4. To aid in searching for, seizing, and restoring them.
5. To keep them in our prisons when requested.
6. To prohibit our citizens from carrying them off.
7. To prohibit their employment.
8. To make penal laws for punishing their employers.
9. To make it our duty to restore them.
10. To extend the foregoing provisions, not only to deserters, but to all seafaring people.
These propositions went completely to secure to Great Britain the services of all her seafaring subjects, except such as were naturalized under our laws, which amounted to but few, indeed; thirteen hundred British seamen only having been naturalized since the commencement of our Government, and, in all probability, an equal number of our seamen have been naturalized by Great Britain during the same period. Yet, to my astonishment, have I heard it stated, during this debate, that our Government had made no serious propositions to secure to Great Britain the services of her seamen.
But equitable as these propositions were, they were rejected. Notwithstanding, sir, our Government, anxious in their pursuit after peace, have gone still further; they have, through our late Chargé d'Affaires in London, (Mr. Russell,) proposed to Great Britain to exclude from our naval service, as well public as private, all her seamen, including those which may hereafter be naturalized; and notwithstanding the liberality and justice of this proposal, it, like all others, has been made without producing the desired effect. And what more, sir, could have been asked of us, required, or granted, than is contained in these offers? Nothing more, unless, indeed, they had asked for our independence, and, yielding to the requisition, we had granted it. When an American vessel is at sea, it is amenable to no laws but those of its own country and the laws of nations; and where, in either of these, will the advocates for impressment find their justification? Sir, had not the practice of impressment been treated as a casual, a trivial circumstance, during this debate, I should not have presumed to trouble the House with my desultory remarks; and my principal object in addressing the House, was to ask their attention to a document which appears to have been overlooked, and which, if necessary, will place the abomination of that practice in colors too strong to be mistaken.
Here Mr. K. read the following extract of a letter from the Secretary of State to Mr. Monroe, dated January 4th, 1804—