Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 9.djvu/28

THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

collected authentic lists of no less than six thousand impressed Americans. Lord Castlereagh^[1] himself acknowledged sixteen hundred. Calculations on the basis of the number found on board of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the Java, and other British ships (captured by the skill and gallantry of those heroes whose achievements are the treasured monuments of their country's glory) , fixed the number at seven thousand; and yet, it seems, Massachusetts had lost but eleven! Eleven Massachusetts sailors taken by mistake! A cause of war, indeed! Their ships, too, the capture of which had threatened "universal bankruptcy," it was discovered that Great Britain was their friend and protector; "where she had taken one, she had protected twenty." Then was the discovery made that subserviency to France, hostility to commerce, "a determination on the part of the South and West to break down the Eastern States," and especially (as reported by a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature) "to force the sons of commerce to populate the wilderness, "were the true causes of the war.

But let us look a little further into the con- duct of the peace party of New England at that important crisis. Whatever difference of opinion might have existed as to the causes of the war, the country had a right to expect that when once involved in the contest, all America