Your memorialists therefore respectfully solicit of your honorable body the passage of a law continuing the embargo, and giving to the President of the United States power to discontinue the whole of the restrictive system on the rescinding of the British Orders in Council.

The conduct of France in burning our ships, in sequestrating our property entering her ports, expecting protection in consequence of the promised repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees, and the delay in completing a treaty with the American Minister, has excited great sensation, and we hope and trust will call forth from your honorable body such retaliatory measures as may be best calculated to procure justice.

After the memorial had been read,

Mr. Taylor said, that the respectability of the subscribers to a petition presented to this body, and the importance of the matter therein contained, had, on various occasions, been used as inducements to us to give such petition a respectful disposition in the course of our proceedings. He recollected a case in point. It was the case of the petition of an eminent merchant of Massachusetts, presented by an honorable Senator from that State, and which at the suggestion of that honorable gentleman was, by the Senate, ordered to be printed. He was of opinion that the petition just read ought not to be treated with less attention. That he had seen the petition, and had inquired into the character of its subscribers—and had been informed that the fifty-eight signers to it were among the most respectable, wealthy, and intelligent merchants of the city of New York. There are to be found in that list the names of two presidents of banks; three presidents of insurance companies; thirteen directors of banks: besides other names of pre-eminent standing in the mercantile world. They had all united in the sentiments contained in the petition, notwithstanding that there existed among them a difference in political opinions—for he understood that of the petitioners forty-two were federal and sixteen republican. Mr. T. added, that he considered some of the sentiments contained in the petition as of the highest importance. He hailed it as an auspicious occurrence, that these honorable merchants, in praying that the evils of war might be averted from them and from the nation, had nevertheless held fast to the principle of resistance to the aggressions and unhallowed conduct of Great Britain towards our nation—and had exercised the candor and firmness to bear testimony to the efficiency of the restrictive system for obtaining a redress of our wrongs, and of course to the integrity and honor of those who had imposed this system for that purpose. He hoped that the example of these petitioners would tend to counteract those strenuous and unremitting exertions of passion, prejudice, and party feeling, which had attempted to stamp upon the majority in Congress the foul and unjust censure of being enemies to commerce. That, however unfashionable and obstinate it might appear, he still believed that the embargo and non-importation laws, if faithfully executed, were capable of reaching farther than our cannon. We were at this very time tendering an urgent argument, to be felt by each city, village and hamlet in England. This touching to the quick the vital interests of that empire, would demonstrate to the people at least the folly and absurdity of the Orders in Council. The ordeal of the twenty weeks of scarcity, which the people of that unhappy country are undergoing, to relieve which, but for the madness and folly of their rulers, every yard of American canvas would be spread to the gales: the thousands of starving manufacturers thrown out of employ for want of our custom, which custom, but for the injustice of their masters, we were willing to give, now feel the efficiency of the restrictive system. These matter-of-fact arguments want no sophistry nor long speeches to give them weight. But Great Britain is proud, and will never yield to this sort of pressure. Hunger has no law. Where was her pride during the last year when she exported to her enemy on the continent more than eleven millions of pounds sterling for provisions; and meanly truckling to her enemy, consented to buy the privilege of laying out her guineas for bread; and actually submitted on the compulsion of Napoleon to buy the wines, brandies, and silks of France, which she did not want! This restrictive system, when commenced under the former embargo law, encountered every opposition among ourselves, which selfish avarice, which passion and party rage could suggest; and so successful were its assailants that while it was operating with its fullest effects, (which the prices current of that day will show,) some of its greatest champions in the National Legislature abandoned it—yes, sir, in the tide of victory they threw down their arms. How were the mighty fallen, and the shield of the mighty vilely cast away! The disavowal of Erskine's arrangement was the consequence of this retreat. But it may be said that the sentiments in their petition were extorted by the apprehension of a greater evil—war. In all our trials, those who had not predetermined to submit to Great Britain must have anticipated this alternative. Let those who by their acrimony, sneers, and scoffs, have thrown away this chief defence of our nation, be held responsible for the compulsion they have imposed on us to take this dire alternative. He said that although he was unwilling to abate a single pang which we might legally inflict upon our enemy, and might at the proper time oppose any thing like the swap proposed of one system for another, when we had the power and the right to impose upon our enemy both the one and the other, he nevertheless thought the petition was deserving of the attention which he now moved it should receive. He moved that the petition should be printed.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate then adjourned.

Thursday, June 11.

General Wilkinson's Accounts.

The Senate resumed the consideration of the resolution reported by the committee on the memorial of General James Wilkinson, which is as follows:

Resolved, That the proper accounting officer of the Department of War be directed, in the settlement of General Wilkinson's account, to place to his credit the sum of four thousand and thirty-six dollars seventy-seven cents.