THE

RIGHT AND PRACTICE

-OF

IMPRESSMENT,

AS CONCERNING

GREAT BRITAIN AND AMERICA,

CONSIDERED.

LONDON.

THE

RIGHT AND PRACTICE,

&c.

JUST at the moment when Buonaparte was setting out on his invasion of Russia, the government of the United States of America declared war against Great Britain.

Mr. Madison did not state, in his Manifesto, that his hostility against the only ally of Russia was intended as a diversion in favor of Buonaparte. He did not state that he considered this an auspicious juncture for attempting the conquest of Canada, when the British nation was putting forth all her strength, and exhausting, with a boundless, but wise, liberality, all her resources in the last grand struggle for European liberty; while her armies were engaged in the protection of Lisbon and Cadiz, and her navies co-operating in the defence of Dantzig and Riga.

But, if the hopes of assisting France and of conquering Canada did not actuate Mr. Madison, it is hard to discover what his motives were.

All the pretexts for hostilities, which he had successively advanced, successively failed him; and he was nearly in the condition of being the aggressor in a war of which all the ostensible grounds were removed, and of which the real cause could not be avowed; when a fresh pretence was advanced-one not thought of as a cause of war in the earlier periods of the discussion, and only produced in the hour of his necessity, when something was to be said, and he had nothing else to say.

This was the question of IMPRESSMENT; and though I cannot

for a moment, believe that this was originally any other than a mere pretence for the war, yet, as it is now the only cause that survives (Buonaparte has vanished, and Canada is probably saved), and as much misunderstanding and a great deal of misrepresentation exist on the subject, and as I have had practical opportunities of considering it more nearly than the generality of my countrymen, I have thought it might not be useless to collect into one view what appears to me to be on this subject the true state of the case between Great Britain and America.

The complaint of the American government is two-fold :

1. It complains of the impressment of British subjects from its vessels.

2. It complains that, under pretence of impressing British subjects, American seamen are forcibly taken or detained.

The first of these complaints involves the question of the RIGHT of search and impressment from neutral ships in general. The second, that of the PRACTICE, as it affects America.

I shall therefore consider the subject under these two heads; well satisfied that I shall be able to show the first complaint to be utterly unfounded, and the second to be grossly exaggerated; and that, on the whole, there is not only no justifiable cause for war (as arising out of this question, at least) on the part of America; but that, on the contrary, it will be found, on reference to the acknowledged laws and customs of civilised nations, that Great Britain is, of the two parties, infinitely the most aggrieved; that American subjects may be exposed to inconveniencies; but that the British empire suffers actual and serious injury.

I. Right of Impressment.

Great Britain, being engaged in war, claims a right to the services of all her natural-born subjects; and, when she finds them endeavouring to neutralise and shelter themselves under a foreign flag, she compels their services exactly on the same principle that she would do if the men were found in England, or in British ships.

This right America seems (for her language is not very explicit) to deny on two grounds.

§ 1. On an assertion of the right of a natural-born subject of one state to adopt, and naturalise himself in, another; and to transfer his allegiance to the latter, to the exclusion of the former.

§ 2. On the general objection to the search of neutral ships by a belligerent.

Upon the principles of this asserted right, and this double objection, a few observations (however obvious to every man conversant with public law) will be a proper introduction to a more detailed consideration of the question.

1. "Society," say the writers on public law," is the union of individuals, combined for mutual defence and safety. Each individual is bound to contribute his personal means to the common strength of the society or nation; and the nation is bound to preserve itself, and, as a means of self-preservation, all its members."

"A nation," says Vattel," owes this to itself, since the loss of one of its members weakens it, and is injurious to its preser

vation."

This is, in short, the law of nature and of nations on the subject.

The municipal laws of all European countries are founded upon the same principle (generally expressed, but always implied), that the sovereign authority of a state has a right to the military services of all its subjects; and the whole system of legal polity throughout the great European family attests, in its various details, the universality and justice of this principle.

But this duty of allegiance is not only universal, or applicable to every subject, but is indefeasible, and cannot be put off. It is an engagement contracted by the citizen at his birth, and co-existent with his life; for, if it were otherwise, if every individual were to have the power of transferring his allegiance at his own will and pleasure,-the greatest crime known to the law of all countries, namely, HIGH TREASON, would become a safe and profitable practice. If it were lawful to change a man's allegiance once, it would be lawful to change it as often as the individual pleased from England to America, and from America back again to England. Men would change their national character to evade the requisitions made on their personal or pecuniary service. Deserters from the cause of their country would be merely neutralized citizens; and deserters to the enemy, citizens who had transferred their allegiance; the punishment of offences against the

'The duty which a subject owes to the state is, I need scarcely observe, not confined to military service; but as this most prominent of his active duties applies especially to my subject, I have referred, here and in subsequent passages, to it alone.-I am aware, that, if I were entering into a full defence of the doctrine of natural allegiance, I should, by stating the value of the civil and peaceful services of citizens, strengthen very much the claim of the native country, and the argument for my side of the question; but, for a sketch of the subject (I profess here to give no more), what I have said in the text appears sufficient.

laws of God, and of the land, would be evaded by the transfer of the allegiance of the offender, and the whole frame and state of society would be disordered and subverted.

The doctrine which leads to these monstrous conclusions, and which no nation of the old world ever thought of, it remained for America to advance.

It may be worth while to enquire, very shortly, why, of all human societies, the United States alone should have fallen into this opinion?

It is from inexperience. America is a young nation, and her institutions are still younger; they have been formed on speculative notions of the individual independence and inherent rights of man, without much reference to the experience of the ancient modes of government, or the social principle which combines and merges the rights of individual man in the duties of society.

The experience of Europe was rejected in America, as the result of prejudices unfavorable to liberty; and the local position and circumstances of the United States have prevented their yet feeling, in any pressing degree, the inconveniences to which the looseness of their notions of public law is likely to expose them hereafter.

If their present federal union should be dissolved, and adjoining states should become independent of one another; or whenever a denser population of the nations on their frontier shall place them in the situation in which European states now are; it may be safely predicted that they will then be obliged to adopt the European system of public law, and to seek in its principles the solution of those difficult questions which cannot fail to arise between neighbouring and civilized states.

There are, further, in the American constitution itself, circumstances which must tend to render that government less alive to the doctrine of indefeasible allegiance..

This doctrine is founded, as I have shown, in the principle, that the state has a natural right to the military service of its subjects.' This, which is, if I may use the expression, the common law of Europe, is not law in America; there is in their constitution no such power over the services of citizens; there are no military tenures, no rights of service, and no power of impressment.

They would willingly, therefore, put aside a principle from which they can at present derive no advantage; and the time to which I have alluded, when the pressure of encroaching neighbours and powerful rivals shall make them feel the want of a principle