The Message was read, and ordered to lie for consideration.
TUESDAY, December 10.
ANDREW MOORE, from the State of Virginia, attended.
MONDAY, December 16.
GEORGE CLINTON, Vice President of the United States and President of the
Senate, attended.
JOHN SMITH, from the State of Ohio, also attended.
FRIDAY, December 20.
JOHN SMITH, from the State of New York, attended.
_Trade with St. Domingo._
Agreeably to notice given on the 18th instant, Mr. LOGAN asked leave to
bring in a bill to suspend the commercial intercourse between the United
States of America and the French island of St. Domingo.
Mr. L. observed that the attention of Congress had been called to this
subject by the President of the United States, at the commencement of the
last session of Congress, in the following words:
“While noticing the irregularities committed on the ocean by
others, those on our own part should not be omitted, nor left
unprovided for. Complaints have been received, that persons
residing within the United States have taken on themselves to
arm merchant vessels, and to force a commerce into certain
ports and countries in defiance of the laws of those countries.
That individuals should undertake to wage private war,
independently of the authority of their country, cannot be
permitted in a well-ordered society. Its tendency to produce
aggressions on the laws and rights of other nations, and to
endanger the peace of our own, is so obvious, that I doubt
not you will adopt measures for restraining it effectually in
future.”
Mr. L. observed that the commerce as carried on by the citizens of the
United States is not only a violation of the law of nations, which the
United States as an independent nation is bound to obey, but is in
direct violation of a treaty made in 1800, between the United States
and France--a treaty on the most liberal principles as to the rights of
neutrals, and highly advantageous and honorable to both nations.
To remedy the evils complained of, a law was enacted during the last
session of Congress to regulate the clearance of armed merchant vessels;
this act has operated as a deception, as, since the publication of the
law, the trade with St. Domingo has been carried on to as great if not
greater extent than formerly. The only merit of the arming law is, that
in a national view it removes the responsibility from the individual who
may be engaged in the trade, to the Government by which it is authorized.
Mr. ADAMS.--Mr. President: Had the gentleman who asks leave to introduce
this bill, assigned any new reasons as the foundation of his motion,
whatever my opinion might have been upon their merits, I should not
think it proper to combat them at this time; but the object of the bill
is so simple, that its details are immaterial. Its purpose is totally
to prohibit a branch of our commerce, which at the last session of the
Legislature was proved to be of great importance to the country. Unless,
therefore, a majority of the Senate should be of opinion that the bill
ought to pass, it appears to me that the present is the stage at which
it ought to be arrested: since the mere discussion of the question, and
pendency of the measure before Congress, may have an unfavorable effect
upon the commercial interest, or at least injuriously affect individual
merchants, in the course of their affairs.
Mr. JACKSON seconded Mr. LOGAN’s motion, and in reply to Mr. ADAMS said,
that he wished Mr. LOGAN to make it an annual motion, as Mr. Sawbridge
had, in the Parliament of England, to reduce septennial Parliaments, but
with more effect, until the trade so highly dishonorable to national
character was annihilated. As to Mr. ADAMS’s observations that the bill
was not allowed to be brought in last session, and that he had heard no
new arguments, he would answer the gentleman by asking what new arguments
had been advanced on the bill to prohibit the importation of slaves,
when leave was given two days since to bring in the bill, and the same
arguments had been rung in our ears by Quakers and others, ever since the
constitution had been in operation, and not a new one had been produced.
He said that the day would come when this dishonorable traffic would
be rued by the United States; that day must arrive when a general peace
would take place, when the present hostilities must cease; that it must
and would then become the interest of every nation of Europe, having
colonies in the West Indies, to extirpate this horde or ship them off
to some other place. That the United States, by affording them succor,
arms, ammunition, and provisions, must be considered by them as their
allies--their supporters and their protectors. That he believed the
United States would be viewed in this light by the French Government and
by themselves, and that they would demand and expect us to grant them
an asylum as allies and protectors, and send them to our coast. This
was no novelty; and he had received information from a late celebrated
French General, given in a public company at the city of Washington where
he boarded, and the General was one who dined there, that arrangements
had been made, if General Le Clerc had been victorious, to send those
brigands to the Southern States. This was a melancholy subject for South
Carolina and Georgia, and one of those brigands introduced into the
Southern States was worse than a hundred importations of blacks from
Africa, and more dangerous to the United States.
Mr. S. SMITH.--We are told that a celebrated French General, since here,
has said, that had General Le Clerc succeeded, he meant to have landed
all the blacks of St. Domingo on our southern shores. This may be--but,
sir, it is not probable. If such, however, had been his intention, it
could not have arisen from resentment on account of our commerce, for
we had been of the greatest utility to him and his army, and had then
carried on no commerce that was not fully sanctioned by France. Nay, I
might say, that owing to the supplies from the United States, the colony
of St. Domingo had been preserved to the mother country until the arrival
of General Le Clerc. Unless, Mr. President, the honorable mover shall
produce some new information, I shall be under the necessity of voting
against leave to bring in this bill.
Mr. MITCHILL, in a speech of considerable length and detail, stated his
objections to giving leave.
During the last session of Congress, the whole of the intercourse with
St. Domingo had undergone a full investigation. While the bill regulating
the clearance of armed merchant vessels was under discussion, that
part of our foreign commerce had been minutely examined. It would be
remembered that the bill had been committed, recommitted, amended, and
modified, with the utmost labor and skill. Besides the talents which
the Senate afforded, all the sources of Executive information had been
drained, to aid their researches. And the letters of the British and
French Ministers, complaining of the conduct of our merchants in forcing
this trade, were opened to our view. The crude material of the bill had
been hammered at and worked upon so elaborately, as to have at last
received the complete burnish of a law. With all the knowledge that could
be derived from so many quarters, the bill was at length passed to check
the violence of our navigators, and to restrain the adventurous zeal of
our merchants. The provisions of this law were such as it was deemed just
and proper that a neutral nation should take. And this was a liberal
condescension to the wishes of the two great maritime and belligerent
powers, without forgetting the respect that we owed to our own. With both
these he wished to cultivate peace and good understanding; but to neither
of them would he consent to yield any portion of our neutral and national
rights.
The difficulties exhibited in the ministerial correspondence, Mr. M.
said, were thus removed. With a promptitude that deserved to be admired,
Congress interposed its authority, for the purpose at once of doing
justice to our neighbors, regulating our commerce, and tranquillizing
the Mexican seas. With these salutary provisions, he believed the two
complaining nations had been satisfied. At least we had done so much
that they ought in all reason to be content. Congress had already
manifested a due regard to all that France and Great Britain had offered
upon the branch of West Indian commerce, and in the true spirit of good
neighborhood, and correct principle, had modified and restricted the
intercourse with Hayti. And so fully did the Europeans seem to acquiesce
in our conduct, that he had not heard any further remonstrances made by
either of them about it. He thought the observations of the gentleman
from Massachusetts (Mr. ADAMS) very much in point. Under a conviction
that we had done as much as public faith and national honor required, he
had given his vote against the introduction of a similar bill during the
last session. Nothing had occurred from that time to this day, to alter
the circumstances of the case, or to make it necessary for him to change
his conduct.
For my own part, said Mr. M., I think the St. Domingo commerce is no
great thing in itself. We might do exceedingly well without it; and I am
very far from approving the means by which it has been carried on; but
I dislike the idea of forbidding it, at the mandate of a foreign power.
Like our Revolutionary patriots, let us put our foot here, and hence
refuse to budge. It is not for us to legislate at the nod or bidding of
any nation. I hope we understand our business better than to register
edicts for them; while we pay due respect to others, it becomes us also
to respect ourselves. The precedent is a dangerous one. If we agree to
interdict this intercourse, we may, at the next session, be informed
that we ought to withdraw from some other important port or region. When
we are found to be so complying to one nation, we shall be subjected to
a like request or menace from another, until, sir, our flag shall be
furled in one foreign port after another, and nothing be left us but the
coasting trade at home. The sad consequences have been ably portrayed by
the gentleman from Maryland, (Mr. SAMUEL SMITH.)
Mr. HILLHOUSE said, he hoped the question would be taken by yeas and
nays, because he confidently expected there would be a great majority
of the Senate opposed to giving leave to bring in the bill, for he
considered the measure not only as improper, but as ill-timed.
The gentleman from Georgia has told us that the conflict in St. Domingo
is that of masters attempting to reclaim their slaves, and that if the
United States suffer the trade to be carried on, we shall be considered
as aiding and upholding those slaves, and give offence to France. And
that when peace shall take place in Europe, the French will transport
those negroes by thousands to the shores of South Carolina and Georgia,
to the endangering the lives of the citizens of those States. This Mr. H.
considered as a bugbear, with which we ought not to be frightened, for,
as to the warfare in St. Domingo being a mere conflict between master
and slave, it will be well remembered that the French Republic long ago
liberated all the slaves in that island, and declared them free. As to
the citizens of the United States carrying arms and military stores to
the enemies of France, the law of nations has declared the penalty,
which is a forfeiture of the property, and the United States can in no
way be implicated thereby. And as to France landing those negroes on our
shores, he said there was power, and he believed there would be found a
disposition in the people of the United States to repel such an insult;
for if we cannot prevent France or any other power from invading our
territory and insulting our national honor, by landing their outcasts
upon our shores, we shall no longer deserve the name of an independent
nation.
Mr. JACKSON, in reply to Mr. SMITH and Mr. MITCHILL, confessed he had
seen no official document, other than what the honorable mover had
read, but he had seen at Newcastle, in Delaware, a whole fleet bound
to St. Domingo, to force a trade which even captains of vessels, true
Americans, cried shame on. That the honorable gentleman had called out,
why had not the mover brought forward a resolution against Britain or
some other power who had committed depredations on our commerce! Mr. J.
said he wished to begin here, by preventing our own merchants from doing
injury to other nations, and then to strike at those who insulted us. He
for himself was prepared and willing to attack the first power who had
insulted us with far more superior weapons than arming our ships. He was
an agricultural man, and would suffer with the flour-makers; but he would
call on the honorable gentleman either from Maryland, from New York, from
Massachusetts, or Connecticut, to strike at Great Britain or any other
nation who had injured us, by a resolution of prohibition of trade or
intercourse, and he was the man who would second it and keep it on till
the injuring nation should cry _peccavi_--keep it on one twelvemonth,
and you would see them all at your feet. Look at the Legislature of
Jamaica petitioning their Governor from time to time for American
intercourse. Look at Trinidad, the same, in a state of famine. Sir, we
have no favors to ask the nations of the earth; they must ask them of us,
or their West India colonies must starve.
That, however, with respect to documents, he would inform the gentleman
from Maryland, that he had seen, though not official, a letter from
General Ferrand, Governor of St. Domingo, and which was published in all
the principal newspapers of the United States, complaining to the French
Government on this subject, and laying all the blame to the American
Government, if not in direct, in the most severe indirect terms. That as
to the total separation of the self-created Emperor and nation of Hayti,
and its independence of the parent country, and under which gentlemen
declared our rights of trade founded on the laws of nations--the late
attack on that General by the Emperor proved it did not exist; he was
defeated, his army scattered and driven to the mountains; that Ferrand
held the island as French Governor for the French nation, and the
separation was not such as to warrant the arguments used for a right
to trade. It would be a fatal argument used against us as respected
our Southern States by other powers. On the same grounds, a parcel of
runaways and outcasts from South Carolina and Georgia, to the amount
of some hundreds, now collected on or near the Okefonokee[28] swamp in
Georgia, might be termed an independent society; or if an insurrection
took place in those States, the rebellious horde, on creating an emperor,
be supplied with arms and ammunition, as a separate and independent
nation. This, as the honorable gentleman from Connecticut had been
pleased to term his fears bugbears, might be no bugbear to him, safe and
remote from the scene of action, near New Haven; but it was a serious
bugbear to him, and would be to the whole southern country, where the
horrid scenes of that island would be reacted, their property destroyed,
and their families massacred.
After a few replicatory remarks from Mr. LOGAN, the consideration of the
subject was postponed to Monday.
TUESDAY, January 7, 1806.
JAMES TURNER, appointed a Senator by the Legislature of the State of
North Carolina, for the term of six years, from the third of March, 1805,
produced his credentials, which were read, and the oath prescribed by law
having been administered, he took his seat in the Senate.
MONDAY, January 13.
_Hamet Caramalli, ex-Bashaw of Tripoli._
The following Message was received from the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES:
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States:_
I lay before Congress the application of Hamet Caramalli, elder
brother of the reigning Bashaw of Tripoli, soliciting from the
United States attention to his services and sufferings in the
late war against that State. And, in order to possess them of
the ground on which that application stands, the facts shall be
stated according to the views and information of the Executive.
During the war with Tripoli, it was suggested that Hamet
Caramalli, elder brother of the reigning Bashaw, and driven by
him from his throne, meditated the recovery of his inheritance,
and that a concert of action with us was desirable to him.
We considered that concerted operations by those who have a
common enemy were entirely justifiable, and might produce
effects favorable to both without binding either to guarantee
the objects of the other. But the distance of the scene, the
difficulties of communication, and the uncertainty of our
information, inducing the less confidence in the measure, it
was committed to our agents as one which might be resorted to,
if it promised to promote our success.
Mr. Eaton, however, (our late Consul,) on his return from the
Mediterranean, possessing personal knowledge of the scene,
and having confidence in the effect of a joint operation, we
authorized Commodore Barron, then proceeding with his squadron,
to enter into an understanding with Hamet, if he should deem it
useful; and as it was represented that he would need some aids
of arms and ammunition, and even of money, he was authorized to
furnish them to a moderate extent, according to the prospect
of utility to be expected from it. In order to avail him of
the advantages of Mr. Eaton’s knowledge of circumstances,
an occasional employment was provided for the latter as an
agent for the Navy in that sea. Our expectation was, that
an intercourse should be kept up between the ex-Bashaw and
the Commodore, that while the former moved on by land, our
squadron should proceed with equal pace, so as to arrive at
their destination together, and to attack the common enemy by
land and sea at the same time. The instructions of June 6th to
Commodore Barron show that a co-operation only was intended,
and by no means a union of our object with the fortune of
the ex-Bashaw; and the Commodore’s letters of March 22d and
May 19th, prove that he had the most correct idea of our
intentions. His verbal instructions, indeed, to Mr. Eaton and
Captain Hull, if the expressions are accurately committed to
writing by those gentlemen, do not limit the extent of his
co-operation as rigorously as he probably intended; but it is
certain, from the ex-Bashaw’s letter of January 3d, written
when he was proceeding to join Mr. Eaton, and in which he says,
“your operations should be carried on by sea, mine by land,”
that he left the position in which he was, with a proper idea
of the nature of the co-operation. If Mr. Eaton’s subsequent
convention should appear to bring forward other objects, his
letter of April 29th and May 1st, views this convention but
as provisional; the second article, as he expressly states,
guarding it against any ill effect, and his letter of June
30th confirms this construction.
In the event it was found, that, after placing the ex-Bashaw
in possession of Derne, one of the most important cities and
provinces of the country, where he had resided himself as
governor, he was totally unable to command any resources, or
to bear any part in co-operation with us. This hope was then
at an end, and we certainly had never contemplated, nor were
we prepared to land an army of our own, or to raise, pay, or
subsist, an army of Arabs to march from Derne to Tripoli, and
to carry on a land war at such a distance from our resources.
Our means and our authority were merely naval, and that such
were the expectations of Hamet, his letter of June 29th is an
unequivocal acknowledgment. While, therefore, an impression
from the capture of Derne might still operate at Tripoli, and
an attack on that place from our squadron was daily expected,
Colonel Lear thought it the best moment to listen to overtures
of peace, then made by the Bashaw. He did so, and while urging
provisions for the United States, he paid attention also to the
interests of Hamet, but was able to effect nothing more than to
engage the restitution of his family, and even the persevering
in this demand, suspended for some time the conclusion of the
treaty.
In operations at such distance, it becomes necessary to leave
much to the discretion of the agents employed, but events may
still turn up beyond the limits of that discretion. Unable in
such a case to consult his government, a zealous citizen will
act as he believes that would direct him, were it apprised of
the circumstances, and will take on himself the responsibility.
In all these cases the purity and patriotism of the motives
should shield the agent from blame, and even secure a sanction
where the error is not too injurious. Should it be thought by
any, that the verbal instructions said to have been given by
Commodore Barron to Mr. Eaton amount to a stipulation that
the United States should place Hamet Caramalli on the throne
of Tripoli, a stipulation so entirely unauthorized, so far
beyond our views, and so onerous, could not be sanctioned by
our Government, or should Hamet Caramalli, contrary to the
evidence of his letters of January 3d and June 29th, be thought
to have left the position which he now seems to regret, under
a mistaken expectation that we were at all events to place him
on his throne, on an appeal to the liberality of the nation,
something equivalent to the replacing him in his former
situation might be worthy its consideration.
A nation, by establishing a character of liberality and
magnanimity, gains in the friendship and respect of others more
than the worth of mere money. This appeal is now made by Hamet
Caramalli to the United States. The ground he has taken being
different, not only from our views, but from those expressed
by himself on former occasions, Mr. Eaton was desired to state
whether any verbal communications passed from him to Hamet,
which had varied what he saw in writing. His answer of December
5th, is herewith transmitted, and has rendered it still
more necessary, that, in presenting to the Legislature the
application of Hamet, I should present them at the same time an
exact statement of the views and proceedings of the Executive,
through this whole business, that they may clearly understand
the ground on which we are placed. It is accompanied by all
the papers which bear any relation to the principles of the
co-operation, and which can inform their judgment in deciding
on the application of Hamet Caramalli.