To Great Britain, whose power
on the ocean is so ascendant, it was deemed not inconsistent with that
condition to state explicitly that on her rescinding her orders in
relation to the United States their trade would be opened with her, and
remain shut to her enemy in case of his failure to rescind his decrees
also. From France no answer has been received, nor any indication that
the requisite change in her decrees is contemplated. The favorable
reception of the proposition to Great Britain was the less to be
doubted, as her orders of council had not only been referred for
their vindication to an acquiescence on the part of the United States
no longer to be pretended, but as the arrangement proposed, whilst
it resisted the illegal decrees of France, involved, moreover,
substantially the precise advantages professedly aimed at by the
British orders. The arrangement has nevertheless been rejected.
This candid and liberal experiment having thus failed, and no other
event having occurred on which a suspension of the embargo by the
Executive was authorized, it necessarily remains in the extent
originally given to it. We have the satisfaction, however, to reflect
that in return for the privations imposed by the measure, and which
our fellow-citizens in general have borne with patriotism, it has had
the important effects of saving our mariners and our vast mercantile
property, as well as of affording time for prosecuting the defensive and
provisional measures called for by the occasion.
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