A frigate of the United States, trusting to a state of peace, and
leaving her harbor on a distant service, has been surprised and attacked
by a British vessel of superior force--one of a squadron then lying in
our waters and covering the transaction--and has been disabled from
service, with the loss of a number of men killed and wounded. This
enormity was not only without provocation or justifiable cause, but was
committed with the avowed purpose of taking by force from a ship of war
of the United States a part of her crew; and that no circumstance might
be wanting to mark its character, it had been previously ascertained
that the seamen demanded were native citizens of the United States.
Having effected her purpose, she returned to anchor with her squadron
within our jurisdiction. Hospitality under such circumstances ceases to
be a duty, and a continuance of it with such uncontrolled abuses would
tend only, by multiplying injuries and irritations, to bring on a
rupture between the two nations. This extreme resort is equally opposed
to the interests of both, as it is to assurances of the most friendly
dispositions on the part of the British Government, in the midst of
which this outrage has been committed. In this light the subject can not
but present itself to that Government and strengthen the motives to
an honorable reparation of the wrong which has been done, and to that
effectual control of its naval commanders which alone can justify the
Government of the United States in the exercise of those hospitalities
it is now constrained to discontinue.
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