agents of _both_ to procure within their jurisdiction, in the way
of lawful trade, _any_ supplies which suited their convenience."
Now, gentlemen, this is the principle which humanity expects, for your
own and for mankind's benefit, to see maintained by you, and not yonder
fatal course, which permits tyrants to draw from your country every
facility for the oppression of their nations, but forbids nations to buy
the means of defence. That was not the principle of your Washington.
When he speaks of harmony, of friendly intercourse, and of peace, he
always takes care to apply his ideas to _nations_, and not to
_governments_--still less to tyrants who subdue nations by foreign
arms. The sacred word Nation, with all its natural rights, should not be
blotted out, at least from _your_ political dictionary: and yet I
am sorry to see that the word nation is often replaced by the word
Government. Gentlemen, I humbly wish that the public opinion of the
people of the United States, conscious of its own rights, should loudly
and resolutely declare that the people of the United States will
continue its commercial intercourse with any or every nation, be it in
revolution against its oppressors or be it not; and that the people of
the United States expect confidently, that its government will provide
for the protection of your trade. I feel assured, that your national
government, seeing public opinion so pronounced, will judge it
convenient to augment your naval forces in the Mediterranean: and to
look for some such station for it as would not force the navy of
republican America to make disavowals inconsistent with republican
principles or republican dignity, only because King So-and-So, be he
even the cursed King of Naples, grants the favour of an anchoring place
for the naval forces of your republic. I believe your illustrious
country should everywhere freely unfurl the star-spangled banner of
liberty, with all its congenial principles, and not make itself in any
respect dependent on the glorious smiles of the Kings Bomba et Compagne.