Page:Speech of Mr. Chas. Hudson, of Mass., on the Three Million Appropriation Bill - delivered in the House of Representatives of the U.S., Feb. 13, 1847 (IA speechofmrchashu00hudsrich).pdf/9

 and exposed, under the severities of their discipline, to be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk their lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy instruments of taking away those of their own brethren.

"British cruisers have been in the practice also of violating the rights and peace of our coasts. They hover over and harass our entering and departing commerce. To the most insulting pretensions they have added the most lawless proceedings in our very harbors, and have wantonly spilt American blood within the sanctuary of our territorial jurisdiction.

"Under pretended blockades, without the presence of an adequate force, and sometimes without the practicability of applying one, our commerce has been plundered in every sea, the great staples of our country have been cut off from their legitimate markets, and a destructive blow aimed at our agricultural and maritime interests.

"It has come into proof, that, at the very moment when the public minister (of Great Britain) was holding the language of friendship, and inspiring confidence in the sincerity of a negotiation with which he was charged, a secret agent of his government was employed in intrigues, having for their object a subversion of our Government, and a dismemberment of our happy Union."

Mr. Calhoun, the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, which recommended the resort to arms in 1812, sets forth our grievances some what in detail. After giving a brief account of the aggressions committed upon our commerce by the government of Great Britain, and persisted in for a series of years, the committee say:

These were among the causes of the war of 1812, as detailed by the President of the United States and the chairman of the Committee .of Foreign Affairs, in the better days of the Republic, when reliance could safely be placed upon the statements of those high functionaries. And how will those causes compare with the true causes of the war in which we are now engaged? In their causes nothing can be more dissimilar. The one was declared by Congress, the other commenced by the President; the former was declared for just causes, the latter for no adequate cause what-