The quotation
discloses a truth too serious to be overlooked, and too mischievous
not to be remedied.
Among other circumstances which led them to this discovery none
could operate so effectually as the injudicious, uncandid and indecent
opposition made by sundry persons in a certain state, to the
recommendations of Congress last winter, for an import duty of five
per cent. It could not but explain to the British a weakness in the
national power of America, and encourage them to attempt
restrictions on her trade, which otherwise they would not have dared
to hazard. Neither is there any state in the union, whose policy was
more misdirected to its interest than the state I allude to, because
her principal support is the carrying trade, which Britain, induced by
the want of a well-centred power in the United States to protect and
secure, is now attempting to take away. It fortunately happened (and
to no state in the union more than the state in question) that the
terms of peace were agreed on before the opposition appeared,
otherwise, there cannot be a doubt, that if the same idea of the
diminished authority of America had occurred to them at that time as
has occurred to them since, but they would have made the same grasp at
the fisheries, as they have done at the carrying trade.
It is surprising that an authority which can be supported with so
much ease, and so little expense, and capable of such extensive
advantages to the country, should be cavilled at by those whose duty
it is to watch over it, and whose existence as a people depends upon
it.
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