his purpose. He would add a still more improbable supposition, that the country east of the Allegany, was to submit to the ambition of some daring chief, and he insisted that the liberty of the union would be still unconquered. It would find successful support from the west. We are not only in the situation just described, but a great portion of the militia-nearly the whole, he understood, of that of Massachusetts - have arms in their hands; and he trusted in God, that that great object would be persevered in, until every man in the nation could proudly shoulder the musket, which was to defend his country and himself. A people having, besides the benefit of one general government, other local governments in full operation, capable of exerting and commanding great portions of the physical power, all of which must be prostrated before our constitution is subverted. Such a people have nothing to fear from a petty contemptible force of twenty-five thousand regulars.

Mr. Clay proceeded, more particularly, to inquire into the object of the force. That object he understood distinctly to be war, and war with Great Britain. It had been supposed, by some gentlemen, improper to discuss publicly so delicate a question. He did not feel the impropriety. It was a subject in its nature incapable of concealment. Even in countries where the powers of government were conducted by a single ruler, it was almost impossible for that ruler to conceal his intentions when he meditates war. The assembling of armies, the strengthening of posts; all the movements preparatory to war, and which it is impossible to disguise, unfolded the intentions of the sovereign. Does Russia or France intend war, the intention is almost invariably known before the war is commenced. If congress were to pass a law, with closed doors, for raising an army for the purpose of war, its enlistment and organization, which could not be done in secret, would indicate the use to which it was to be applied; and we cannot suppose England would be so blind, as not to see that she was aimed at. Nor could she, did she apprehend, injure us more by thus knowing our purposes, than if she were kept in ignorance of them. She may, indeed, anticipate us, and commence the war. But that is what she is in fact doing, and she can add but little to the injury which she is inflicting. If she choose to declare war in form, let her do so, the responsibility will be with her.

What are we to gain by the war? has been emphatically asked. In reply, he would ask, what are we not to lose by peace? Commerce, character, a nation's best treasure, honor! If pecuniary considerations alone are to govern, there is sufficient motive for the war. Our revenue is reduced, by the operation of the belligerent edicts, to about six millions of dollars, according to the secretary of the treasury's report. The year preceding the embargo it was sixteen. Take away the orders in council, it will again mount up to sixteen millions. By continuing, therefore, in peace, (if the mongrel state in which we are deserve that denomination.) we lose annually in revenue alone ten millions of dollars. Gentlemen will say, repeal the law of non-importation. He contended, that, if the United States were capable of that perfidy, the revenue would not be restored to its former state, the orders in council continuing. Without an export trade, which those orders prevent, inevitable ruin would ensue, if we imported as freely as we did prior to the embargo. A nation that carries on an import trade, without an export trade to support it, must, in the end, be as certainly bankrupt, as the individual would be, who incurred an annual expenditure without an income.

He had no disposition to magnify or dwell upon the catalogue of injuries we had received from England. He could not, however, overlook the impressment of our seamen an aggression upon which he never reflected, without feelings of indignation, which would not allow him appropriate language to describe its enormity. Not content with seizing upon all our property which falls within her rapacious grasp, the personal rights of our countrymen-rights which forever ought to be sacred-are trampled upon and violated. The orders in council were pretended to have been reluctantly adopted, as a measure of retaliation. The French decrees, their alleged basis, are revoked. England resorts to the expedient of denying the fact of the revocation, and Sir William Scott, in the celebrated case of Fox and others, suspends judgment that proof may be adduced to it. At the same moment, when the British ministry, through that judge, is thus affecting to controvert that fact, and to place the release of our property upon its establishment, instructions are prepared for Mr. Foster, to meet at Washington the very revocation which they were contesting. And how does he meet it? By fulfilling the engagement solemnly made to rescind the orders? No, sir; but by demanding that we shall secure the introduction, into the continent, of British manufactures!

England is said to be fighting for the world, and shall we, it is asked, attempt to weaken her exertions? If, indeed, the aim of the French emperor be universal dominion, (and he was willing to allow it to the argument,) how much nobler a cause is presented to British valor! But how is her philanthropic purpose to be

achieved? By a scrupulous observance of the rights of others, by respecting that code of public law which she professes to vindicate, and by abstaining from self-aggrandizement. Then would she command the sympathies of the world. What are we required to do by those who would engage our feelings and wishes in her behalf? To bear the actual cuffs of her arrogance, that we may escape a chimerical French subjugation! We are invited, conjured, to drink the potion of British poison, actually presented to our lips, that we may avoid the imperial dose prepared by perturbed imaginations. We are called upon to submit to debasement, dishonor, and disgrace; to bow the neck to royal insolence, as a course of preparation for manly resistance to gallic invasion! What nation, what individual, was ever taught, in the schools of ignominious submission, these patriotic lessons of freedom and independence? Let those who contend for this humiliating doctrine, read its refutation in the history of the very man against whose insatiable thirst of dominion we are warned. The experience of desolated Spain, for the last fifteen years, is worth volumes. Did she find her repose and safety in subserviency to the will of that man? Had she boldly stood forth and repelled the first attempt to dictate to her councils, her monarch would not be now a miserable captive in Marseilles. Let us come home to our own history; it was not by submission that our fathers achieved our independence. The patriotic wisdom that placed you, Mr. Chairman, under that canopy, penetrated the designs of a corrupt ministry, and nobly fronted encroachment on its first appearance. It saw, beyond the petty taxes with which it commenced, a long train of oppressive measures, terminating in the total annihilation of liberty, and, contemptible as they were, it did not hesitate to resist them. Take the experience of the last four or five years, which he was sorry to say exhibited, in appearance, at least, a different kind of spirit. He did not wish to view the past, further than to guide us for the future. We were but yesterday contending for the indirect trade; the right to export to Europe the coffee and sugar of the West Indies. To-day we are asserting our claim to the direct trade; the right to export our cotton, tobacco, and other domestic produce, to market. Yield this point, and to-morrow intercourse between New York and New Orleans, between the planters on James river and Richmond, will be interdicted. For, sir, the career of encroachment is never arrested by submission. It will advance while there remains a single privilege on which it can operate. Gentlemen say, that this government is unfit for any war, but a war of invasion. What, is it not equivalent to invasion, if the mouths of our harbors and outlets are blocked up, and we are denied egress from our own waters? Or, when the burglar is at our door, shall we bravely sally forth and repel his felonious entrance, or meanly skulk within the cells of the castle?