Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/27

 HAYNE their eyes, and it was discovered that the war was declared from subserviency to France"; that Congress, and the executive, had sold themselves to Napoleon"; that Great Britain had, in fact, "done us no essential injury"; that she was "the bulwark of our religion"; that where "she took one of our ships, she pro- tected twenty"; and that if Great Britain had impressed a few of our seamen, it was because ' ' she could not distinguish them from her own. ' ' And so far did this spirit extend that a commit- tee of the Massachusetts Legislature actually fell to calculation, and discovered to their infi- nite satisfaction, but to the astonishment of all the world beside, that only eleven Massachusetts sailors had ever been impressed. Never shall I forget the appeals that had been made to the sympathies of the South, in behalf of the "thousands of impressed Americans" who had been torn from their families and friends, and "immured in the floating dungeons of Britain." The most touching pictures were drawn of the hard condition of the American sailor, ' ' treated like a slave, ' ' forced to fight the battles of his enemy, "lashed to the mast, to be shot at like a dog." But, sir, the very moment we had taken up arms in their defense, it was discovered that all these were mere "fictions of the brain"; and that the whole number in the State of Massachusetts was but eleven ; and that even these had been "taken by mistake." Won- derful discovery! The secretary of state had IX— 2 17