Another member, to wit, from Virginia, Edwin Gray, appeared, and took his seat.
Tuesday, December 8.
Another member, viz: from Virginia, William A. Burwell, appeared, and took his seat.
Wednesday, December 9.
Imprisonment of American Seamen.
Mr. Bassett offered to the House the following resolution:
Whereas, It is represented, that Great Britain has seized sundry persons fighting under the American flag, laying claims to them alike incompatible with justice and the rights of the United States as an independent nation:
Resolved, That the President be requested to lay before this House the information he has received on that subject, and the measures taken to redress an evil which violates the rights and interests, and outrages the feelings of a free and independent people.
Mr. Bassett stated that several cases had come to his knowledge in which the British naval commanders had seized persons taken on board of American armed vessels, and confined them, in one instance, in irons, and in another had transported them to England for trial. It was not his intention now to go into an examination of these cases. Such an examination was not necessary to authorize the House to call for the information required. He had given its present form to the motion he had offered, because its adoption would go to show that the councils of the nation were not indifferent to this subject. It would, he trusted, further enable the Executive to show that it never slumbered on any occasion in which the rights of the people were concerned; and he had no doubt the information to be received would show it. When it was received, the House might take what course it pleased; perhaps no legislative act would grow out of it. But it was proper, in any event, that the House should be in possession of information required.
Mr. Milnor said he had no objection to the call for information, but he excepted to the form of the resolution, for two reasons. It was prefaced by a preamble, which was not usual in such cases, which preamble, moreover, assumed as fact circumstances of which the House had no official or authentic information. His other objection was, that it expressed an opinion on a point on which he was not ready to express one. Mr. M. said he knew not the extent of the evil of which the gentleman complained. If it was merely that Great Britain laid claim to her own subjects fighting our battles against her, he would at least not say that this was an act on the part of Great Britain deserving all those severe epithets which the gentleman had thought proper to attach to it. The resolution stated facts not before the House, and expressed an opinion on an act the degree of enormity of which depended on the circumstances respecting which it was proposed to ask for information. Mr. M. wished that the House should not lightly be compelled into a discussion of this subject, and especially as the gentleman had intimated the probability that no legislative act was to grow out of the information called for.