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TWO LETTERS 
 
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 PUBLIC SUBJECTS. 
 
 RICHARD RUSH, 
 
 OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY TRESCOT, 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 L. R. BAILEY, PITINTJER 
 July, 1851. 
 
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 1 
 
 '1^^'' 
 
 [Persons who have seen these Letters in Manuscript, 
 have thought that they would be read with interest by more 
 than could have an opportunity of seeing them in manu- 
 script. They are printed for private distribution, and it is 
 proper to say that Mr. Trescot has had no agency in their 
 appearance in this form, though a hope is indulged that he 
 will not object to it ; the less, as his own excellent produc- 
 tion to which they refer in general terms, is in print.] 
 
Sydenham, near Philadelphia, i 
 March 31, 1851. S 
 
 MY DEAR SIR I 
 
 Your favor of the 23d would have 
 been sooner acknowledged, but that the season 
 was upon us here when those whose home is 
 on a few acres in the country, are apt to be 
 called off by their small rural occupations. 
 This was my case when your letter got to 
 hand, but I now find myself at leisure to write 
 to you. 
 
 The pamphlet you were so good as to send 
 me, entitled '*A few thoughts on the Foreign 
 Policy of the United States," written in '49, 
 and printed for private distribution, came with 
 your letter, and it is with peculiar interest that 
 I have read it. It takes liberal, enlarged and 
 statesmanlike views of this constantly expand- 
 ing field of our public affairs, and some of them 
 are very striking by the independent turn of 
 thought they exhibit. It is so I regard the 
 production. Not confining myself to its mere 
 acknowledgment, I will, with your permission, 
 venture to go a little into some of its points. 
 
The subject at any rate offers some variety, 
 from the discussions which have been so 
 largely absorbing us all of late. 
 
 Taking up, for this occasion, only one of 
 your points, I must say, that the manner 
 in which you unfold the policy of har- 
 mony between ourselves and England, and 
 even concerted movements if necessary, me- 
 rits, in my opinion, much attention. The 
 principle of it is not new with us, but 
 has been acted upon, and usefully, in a 
 memorable instance, to which I will refer be- 
 fore concluding. The objects, time and man- 
 ner of applying such a policy, would always 
 be under the safeguard of our own approval. 
 It would therefore be free from danger; and I 
 can conceive of conjunc-tures when its applica- 
 tion might give hope of advantage to both 
 countries, if not of being useful to other coun- 
 tries. We have arrived at a point in time 
 when the magnitude and quick succession of 
 new events, arrest the attention of all. New 
 developments among nations, and new geogra- 
 phical relations opening between oceans and 
 continents, are not simply extraordinary, but 
 must become in many respects revolutionizing 
 upon the intercourse, interests and opinions of 
 
5 
 
 mankind. Vast changes, at hand, must neces- 
 sarily affect some of the rules of our political 
 conduct. Sooner or later, we shall have to 
 review former opinions. We are part and par- 
 cel of Christendom, and it is no longer possible 
 that a great nation like this can be wholly de- 
 tached from its movements, lest we should get 
 into " entanHinor alliances." This was a wise 
 rule when we would have been the weaker 
 party, perfectly wise. Then, concerted move- 
 ments of any description might have become 
 entangling to us. Amidst the agitations of the 
 present and uncertainties of the future in Eu- 
 rope, where else can w^e so well look as to 
 England for national characteristics interme- 
 diate between arbitrary systems of govern- 
 ment on one side, and communism or socialism 
 seeking to ally itself with power, on the other ? 
 What other nation is so near to us in the great 
 attributes of national and individual freedom, 
 or runs so parallel with us in the prosperity 
 resulting from both ? Certainly no other. 
 
 As to mutual interests, I imagine that our 
 dealings with Britain and her dominions ex- 
 ceed considerably, in amount and value, those 
 we maintain with all the rest of the world put 
 together, France and her dependencies in- 
 cluded, though I have not examined the latest 
 
statistical reports. The commercial interest 
 has become a recognised element in the calcu- 
 lations of nations. Great Britain and the 
 United States are the representatives of that 
 mighty influence, becoming still mightier as it 
 more and more sweeps away the small rem- 
 nants of feudal influence. Why therefore 
 should not two such nations, the one confess- 
 edly foremost on the American continent, the 
 other actually so (of all European nations) on 
 the Asiatic continent, together discuss and if 
 possible together arrange by joint counsels and 
 influence, if seen to be reasonable, international 
 intercourse generally, and most especially as 
 bearing on international commercial inter- 
 course ; discuss them not like advocates press- 
 ing logic to its limits in the construction of 
 technical advantage, but like great umpires, 
 conscious of mutual strength as of mutual in- 
 rest? One of your remarks assures me that 
 you will confirm this sentiment. Long ago 
 has public wisdom taught, that the prosperity 
 of nations is linked together, each being apt to 
 prosper the more as all prosper. In concerted 
 operations with England, it might fall to our 
 lot to be auxiliary to the interests of a weak 
 party for the common benefit. 
 
 But, my dear sir, neither of us perhaps 
 
would find the predominating numbers of our 
 countrymen prepared at this juncture to look 
 with favorable first impressions on the policy 
 you suggest and so well explain, although I 
 listen favorably to it. We have become too 
 powerful. So at first it would probably be 
 thought. Through our freedom, industry, 
 boundless command of fertile lands, and, 
 crowning all, the happy adaptation of our in- 
 stitutions as they now exist and have ever ex- 
 isted, south and north, to the character, habits, 
 interests and wants of our whole people ; 
 through these, as the great impelling causes 
 for drawing out an exuberant prosperity, our 
 population, riches and power have been aug- 
 mented rapidly and prodigiously. It would 
 be nothing strange, but rather a little excus- 
 able, if it produced in us moments of patriotic 
 intoxication. If our increase in the past has 
 been prodigious, it baffles calculation in the 
 future. It is in vain that we exaofoferate ; for, 
 as was said of us when British colonies, while 
 the dispute goes on, the exaggeration ends. 
 The facts get up to it. Of our present power 
 we are naturally proud, and it has increased 
 proportionably, possibly in a degree beyond 
 that, our confidence in ourselves. England is 
 powerful too, but we think her less so than 
 
she is. These twofold considerations render 
 it unlikely that we would be willing at pre- 
 sent to share a policy with her aiming to coun- 
 teract influences among any of the great con- 
 tinental powers of Europe, however far they 
 might stretch absolutism on the one hand, or 
 run into new modes of agrarianism on the 
 other ; or to concert with her, measures for any 
 other purposes. 
 
 So long also have we been accustomed to 
 regard England with suspicion, and to look to 
 France as our true connexion in the other 
 hemisphere, if any we are to have, that these 
 feelings have become political habits with us. 
 We should scarcely know how to change 
 them. New phases in the political horizon, 
 some visible, others approaching, to recom- 
 mend to our dispassionate consideration new 
 and different feelings, might not at -first be 
 seen. We remain in the beaten track, not 
 rousing ourselves out of it. An impediment 
 more powerful is to be taken into the account. 
 It is the more liable to mislead, because sooth- 
 ing to our strongest national feelings. We are 
 beginning to count upon our own supremacy 
 on the water. Our thoughts lift themselves 
 up to supremacy in other things sooner, it may 
 be, than we shall acquire it absolutely, in all 
 
things, even upon this continent and its ad- 
 juncts. In these miraculous days of steam, 
 and electricity, and material advancement 
 otherwise, in ways never expected or dreamed 
 of, "progress" is not confined to ourselves, 
 amazing as ours has been. Other nations have 
 caught its spirit. Especially is England im- 
 bued with it; and, in conjunction with the in- 
 creasing liberality of her legislation and saga- 
 city of her policy, is making full profit of it in 
 carrying forward her resources and strengthen- 
 ing her dominion at home and abroad. She 
 sees what the age is doing, and is harnessed for 
 the race. She bounds forward in spite of all 
 supposed or real drawbacks upon her. In some 
 things she leads; as in establishing a great 
 system of ocean steamers, suited to commerce 
 and war, which we, following, are surpassing; 
 and in cheap postage, which we have copied, 
 and will also improve upon I hope. I do not 
 mention other things ; but all w^ho watch what 
 she is about, may perceive that she is vigor- 
 ously alive to the new age with all its requisi- 
 tions upon enterprising and energetic nations. 
 She knows also that mere numbers, do not al- 
 ways constitute the sole element in national 
 strength any more than in national wisdom. 
 Moreover, the opinion spreads among us 
 
10 
 
 since our power became manifest, that it is 
 now more than ever our allotted destiny, 
 through the overshadowing^ influences of our 
 example, if not more or less a resulting duty 
 through means and appliances which power 
 gives, to change the governments of the world. 
 Instead of " all nature's difference keeping 
 nature's peace,"* the wish appears to be 
 growing upon us to behold all nations alike — 
 all like ourselves; a good wish, could the thing 
 be. But is it reasonable to suppose that all 
 governments will ever be alike, any more than 
 that the earth will be overspread with only one 
 plant, though it were wheat — the very best of 
 them. Your views on our foreign relations 
 and policy, my dear sir, open a fertile field to 
 reflection. I am not able at this time to do 
 more than thus express myself of them ; and I 
 should not do you justice unless I held them 
 all up as treated in your pamphlet. It is also 
 the field least susceptible of being closely in- 
 spected, and is least accurately explored in 
 point of fact, of any other falling within the 
 usual scope of thought and inquiry among our 
 people. The foreign relations of all countries 
 
 * Pope. Voltaire in his Louis XIV., says that the English reason 
 better than any other people ; and that the poets of no other nation 
 have treated morality in verse so well. 
 
11 
 
 lie more out of sight from general view, than 
 home concerns, and are less studied, because 
 less apt, at first, unless under extraordinary 
 conjunctures, to affect the immediate or per- 
 ceptible interests of a people. What 1 very 
 much like in your discussion is, that whilst in 
 its (general drift it is awake to the changes of 
 the age, it does not exclude, as an element in 
 reasoning, truths in government that never 
 change, no matter what may be its external 
 forms. Another good quality must commend 
 it to all; namely, that you avoid all "frightful 
 confidence," as a French waiter calls it, in 
 assertion or opinion on subjects intrinsically 
 devoid of certainty. 
 
 Turning then to your letter, weighing with 
 it the general matter of the pamphlet, and 
 having more immediate reference to your sug- 
 gestions respecting England and ourselves, I 
 would take the liberty of saying, as you do not 
 at all seem to have made up your mind to 
 write more, proceed with the discussion ; am- 
 plify and enforce it as you could do from your 
 attainments and power of applying them, were 
 I not somewhat checked in such counsels at 
 present by incipient signs of some totally new 
 feelings into which we seem to be sliding to- 
 
12 
 
 wards that power, notwithstanding the elo- 
 quent things which the British minister, Sir 
 Henry Bulwer, has said of the two countries 
 in his intellectual and classical speeches at 
 public* entertainments in ours, and to the good 
 sense and elevation of which I, as an Ameri- 
 can, am fully willing to accede. I even desire, 
 as one individual of the community, to do so 
 in a spirit of acknowledgment to him for his 
 open and manly utterance of sentiments so 
 valuable in jny opinion to both countries, and 
 so gratefully in unison with the highest duties 
 of the diplomatic trust he so honorably fills. I 
 wish that the press of his country would take 
 a lesson which it so often wants while speak- 
 ing of us, from his just, generous and enlarged 
 sentiments towards us, expressed in the midst 
 of devotion the most ardent to his own coun- 
 try, for which all must honor him the more. 
 
 Scarcely do I know how to portray the novel 
 feelings to which I have allusion, but will 
 touch upon them. In the day of our compara- 
 tive weakness, we had a feeling of uneasiness 
 towards England. It was prone to think evil; 
 and, from many and obvious causes, was 
 largely a harsh feeling. It never rose to fear, 
 but was anxious and brooding, from the sense 
 
13 
 
 we had of her power. At the present era, the 
 consciousness of our own power, appears to be 
 creating an utter insensibility to hers. The 
 change, so far, is intelligible, to whatever ex- 
 treme it may have gone. But the new position 
 towards her at which we have arrived in regard 
 to that great test among nations, their power, 
 seems to be bringing in its train another new 
 feeling, even a new doctrine, hitherto as strange. 
 The more strange is it, as the very reverse 
 might rather have been anticipated with the 
 ascending influence of the American name. 
 We would throw her oif altogether as our pa- 
 rent stock. "We would strike at the very foun- 
 dation on which so imposing, so well propor- 
 tioned, so majestic a political fabric has been 
 raised by us in this new and bounteous land ! 
 In portions of the Middle States, in parts of 
 the great West, and in the North-West, a doc- 
 trine is started, yes truly a doctrine is occa- 
 sionally started and struggles to peep upwards, 
 that we are not of the Anglo-Saxon race! 
 This, at first blush, may seem incredible. In- 
 dications of it may not have reached you at the 
 South ; but so it is. How much farther the 
 heterodox is to go, what shapes take, how 
 much more of history is to be uprooted for its 
 
14 
 
 sake, and for what ends, passes my compre- 
 hension as it probably will yours. 
 
 Some of the causes of it may be easily read. 
 Others I need not recount. That the English 
 are a mixed race is true ; and so much the bet- 
 ter for them, as Macauley has forcibly pointed 
 out in* some of the best pages of his history. 
 That Scotland and Ireland are of her home 
 empire, all know. That from these portions 
 of it we had large numbers of our people dur- 
 ing and before the Revolution, of the highest 
 ability and merit, as well as those of German 
 and Dutch ancestry, and of French, from the 
 Hugunots, is also true ; and equally true that 
 the great American family has been strength- 
 ened and enriched by subsequent incorpora- 
 tions into it from these and other sources. It 
 was so that Rome attained her final grandeur. 
 But that the charters of the thirteen original 
 colonies which founded this great nation, were 
 all derived from England ; that Independence 
 was declared in the English language; that 
 that is the language of the nation, its laws, 
 literature, state papers, journals of congress; 
 of those who sit in its judgment seats ; of all 
 the records of its wonderful colonial growth 
 and importance, as Burke truly, philosophi- 
 
15 
 
 call J and gorgeously described both in his im- 
 perishable speeches; the language which em- 
 balms the immortal story of our Revolution, 
 with Washington at his head, himself of full 
 English descent; the language which its other 
 heroes and sages spoke and the rich treasures 
 of which formed their minds, taught them to 
 think, and supplied thepa with the most effect- 
 ive of all their intellectual weapons for arguing 
 down the exercise of arbitrary power over us, 
 more, far more, than Grecian or Roman au- 
 thors,* who so often side with power against 
 right; the language in which goes the word of 
 command to our army and navy, and embodies 
 the general orders after victory — such facts 
 belong to the past, as well as that we inherit 
 trial by jury from the English, the habeas cor- 
 pus from the English, and the great elements 
 of the English common law. The solid, efful- 
 gent, memory of all, cannot be obliterated. 
 There they are, with the past. The retrospect 
 of them is the richest that any people under 
 heaven have ever been able to claim as estab- 
 lishing their origin, and stamping the causes 
 of their stupendous advancement and unparal- 
 leled renown in so brief a period of time. Eng- 
 land, no other race, England with her host of 
 
16 
 
 famous men, in genius, science, letters; in 
 hardy, persevering, and bold enterprise; in a 
 high spirited sense of independence and free- 
 dom; famous in peace, famous in war, famous 
 all over the globe, by sea and land, before we 
 were founded — this England, with her wide 
 circle of faults, voider of glory — is the true pa- 
 rent stock of this great nation, deny it who 
 may; and that she is, will stand out in all time 
 as her greatest glory of all. I pass from the 
 seeming digression, though it will probably 
 strike you as not irrelevant to the subject in 
 hand to us. 
 
 No part of your liberal and enlightened 
 effort has drawn more of my attention, than 
 the part about Cuba. This question, from 
 whatever point surveyed, is, as you intimate, 
 beset with difficulty. I think with you, that 
 the immense shipping of England, her com- 
 mercial interests and sympathies, her long ex- 
 isting gulf settlements, and her adjacent inte- 
 rests in the West Indies, entitle her to a rea- 
 sonable share in our counsels and confidence 
 on those subjects. To such considerations as 
 you unfold them, I would emphatically add, 
 that the day of dread of her power of aggres- 
 sion upon lis has gone by. But would the 
 
17 
 
 popular voice of our country permit this coun- 
 seling with England? Our jealousy of her is 
 not at an end, however able we now may be 
 to counteract its injurious effects, should she 
 meditate any; and it is the popular voice 
 which, whether hastily or deliberately uttered, 
 will henceforth, and more and more as our 
 power increases, decide without appeal these 
 and other great coming questions in our foreign 
 policy, before the executive or congress can 
 consider them. That voice will be likely to 
 proclaim absolute American ascendancy in this 
 gulf, as on this continent, and its adjuncts. 
 With its present predispositions, it would pro- 
 bably listen to no participation with England. 
 It would distrust her motives. It would under- 
 derrate her present power and turn with incre- 
 dulity from those sources of it which, in the 
 opinions of her own intelligent and ruling peo- 
 ple, promise to give it increase for long periods 
 to come. 
 
 These are some of my impressions. You 
 may not share them all with me. I, indeed, 
 might incline to say, as you also perhaps might, 
 why should two powerful nations, each know- 
 ing its own power, and each in possession of 
 its independence and circumspection, distrust 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 each other ? It is for the week to be jealous 
 and fearful. The strong are neither. Or why 
 should two nations like the United States and 
 Britain, in their altered attitude to each other, 
 continue to quarrel in their thoughts, because 
 they have been twice at war? France and 
 England were hereditary enemies, as used to 
 be said, for six or eight hundred years. Their 
 wars w^ere hardly to be counted up. They 
 had invasions and counter invasions, sangui- 
 nary and destructive. They had conquests 
 and counter conquests. But under the influ- 
 ence of sentiments more liberal and humaniz- 
 ing as well as politic, which have come into 
 operation with the present century, they have 
 often in latter years been seen acting in amity 
 and concert. This belongs to conscious great- 
 ness. Why should we fear any joint move- 
 ment with Britain? Is it because we would 
 aim to do wrong, or claim too much for our 
 share in the counsels? I am unwilling to 
 believe it. We shall, inevitably have enough 
 of territory, influence and everything else as 
 time goes on, if we keep together. Is it because 
 her orovernment differs in its constitutional 
 forms from ours? Would this be wise? 
 Surely we cannot imagine that she will over- 
 
19 
 
 turn ours. Our noble institutions of freedom, 
 with all their preponderating excellence — and 
 to our British ancestors, said General Jackson 
 in his Messaore to congrress of December '32, 
 we owe high obligations for many of the most 
 valuable parts of them — nevertheless intermin- 
 gle with them defects interwoven with the cre- 
 ations of man. Our well founded national 
 pride, running to the borders of too much self- 
 exaltation, couples itself with an insensible 
 proneness to disparage nations whose institu- 
 tions are unlike our own ; and chiefly do num- 
 bers among us give themselves to the belief 
 that England is an impoverished, sinking 
 country, yet always thinking of mischief to 
 other countries. Some would have it, that the 
 " World's Fair," soon to open at her crystaline 
 palace in the Park, that imposing scene 
 of the industry and genius of modern na- 
 tions, to be concentrated in peaceful rivalry 
 within her metropolis, is only a cunning con- 
 trivance, transparent as its own walls, to hood- 
 wink mankind and save herself a little longer 
 from ruin. How to reconcile apprehensions 
 that she may injure us, with a belief that she 
 is tottering under burdens too much for her to 
 carrv, and that she cannot cast oif, would seem 
 
20 
 
 not ail easy task. But topics such as these 
 would lead me too far. I will therefore sepa- 
 rate myself from them, lest I should be inflict- 
 ing dissertations upon you, instead of writing 
 a letter already I fear, become too long. 
 
 I must by no means omit to remark, that the 
 difiiculty of practical arrangements to any just 
 and guarded extent, between ourselves and 
 Great Britain in regard to Cuba, the gulf, 
 and parts adjacent, would be augmented by 
 the great question of the day, one still deep- 
 rooted and angry — I mean that of Slavery. 
 Of the true nature of this question, as one ex- 
 clusively internal to ourselves, England is as 
 ignorant as we in general are of her home 
 affairs, perhaps more so; yet she decides upon 
 it even more confidently than we do on things 
 belonging to her internal condition and pros- 
 pects. But this need not check concert be- 
 tween us on occasions more free from embar- 
 rassment, should any such arise and give hope 
 of good results. 
 
 At your request I send with this letter other 
 copies of the humble political tracts transmitted 
 after receiving your first pamphlet, but which 
 it appears did not reach you. I send also, for 
 your indulgent acceptance, an unpretending 
 
21 
 
 volume thrown out a few years ago, where 
 you may see, in the places indicated on a slip 
 of paper, notices of the first attempt in our 
 diplomatic annals towards international co-ope- 
 ration, on our part, with England against other 
 powers. This is the instance to which I alluded 
 in the beginning. The object was highly just, 
 and the result sufficiently successful, though 
 not under the forms proposed, owing to a sin- 
 gle impediment at that time existing. The 
 main proposal was, and its first suggestion 
 came from the English foreign secretary (Mr. 
 Canning) to the minister of the United States 
 in London, I then being in that capacity, that 
 the two powers should make a joint declaration 
 before Europe to the effect that if the Holy 
 Alliance, after overthrowing the then existing 
 constitution in Spain, established by the peo- 
 ple under the auspices of the cortes (which 
 ultimately they did overthrow by the instru- 
 mentality of a French army) attempted, by 
 force of arms, or force of influence, to arrest 
 the progress of emancipation and independence 
 in the Spanish colonies on this continent, the 
 two powers would put themselves against so 
 arbitrary a project. The project was stopped 
 effectually. England would have stopped it 
 
22 
 
 herself, but sought our co-operation; and the 
 knowledge by the Allies that if things had 
 proceeded to extremity, it would have been 
 afforded, was doubtless of full value in raising 
 a bar to the least attempt at so audacious a 
 course. There will also be found in the same 
 book, a condensed history of the celebrated 
 " Monroe Declaration" on the subject of Euro- 
 pean interference in the affairs of this conti- 
 nent, put forth in his Message to congress in 
 1823. 
 
 In conclusion, I pray you, my dear sir, to 
 believe in the cordial consideration and esteem 
 with which I am 
 
 Your faithful servant 
 
 and correspondent, 
 
 Richard Rush. 
 
Sydenham, near Philadelphia, i 
 May 3, 1851. S 
 
 MY DEAR SIR : . 
 
 I have received your letter of the 
 26th of April, and will reply to it at once, as I 
 am lookino: forward to eno-ao-ements shortly 
 that may make larger drafts than usual upon 
 my time. 
 
 In a review of diplomatic history, should 
 you undertake such a task, a division into the 
 three periods you indicate, 1st, from the peace 
 of Westphalia to the peace of Utrecht; 2d, 
 from the peace of Utrecht to the peace of Paris 
 in 1763; 3d, from the peace of Paris to the 
 present times, would unfold a large plan full 
 of matter in the highest degree interesting in 
 international affairs. 
 
 The third period would be the most impor- 
 tant and stirring. Parts of it fall within the 
 personal knowledge of many still living, and 
 the easy researches of all. It comprises the 
 most startling revolutions among nations, revo- 
 lutions in which Goddesses of Reason were en- 
 throned in place of other gods, and kings top- 
 
24 
 
 pled down ; the most formidable operations of 
 war, with results the most momentous by land 
 and sea; and the most wide-sweeping transac- 
 tions in diplomacy of the last century and 
 early part of the one in which we live. Under 
 this period, opportunity would open of doing 
 justice to our country for the part it took in the 
 cause of neutrality ; and also of recalling an 
 outline of our achievements in arms, that ulti- 
 mate negotiator to which we were finally 
 obliged to have recourse. Without recalling 
 these achievements, the spirit and compass of 
 our diplomacy could not be adequately illus- 
 trated. The two, together, give us a marked 
 place in history, had we done nothing else. 
 The subject is ample and inviting. It is known 
 in all its aspects only partially among our- 
 selves; and I confess that I arn tempted by the 
 opportunity your letter affords, to say some- 
 thing more of it than would otherwise be ne- 
 cessary, in the possible hope of being able to 
 create in your mind some little inducement to 
 go into it all yourself I must do this at the 
 risk of perhaps ^ot always saying what you 
 may concur in, a risk I had to run in my for- 
 mer letter; but my errors may start truths to 
 you, and I will knowingly fall into none of fact. 
 
25 
 
 It is by recalling facts in their connexion with 
 principles, that I would desire to let it be seen 
 that the greatness of this republic did not be- 
 gin yesterday, in spheres the very highest on 
 the broad theatre of the world, prefiguring the 
 commanding destiny before it if we are true to 
 ourselves. 
 
 From the commencement of the wars ofthe 
 old French Revolution and earlier, the state 
 papers of the United States which aimed at 
 upholding the fair rights of the neutral flag, 
 and thus maintaining the domaia of commerce 
 and civilization, would probal)ly form, w^ere all 
 collected and arranged, the best international 
 code under this head to be found in any one 
 volume extant. The increase of our tonnage 
 during these wars, was very great. In addi- 
 tion to our large exports and imports, for we 
 then manufactured but little, we took the lead 
 of all nations in an immense carrying trade. 
 This greatly exposed our merchant vessels in 
 all seas to high-handed molestation in all ways. 
 Besides the heavy outrages we received from 
 the first French republic, outrages within our 
 territory and ports as well as at sea, there was 
 the British "Provision order" of June, 1793; 
 the French consular and imperial decrees of 
 
26 
 
 Berlin, Milan, Bayonne, Rambouillet; the Bri- 
 tish orders in council issued and re-issued ; the 
 application of their old rule of 56; vast nomi- 
 nal blockades, half the world over, by England, 
 and the enforcement by France of the " conti- 
 nental system," so called, of Napoleon — both 
 alike desolating to legitimate commerce; the 
 impressment of our men by England, with her 
 deeply aggravated attack upon our frigate 
 Chesapeake in time of peace, each nation striv- 
 ing, as if in the rivalry of belligerent fury, 
 which could wrong us the most — all these and 
 more than these, made up the violations, indig- 
 nities and losses to which we were exposed. 
 To settle, as between these two giant nations, 
 the proportion of belligerent enormity against 
 us, would be extremely difficult. Altogether, 
 they brought us into a position to stand up 
 for the neutral cause, and we became foremost 
 in that championship for not much less than a 
 quarter of a century while the world was in 
 arms. It was a most eventful epoch. Many 
 of the liberal principles which had been gain- 
 ing head under maxims inculcated by a long 
 list of pure and able publicists, and the consent 
 of nations, were beaten back by the fearful 
 height to which the war passions of Europe 
 
27 
 
 were roused. These swept away all reason 
 and justice. A ruthless law, the law of force, 
 or " retaliating force" as it was often termed, 
 usurped their place, seeming to portend the 
 entire extinction of reason and justice among 
 the nations of the earth. 
 
 Yet, in 1814, when Napoleon was first 
 struck down, the great Allies took no notice of 
 us in their treaties of peace and settlement at 
 Vienna, multitudinous as those documents 
 were, and comprehending almost all other sub- 
 jects between nations, as they did. Not one 
 word of intercession had we from any one of 
 them. Not even a breath of good will did they 
 waft over to us. In regard to our. situation, 
 they all became mutes. We had gone to war 
 single handed against England. The war 
 was still raging between us. Nevertheless, 
 they left us to be crushed by her enormous 
 power; for her undivided strength by sea and 
 land, was now free to be used exclusively 
 against us. Such was the condition of things. 
 Events flowed from them among the most 
 striking that have ever occurred between na- 
 tions. To portray them fitly, would call for 
 the pen of a Tacitus or Thucydides. The 
 calm retrospect of them, now that the passions 
 
28 
 
 and partisanships of the day are over, seems 
 little short of miraculous. In after times, they 
 will rank among the marvels of history. 
 
 The European Alliance left us, I say, to be 
 crushed. This they must have believed. This 
 inference was forced upon them, when they 
 looked only to the overwhelming preponder- 
 ance of British naval power. Consider what 
 it was ! Not only did it preponderate to an 
 extent making all numerical comparison ab- 
 surd, over any we had in a state of equipment, 
 but over that of all Europe combined. Still, it 
 was absence of wisdom, glaring absence of 
 wisdom, in those continental powers, either 
 through fear of offending England, or dislike 
 to the principle of our government, coldly to 
 stand aloof from us. Most especially was it 
 so in France and Russia. Never did great 
 nations err more in maxims of state. We were 
 fighting for the just freedom of the seas. We 
 were fighting their battles as well as our own. 
 We were fighting them with a more sterling 
 and well directed courage, and, as it turned 
 out, with more effect, than ever marked any, 
 the greatest, of Napoleon's battles or most 
 splendid of his campaigns — even when fresh 
 from the fields of Marengo, Austerlitz or Jena. 
 
29 
 
 Let not this be called American boast. Rath- 
 er let facts be recalled. Let these show if I 
 say too much. I desire to keep within the 
 limit. 
 
 The very act of our going to war was heroic. 
 No language could be too strong in describing 
 it. We were to fight against incalculably 
 more odds than ever Napoleon did, almost in- 
 conceivably more. We went out upon the 
 deep with only a sling in our hands. We 
 went against a foe that it might have been 
 thought would at once consign all our ships to 
 its dark caverns. That foe had vanquished 
 French ships wherever to be found, brave as 
 the French ever are, until all their ships were 
 captured, sunk, or had to seek shelter from 
 destruction by running into their ports. This 
 was their sole refuge. Not one of them could 
 venture any more upon the ocean, singly or in 
 fleets. Not another gun could the Emperor 
 mount at sea. A similar doom had awaited 
 the navies of Holland, Spain and all other na- 
 tions. The idea of our coping with England, 
 elicited sarcasms in the house of commons. 
 Not only did we begin our battle after Napo- 
 leon had exhausted to no purpose but disasters 
 to himself, his resources and rage against Eng- 
 
30 
 
 land, but there was more to appal us had that 
 feeling been in us. He had drawn upon the 
 whole maritime border of the Mediterranean 
 and Atlantic, among European nations con- 
 quered and tributary to him (and which among 
 them were not?) to aid him in ships and sea- 
 men to go against England on the seas, or in- 
 vade her in her island. All these were scat- 
 tered or demolished. England had driven 
 them all back to port, or made wrecks of them. 
 Duncan at Camperdown, Howe on the 1st of 
 June, '94, Nelson at the Nile, Cochran in 
 Basque Roads, Parker at Copenhagen, Nelson 
 again at Trafalgar, these names recall vividly, 
 but only in part recall, the awful destruction 
 which the naval thunders of England dealt 
 among her foes wherever it was possible for 
 her to assail them. Never before was there 
 such havoc on the sea by one nation against all 
 the rest. All had yielded in hopeless submission 
 to that one. For warlike purposes, it is not too 
 much to say that Europe was annihilated upon 
 the seas. The banner of the United States, 
 alone afloated in solitary fearlessness. Lastly, 
 we began the fight with a navy which was 
 as nothing in size to the French navy, when 
 Napoleon first had the direction of it against 
 
31 
 
 England. When then, in all time, were such 
 odds seen as we had against us ? I remember 
 nothing like it. I can recall at present but 
 one partial resemblance. That was upon land, 
 when the great Frederic fought against Aus- 
 tria, Russia and France, gaining splendid vic- 
 tories over them, and baffling them, until 
 finally encompassed by their countless legions, 
 but establishing the Prussian monarchy in 
 spite of them all. 
 
 And what was the progress, what the issue, 
 of the contest upon the great highway of na- 
 tions, as we maintained it, after the daring 
 manner in which we went into it? Instead of 
 our ships being driven from the seas as Napo- 
 leon's were, they increased in number as the 
 war went on. They increased in the activity 
 of their service and brilliancy of their victories. 
 They were in all seas. They ran down to 
 Cape Horn. They scoured the Pacific. They 
 were all over the Atlantic. They went into 
 the West Indies and the East Indies. Skill- 
 fully avoiding the enemy's fleets, they hunted 
 up his single ships. They watched in their 
 paths. They entered the British channel. In 
 all latitudes they sought this gigantic foe on 
 his own element. They strove to be foremost 
 
32 
 
 in the attack. They encountered him, ship to 
 ship, with a chivalry, with a perfection of dis- 
 cipline, with a constant superiority in gun- 
 nery,* and with a success utterly without ex- 
 ample by any other nation in the world before. 
 In vain did he plead that our ships were hea- 
 vier than his. In some instances it was the 
 reverse. In others his were not merely sub- 
 dued, but shot to pieces and sunk, in an almost 
 incredibly short time. Glory then to this 
 young and dauntless nation, which, relying 
 upon itself alone to vindicate neutral rights, 
 while Europe with folded arms was waiting to 
 see it sacrificed, speedily and triumphantly 
 broke the terrific spell of English invincibility 
 upon the ocean. What a result ! What a con- 
 firmation of the motto emblazoned on our un- 
 aided banner, "free trade and sailors' 
 
 RIGHTS !" 
 
 It riveted universal attention. Britain had 
 ruled the waves. So her poets sang. So na- 
 tions felt, all but this. Her trident had laid 
 them all prostrate; and how fond was she of 
 
 » This is fully admitted by Major General Sir Howard Douglass, 
 in his "Treatise on Naval Gunnery," a book of high authority, pub- 
 lished with the approbation of the lords commissioners of the admi- 
 ralty in England. 
 
33 
 
 considering this emblem as identified with the 
 sceptre of the world ! Behold, then, the flag 
 which had everywhere reigned in triumph 
 supreme, sending forth terror from its folds; 
 w^hich for " a thousand years had braved tlie 
 battle and the breeze," behold it again, and 
 agrain, and a^ain, lowered to the stars and 
 Stripes which had risen in the new hemisphere. 
 The spectacle was magnificent. It radiated 
 to the skies. Both hemispheres stood at gaze. 
 The European expectation that we were to be 
 crushed, was turned into a feeling of admira- 
 tion unbounded. Some gave themselves to 
 wild joy, as the Danes, whose exasperated feel- 
 ings under the seizure of their navy at Copen- 
 hagen, had not subsided. Our victories had a 
 moral effect far transcending the number or 
 size of their ships vanquished. For such a 
 blow upon the mighty name of England, such 
 a wound, after many idle excuses, she had at 
 last no balm so effectual as that it was inflict- 
 ed, and could only have been inflicted, by a 
 race sprung from herself. 
 
 Here let me say, that no one in our whole 
 nation did more towards infusing into congress 
 the lofty tone that led to these memorable re- 
 sults, than Mr. Calhoun. Congress was back- 
 c 
 
34 
 
 ward at declaring war, from the terrible odds 
 against us, and the out-door belief almost uni- 
 versal, except in the navy itself, that we could 
 not face England. Calhoun went with the 
 very foremost of those patriotic and high spi- 
 rited men in both houses who were for throw- 
 ing the nation upon its courage and its sword. 
 Happen what would, they knew we should not 
 be dishonored ; whilst ignoble submission was 
 sinking us as a great people. We began to 
 build ships of the line as the contest drew to a 
 close, our energies rising with the contest. 
 On the lakes, we had only fleets of small 
 size. England, to meet us there in like fleets, 
 sent over through the Canadas the frames of 
 vessels, and her naval officers and men. There 
 also, our victories in each instance where the 
 fleets met, were alike decisive and resplendent, 
 though won with great loss of blood on both 
 sides.* But the matchless deeds of our fri- 
 gates and sloops of war on the ocean, did more 
 than was ever done before for the neutral 
 cause; more than was done by the famous 
 
 * In the engagement on Lake Erie, Barclay, the British commo- 
 dore, a gallant officer who had served under Lord Nelson, having the 
 wind at first, bore down on our fleet with the bands of music on board 
 his ships playing "Rule Britannia." 
 
35 
 
 "Armed neutrality" of 1780. Turn to the ac- 
 count of that maritime league, one of mere 
 words which England disregarded, and see 
 how little it achieved, compared to American 
 ships. As to the "Armed neutrality" of l&OO, 
 England shivered that to pieces in a day with 
 her naval cannon. 
 
 Equally true is it that Napoleon was blind 
 to our naval efficiency and capabilities. It 
 was the greatest of his mistakes. He judged 
 of them from our having no ships of the line 
 when the war beo^an, thouo^h even then we had 
 a larger commerce and tonnage than any nation 
 but England, perhaps double of all that France 
 had. He ought to have remembered this, and, 
 in connexion with our established aptitudes for 
 the sea, to have drawn the proper conclusions. 
 
 Napoleon seemed ignorant that to keep up 
 a large navy in peace was no part of our sys- 
 tem. Our co-operation with him, had he 
 sought it in time and on terms to which a spi- 
 rited nation could have assented, would have 
 been of more consequence to him than any one 
 of his European alliances. We were the only 
 nation to make head against England; and 
 England was the nation that, by her exhaust- 
 less resources for war by herself, for sometimes 
 
36 
 
 she was left alone; her subsidies to other 
 powers ; her indomitable courage ; her leader- 
 ship of the combinations against him, and per- 
 petual defiance of him, while Russia, Austria 
 and Prussia, each in turn cowered or rushed 
 into his embraces; England, by never giving 
 up, but always fighting on and inciting other 
 powers to go on with the fight — caused his 
 empire, after its tempest-like sway, to come 
 down with a crash. He never did anything 
 for neutral rights. He never cared anything 
 for them. His iron grasp w^as at ubiquity of 
 dominion. England stood in his way. Eng- 
 land was the barrier against which all his ha- 
 tred, all his array of power, his ostentatious 
 column at Boulogne, all his bulletins, all his 
 threats, were in vain. His efforts for her down- 
 fall, under plea of restoring the liberty of the 
 seas — for this 7vas his plea — efforts that over- 
 leaped and put to scorn all international law 
 in his treatment of us upon the seas, ended in 
 his own downfall, leaving England at the head 
 of Europe. So ended the great war drama of 
 those days. It closed like a mighty epic, full 
 of bloody grandeur — nations, kings and princi- 
 palities its characters, the globe its theatre. 
 But we had no downfall. We rose. In 
 
37 
 
 looking back upon our share in the battles, 
 they seem like the romance of real war — the 
 consummation of its triumphs upon the waves. 
 Nor can I quit this part of the glowing theme 
 without adding, that the martial beauty it has 
 forever imprinted on our shield, is enhanced 
 by the signal courtesy with which our victors 
 invariably treated the foe when the battle was 
 over. 
 
 Call to mind also, I beg of you, what our 
 diplomacy has always been striving to do in 
 other fields, new until we entered them, for the 
 interests of humanity and the right kind of 
 progress among nations. Besides our early 
 treaty with Prussia for the abolition of priva- 
 teering, you will find, page 576 of the book 
 sent to you, the proposals this nation has made 
 to all maritime nations, for abolishing all 
 
 PRIVATE WAR UPON THE OCEAN. This gOCS bc- 
 
 yond the abolition of privateering. It aims at 
 tying up the hands of governments from be- 
 coming plunderers of private property on the 
 high seas. The effect of adopting the princi- 
 ple would be, that national ships could no 
 longer capture merchant vessels engaged in 
 lawful trade, though belonging to one of the 
 belligerent parties. 
 
38 
 
 Bear in mind also, that the nation making 
 these preposals to all other nations, had been 
 able, with her national ships and letters of 
 marque, to capture twelve or thirteen hundred 
 British merchant vessels during our short war 
 of 1812. Hence, we were not likely, in the 
 long run, to be the losing party among nations, 
 had we stood upon the base calculations of ra- 
 pacity fostered by privateering, and the cap- 
 turing of merchantmen by national ships. It 
 is a vicious old principle, the relic of a barbar- 
 ous age. It has not for a long time been acted 
 upon by armies on land. These do not make 
 war on private property ; but the barbarity has 
 been kept up at sea in a spirit little better than 
 that of the bucaneers ; no better, even worse, 
 considering the intermediate advances in civi- 
 lization and refinement. Neither England, 
 nor France, nor, as far as I am informed, any 
 other nation, has yet acceded to these our bene- 
 ficent proposals. They originated in Mr. Mon- 
 roe's time, while Mr. Adams was Secretary of 
 State. 
 
 On page 465 of the same volume you will 
 also find, briefly mentioned, the manly homage 
 which that eminent English statesmen, Mr. 
 Canning, when foreign secretary, and who was 
 
39 
 
 not thought to have been over friendly to us 
 at earlier periods of his life, ultimately paid in 
 parliament when the war was past and gone, to 
 some of our neutral doctrines. These doctrines 
 were first essentially laid down by Mr. Jeffer- 
 son in his able and rich compositions prepared 
 when Secretary of State to General Washing- 
 ton, and under his sanction, in regard to our 
 foreign relations. They were afterwards more 
 fully maintained and extended in the nume- 
 rous state papers, and always masterly as nu- 
 merous, from the pen of Mr. Madison during 
 the eight years he filled the department of state 
 under Mr. Jefferson. They are doctrines that 
 will probably receive more and more approba- 
 tion from all nations, as time goes on and con- 
 tinues to bring with it, as we may reasonably 
 hope, further meliorations to the code of war. 
 They are as replete with international wisdom, 
 as with American dignity and spirit. It was 
 their persevering resistance to the encroach- 
 ments of England and France; above all, it 
 was their immovable stand against impress- 
 ment, their noble reiterations that our flag 
 should sacredly protect all who sailed under 
 it, it was these great state papers which finally 
 opened our path of glory upon the ocean; a 
 
40 
 
 glory the purer, as it blazed up only in defend- 
 ing;- ourselves ao^ainst lonsf continued and enor- 
 mous wrongs. Come what may in the future, 
 we can never be deprived of this inheritance. 
 It is a proud and splendid inheritance. We 
 owe eternal gratitude to the illustrious men of 
 that early day of the republic, Jefferson and 
 Madison, who (after Washington), were the 
 primary sources of it. It has been my lot to 
 have known them both, but chiefly the latter, 
 of whose cabinet after he became President, I 
 was the youngest, humblest, and now am the 
 only surviving member ; and I fulfill a grate- 
 ful duty in here recalling their exalted merits, 
 linked, as they ever must be, to the lasting 
 fame of this great nation. Their counsels re- 
 founded the nation. Until the war of 1812, 
 we were still half-colonial. Its issue conferred 
 upon us a new and commanding position. 
 Until then, we were in danger of losing the 
 glories we had gained in the Revolution. It 
 was even alledged that the absorbing spirit of 
 commercial gain had at length broken in upon 
 our martial and other high toned characteris- 
 tics of that era. The war corrected the mis- 
 take. Mr. Jefferson took upon himself to re- 
 ject, without even submitting it to the Senate, 
 
41 
 
 the treaty negotiated by Mr. Monroe and Mr. 
 Pinkney, in 1806, solely because it contained 
 no stipulation against impressment, although 
 sufficiently satisfactory at that time in other 
 respects. Furthermore : Our ministers first 
 sent to England after the war, were fully 
 instructed to let her government know, 
 that any attempt in future to renew it, al- 
 though the question was not brought into the 
 treaty of Ghent — the practice having ceased 
 by the general peace — w^ould immediately be 
 resisted. But who can suppose, after the 
 events of the one war, that so unspeakable an 
 outrage upon us would be repeated ? It was 
 that very outrage, combined with the special 
 remembrance of the attack on the Chesapeake 
 in perpetration of it, that turned the war scale 
 against England rather than France. The 
 latter had done enough to justify our going to 
 war with her. According to her means, she had 
 captured more of our vessels than the English. 
 She would even consume them by fire upon the 
 ocean, cargoes and all, fearing that, as her ill- 
 gotten prizes, British cruisers would intercept 
 them if she attempted to send them into lier 
 ports. But who, I again ask, who in his senses, 
 
 D 
 
42 
 
 can dream of England ever renewing the tran- 
 scendant outrage of impressment on American 
 decks? It is impossible. In this age, Britons 
 themselves would not think of it. They would 
 no longer practise it among themselves if war 
 came on. The horrors of the press-gang are 
 gone forever; and this republic in 1812, played 
 its great part in helping to kill them forever. 
 
 In fine : If you view this whole, fertile sub- 
 ject, at all in the lights I do, and can make up 
 your mind to take it in hand, a chapter of sur- 
 passing interest might be written upon it. It 
 is therefore that I would presume to commend 
 it to your investigations under aspects I touch 
 upon and others that would fully occur to you. 
 
 I do not at this moment remember any bio- 
 graphy of M. de Vergennes. There is a good 
 deal said of him in one of the volumes of Flas- 
 san's history of French diplomacy. Gratefully 
 appreciating, as we all do, the services we had 
 from France of that day and age, I neverthe- 
 less do not incline to extol M. de Vergennes 
 extravagantly. It has always appeared to me, 
 that your accomplished Colonel John Laurens 
 accelerated his steps in our cause. 
 
 There is a book, published in 1801, men- 
 tioned in the preface to de Pradt's " Congress 
 
43 
 
 of Vienna," entitled " The Three Ages of Co- 
 lonies." I have not read, and do not know the 
 book; but from its title, possibly something 
 might be obtained from it bearing upon the 
 review into which I would draw you. I dare 
 say you know the work entitled " Diplomacy 
 of the United States," published in Boston in 
 1826. It is a well written octavo of three or 
 four hundred pages, embodying useful facts 
 and documents belonging to our diplomatic 
 history. The author's name is not given in 
 my edition of it. I do not happen to own 
 Wheaton's " History of the Law of Nations in 
 Europe and America, from the earliest times 
 to the treaty of Washington in 1842;" but his 
 first work on the " Elements of International 
 Law," I regard as one of the most valuable 
 books under that head in my library. I often 
 consult it, and always with advantage. 
 
 If, as you intimate, you should be disposed 
 in the course of the summer to ask information 
 on any point contained in the book sent to you, 
 I will always be ready to afford it if in my 
 power. 
 
 Apologizing for the length of this letter, into 
 which I have been somewhat imperceptibly 
 
44 
 
 enticed by the intrinsic national interest of its 
 topics, 
 
 I renew to you, my dear sir, assurances of 
 the cordiality and respect with which I am 
 Your sincere 
 
 and faithful servant, 
 
 Richard Rush.