comes from the Wabafh, the Miffiffippi, and Detroit, which makes it probable that, as foon as the feafon will admit, the favages will ruth down upon the defenceless frontiers, and deftroy their inhabitants He concluded by faying, that if war was declared, he would pledge himfelf that the people whom he reprefented would not be wanting in courage to find their quota of men, or in patriotifim to furnish their proportion of fupplies. Mr. WIDGERY. Mr. Speaker, on a motion to recommit the report of the committee of Ways and Means, I have not been able to difcover how the arguments, either of the gentleman from Virginia, or thofe in anfwer to him, by the gentleman from North Carolina, can apply to the queftion before the House. Sir, I am of opinion that if I had fuffered myfelf fo far to have wandered from the question, I fhould defervedly have heard from the chair. The queftion before the Houfe is not the repeal of the non-intercourfe, or whether we fhall fubmit to the edicts of Great Britain. It is, will the Houfe recommit the report for the purpofe of amending it? To this fubject I fhall confine my argument. I am in favor of recommitting the report, first to amend it as refpects the duty on imports. Many of thefe articles have already a duty of fifteen per cent. ad valorem; add to this one hundred per cent. and you will either prohibit them entirely, or you will give a bounty to fmugglers, which will deftroy the fair trader, as the fmugglers will always be able to underfell him, and thus will the fair trader, who withes to fupport the government, be obliged to give up his bufinefs, or be ruined. The tonnage duty is alfo too high. The former tonnage duty was about 50 cents on the veffels of foreigners, and 6 cents on our own veffels in foreign trade. The committee have added a little over one hundred per cent. to the tonnage of foreigners, and upwards of four hundred per cent. on our own tonnage. If the tonnage was not very much out of the way heretofore, the committee have reverfed the rule of all other nations. Great Britain has always encouraged her own merchantmen by making a great diftinction in favor of her own fhip-owners, between them and foreigners; fhe is the greatest commercial nation in the world, according to the report. Our veffels in foreign trade muft pay 31 cents per ton every time they enter, fo that a veffel of three hundred and thirty tons, if fhe enters three times, muft pay the government upwards of three hundred dollars a year over and above all her custom-houfe fees, and the hundred per cent. on the duties of her cargo. Why the committee fhould have added four times as much on tonnage as on merchandize, I am at a lofs to imagine, nor do I believe the chairman of the committee of Ways and Means can give any good or fatisfactory reafon for so doing. In the cafe of tonnage, it operates as a direct tax on the owner, becaufe while fhips are plenty laying by the wharves, no man will give one cent more on account of the tonnage. Sir, in the cafe of the falt tax, the mar itime and middle country pay the whole, the western fection pay nothing. There are 1,500,000 people exempt from this duty on falt, because they have plenty from the falt fprings. As this is a necessary of life on which the western fection of the Union pay nothing, they ought to be willing to pay an equivalent on fomething else. It is true, thefe gentlemen fay, they are willing to do their part in fupport of the war; yet when they are called on to augment the tax on whiskey, they fay their objection to that is the creation of excife officers, to which the people are very much opposed. Sir, there is a fall tax on the capacity of the ftill; let this duty be multiplied on the ftill until it will give about twelve and a half cents on each gallon, as near as can be computed, which may be diftilled in the courfe of the year. In that cafe, the fame perfons who may collect the tax on the capacity of the ftill, is new taxed, which does not exceed one cent and a third per gallon on the li quor, may collect it with as much eafe when' augmented, as they can if the amendment does not take place. This therefore will do away the difficulty of excife officers. I ask them to take but 12 1-2 cents per gallon on the fpirits, while in the maritime ftates we pay the duty propofed, fixty cents. This is a debt for which we are all alike liable. Surely, fir, the western gentlemen cannot think hard to pay but one fifth part as much as their friends in a different fection of the Union, when they confider that we pay 20 cents on falt from which they are exempt. Sir, the laft internal tax which was laid amounted to $939,533-Maffachufetts paid of that tax $232,566. According to the prefent fyftem, Maffachusetts will have to pay more than one-fourth of the internal tax, while the will not have more than one-ninth of the reprefentation. Augment the whifkey tax as I propofe, and you may do away your land tax altogether. There is in the United States diftilled from home materials about 24 millions of gallons of fpirits. This will give you 3,000,000 of dollars, which is about what is laid on the land.. A land tax is the laft tax which ought ever to be laid. Every kind of luxury ought to be taxed before the land. The gentlemen say they are at a great distance from market. Be it fo. Sir, the material from which the whiskey is chiefly diftilled, is Indian corn. The middle country raife of this article about 10 bufhels to the acre. The western country about 30 bushels to the acre, and with much lefs labor this article will give about two gallons to the bufhel; fo that the middle country can obtain about 20 gallons from one acre, while the western country will give 100 gallons, five times as much. This will more than pay for their extra diftance from market, in addition to which their liquor will bring them enough more at market, to pay for the trouble of transporting it. Sir, Maffachufetts will be willing to pay more than her part if neceflary in defence of the juft rights of the nation. But when a fyftem of taxa tion is brought forth, it ought to be fo modified as that each member of the union fhould pay its due proportion of fuch taxes It is faid, this report is a fyftem of compromife. Sir, I am not one of thofe humble imitators of any man, or body of men, who will, without investigation, tamely fubmit to any thing they may pleafe to lay before me, and vote it down as law. We are told that when the bill comes in will be the proper time to amend If the Houfe are determined not to recommit, I will help to vote the report through, but with the fame referve I made when I agreed to reconfider the vote which went against the falt, to vote against the bill of no amendment or modification takes place fo as to have a more equal bearing on the different fections of the Union. Debate on the Bill to authorize the Importation of Goods, Wares, MR. RHEA raving moved to ftrike out the firft fection of the bill Mr. LOWNDES affured the honorable gentleman from Tenneffee (Mr. Rhea) that the injunction which he had iffued againft long debates would not be difregarded by him. He would not complain of any reftriction which might be impofed on the length of his fpeech. But he regretted that the honorable gentleman fhould have thought it fair and decent to prevent by the motion which he had made, the production of those amendments which he knew to have been prepared; that he fhould have endeavored to direct the difcuffion of the bill not to the improved fhape in which the propofed amendments might present it, but to that, the deft êts of which were acknowledged, and would, perhaps, if the gentleman had permitted it, have been removed. Yet I believe, (faid Mr. L.) that the object of the honorable gentleman, however reasonable and candid it may be, will not be attained by the plan which he has adopted. In arguing that the firft lection of the bill ought not to be ftricken out, no rule of debate will be infringed by fhowing both the advantages which it may produce in its prefent form, and thofe which the intended amendments may give it. The bill as it ftands propofes to admit the importation of fuch articles of English production or manufacture as were purchased or contracted for by American citizers before the firft day of February, 1811. This diftinction, dependent on the date of purchafe or of contract, would not be practicable if it were juft,nor just though it were practicable. How could the time of purchase be afcertained? By inspection of the merchants' papers? You might as reafonably expect to ascertain it by inspection of the goods themselves. The honeft merchant indeed who has money iu England would not hinafelf inveftit in. goods which under this bill could not be imported into this coun. try without fraud. But his money would not be allowed to remain unproductive. If he could not ufe it, it would become (by the fale of his bills) the property of thofe who could. The full a mount of American property in England would still be imported; but imported not for the benefit of the confcientious merchant, but of the fraudulent fpeculator. It would be a trade in perjury. But if you could apply the diftinction without danger of being deceived in favor of thofe who purchafed English manufactures at a time when they say they knew not of any legal impediment to their importation, what is their claim of justice to this diftinction? They have exported the produce of your country, and obtained in exchange for it Englith manufactures, which to them must be altogether worthlefs, unless you permit their importation into America. But thofe who have not purchafed Englifh manufactures, who have exported the produce of your country and exchanged it for English paper, muft be equally deprived of an e. quivalent for what they have fold, if the importation of thofe articles of value which alone their paper can procure them be prohibited. If indeed the property which our merchants hold in the currency of England could be tranfinitted to this country, that which they hold in manufactures might be readily exchanged for the currency (although perhaps fome lofs would be incurred) and might alfo be tranfmitted. Both claffes of cafes then or neither deferve the interpofition of the Legislature, and the amendment which fhall place both upon a footing will probably be concurre in by those who think that in the expectation of war every facili ty fhould be afforded to the return of our property from abroad, and even by fuch gentlemen as believe that American property ought not in any cafe to be admitted into America if it conlift of articles" of the growth, produce or manufacture of England." The amendment of which I have fpoken will fubftitute for a condition of importation (the date of contracts in a foreign country) admitting of endlefs doubts and frauds, the fimple condition of arriving within a certain time (I fhall propofe the first of Auguft) at fome port of the United States. It will bring fairly before the House this question, Shall fuch citizens of the United States as may have property in the country with which we expect foon to be involved in war, be compelled to retain it there until war occur? Is it not the intereft of the country that all the property of its ciazens fhould be fecured? Is not national, the mere aggregate of individual wealth? And in the conteft in which we fhall be engaged, will there not be as large a demand upon the pecuniary refources as upon the military prowefs of the nation? An addi tion of 20 or 30 millions worth of articles of the firft utility to fuch as we now poffefs, an addition for which we fhall have to pay nothing, cannot be a matter of indifference to the Legiflature. The advantage, however, may be bought too dearly. It will be bought too dearly if it afford to the enemy greater relief than to us. I fhail enquire prefently into the effect of the measure upon England; but it feems impoffible to deny that it will be beneficial to America in its immediate refult. But this American property may be brought home in fomething elfe than Britifh manufactures. Why do not our merchants bring home fpecie? Simply I believe becaufe they cannot get it. If our merchants can procure fpecie for the amount of their property in England, the queftion is decided-The bill is unneceffary and improper; and the Houfe cannot too fcon reject it. All the information however which I have been able to obtain of the prefent fituation, of England, of her commercial relations with other states, of her bank paper, of the rarity of fpecie in her money circulation, tends to prove that the amount of American property there cannot be brought home in fpecie. The fcarcity of gold and filver has been acknowledged by the most authentic acts of the English government. In its correfpondence with Sir John Moore, during his Spanifh campaign, its inability to procure the amount of fpecie which the army required is explicitly declared. By what motive of paffion or of intereft, which can influence a cabinet, were not the Englith miniftry ftimulated to exertion on that occafion! Yet all their exertions and their power were unable to procure a quantity of fpecie greatly inferior to the amount of American property now in England. The documents which have been publifhed on the fubject of the expedition to Walcheren fhow that fpecie to the amount of a few hundred thoufand pounds only could then be procured by the government. Can you expect the American nierchants to be much more fuccefsful? The amount of our property now in England must be brought home in English manufactures, or not at all. Is it better that it fhould be fo brought home, or be loft to the individuals and the country at leaft for the duration of the war? Those who believe that the nation will not be benefitted by withdrawing from the hands of its enemy an amount of $20 or $30000,000, of which it muft otherwife lofe at leaft the ufe during the war, will probably believe too that the government will not be benefitted by an addition of 6 or 7 millions to the revenue of the year. I cannot adopt this theory, but I fhall not attempt to refute it. Whatever may be the advantages of the meafure to America, however, they must he removed if it will produce greater advantages to England. What are the advantages which it will afford to England? It is by the fale, it may be faid, of her manufactures in foreign countries, that England renders the world tributary to her induftry. But it will probably be granted, that this vent of her manufactures is advantageous to her only as it procures in exchange the productions of other countries. The exportation of English manufactures could be of no advantage to England if they were exported to be funk or captured and confifcated. An |