2532. EMBARGO, Benefits of.—[continued].
I have been highly gratified
with the late general expressions of public
sentiment in favor of a measure which alone
could have saved us from immediate war, and
give time to call home eighty millions of property,
twenty or thirty thousand seamen, and
two thousand vessels. These are now nearly
at home, and furnish a great capital, much of
which will go into manufactures, and seamen
to man a fleet of privateers, whenever our citizens
shall prefer war to a longer continuance
of the Embargo. Perhaps, however, the whole
of the ocean may be tired of the solitude it has
made on that element, and return to honest
principles; and his brother robber on the land
may see that, as to us, the grapes are sour.—
To John Langdon.
Ford ed., ix, 201.
(M.
Aug. 1808)
