they deemed war nearly inevitable, and would not this adjustment have
been considered, at that day, as a happy escape from the calamity? The
great interest and the general desire of our people, was to enjoy the
advantages of neutrality. This instrument, however misrepresented,
affords America that inestimable security. The causes of our disputes
are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a new negotiation after
the end of the European war. This was gaining everything, because it
confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens are gaining everything.
This alone would justify the engagements of the government. For, when
the fiery vapors of the war lowered in the skirts of our horizon, all
our wishes were concentred in this one, that we might escape the
desolation of the storm. This treaty, like a rainbow on the edge of the
cloud, marked to our eyes the space where it was raging, and afforded,
at the same time, the sure prognostic of fair weather. If we reject it,
the vivid colors will grow pale,--it will be a baleful meteor portending
tempest and war.

Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the appropriation to carry it
into faithful execution.

Thus we shall save the faith of our nation, secure its peace, and
diffuse the spirit of confidence and enterprise that will augment its
prosperity. The progress of wealth and improvement is wonderful, and,
some will think, too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and vast,
and if peace and good government should be preserved, the acquisitions
of our citizens are not so pleasing as the proofs of their industry--as
the instruments of their future success. The rewards of exertion go to
augment its power. Profit is every hour becoming capital. The vast crop
of our neutrality is all seed-wheat, and is sown again to swell, almost
beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity. And in this