It has been the day
of accounting, of settlement, and of retribution. The total list of
arrearages, extending through four successive previous
administrations, has been closed and settled up. The wrongs done to
commerce for thirty years back, and under so many different
Presidents, and indemnities withheld from all, have been repaired and
paid over under the beneficent and glorious administration of President
Jackson. But one single instance of outrage has occurred, and that at
the extremities of the world, and by a piratical horde, amenable to no
law but the law of force. The Malays of Sumatra
committed a robbery and massacre upon an American vessel.
Wretches! they did not then know that JACKSON was President of the
United States! and that no distance, no time, no idle ceremonial of
treating with robbers and assassins, was to hold back the arm of
justice. Commodore Downes went out. His cannon and his bayonets
struck the outlaws in their den. They paid in terror and blood for the
outrage which was committed; and the great lesson was taught to
these distant pirates--to our antipodes themselves --that not even the
entire diameter of this globe could protect them, and that the name of
American citizen, like that of Roman citizen in
the great days of the Republic and of the empire, was to be the
inviolable passport of all that wore it throughout the whole extent of
the habitable world.
Pages:
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23