The noble
Lord, at the head of the government, knew nothing about Captain Henry,
and recommended him, if he had any claim upon Canada, to apply to Sir
George Prevost, the Governor General. Captain Henry would do no such
thing. He went to the United States, and, for the sum of fifty thousand
dollars, gave up to the American government a very interesting
correspondence between the Secretary of the Governor General of Canada,
Mr. Ryland, and himself. Congress was so transported with rage, at the
attempted annexation, that a bill was brought into the House of
Representatives, and seriously entertained, the object of which was to
declare every person a pirate, and punishable with death, who, under a
pretence of a commission from any foreign power, should impress upon
the high seas any native of the United States; and gave every such
impressed seaman a right to attach, in the hands of any British
subject, or of any debtor to any British subject, a sum equal to thirty
dollars a month, during the whole period of his detention.[16] The
federalist Americans were somewhat favourably disposed towards England.
The minority in the House of Representatives, among which were found
the principal part of the delegation from New England, in an address to
their constituents, solemnly protested, on the ground that the wrongs
of which the United States complained, although in some respects,
grievous, were not of a nature, in the then state of the world, to
justify war, nor were they such as war would be likely to remedy. On
the subject of impressment they urged that the question between the two
countries had once been honorably and satisfactorily settled, in the
treaty negotiated with the British Court by Messrs. Monroe and
Pinckney, and that although that treaty had not been ratified by Mr.
Jefferson, arrangements might probably again be made. In relation to
the second cause of war--the blockade of her enemies' ports, without an
adequate force, the minority replied that it was not designed to injure
the commerce of the United States, but was retaliatory upon France,
which had taken the lead in aggressions upon neutral rights. In
addition it was said, that as the repeal of the French decrees had been
officially announced, it was to be expected that a revocation of the
Orders in Council would follow. They could not refrain from asking what
the United States were to gain from war? Would the gratification of
some privateers-men compensate the na