XLII.

Dec.

CHAP. cated the invasion and conquest of Canada, and the reception of her inhabitants as members of the confederacy, 1811. in order to preserve the equilibrium of the government. "When Louisiana," said he, "will be fully peopled, the Northern States will lose their power; they will be at the discretion of others; they can be depressed at pleasure." Therefore he was not only in favor of admitting Canada, but also Florida.

John Randolph, of Virginia, in that sarcastic manner peculiar to himself, characterized the embargo and nonimportation acts as most impolitic and ruinous measures -they had "knocked down the price of cotton to seven cents and tobacco to nothing," while they had increased the price of every article of first necessity three or four hundred per cent. This is the condition into which we have brought ourselves by our want of wisdom. But is war the true remedy; who will profit by it? Speculators, commissioners and contractors. Who must suffer by it? The people. It is their blood, their taxes, that must flow to support it. Will you plunge the nation into war, because you have passed a foolish and ruinous law, and are ashamed to repeal it?

He indignantly repelled the charge of British attachment made against those who were not willing to rush into war with England. " "Strange," said he, "that we have no objection to any other people or government, civilized or savage; we find no difficulty in maintaining relations of peace and amity with the Autocrat of all the Russias; with the Dey of Algiers and his divan of pirates, or Little Turtle of the Miamis, barbarians and savages, Turks and infidels of every clime and color, with them we can trade and treat. But name England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against her; against those whose blood runs in our veins, in common with whom we claim Shakspeare and Milton, Newton and Locke, Sidney and Chatham, as brethren. Her form of