To the President of the United States of America: The inhabitants of Cambridge, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in legal town-meeting assembled, respectfully represent: That we are sensibly impressed with our obligation to submit to and support the laws of our country; and we flatter ourselves that we have been and ever shall be forward to manifest our patriotism, and make any sacrifice, and submit to any privation, that the interest and honor of our country shall require. But in times of great public calamity and distress, we deem it no less our duty than our privilege, “peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Under these impressions, we feel constrained to confess to your Excellency that we, in common with our fellow citizens of the Eastern States, suffer a severe and increasing distress from the operation of the laws “laying an embargo on all ships and vessels in the ports and harbors of the United States.” Could we see a termination of our sufferings, we would submit in silence. But with consternation we observe that this is not a temporary measure, but imposed by perpetual laws. We admit the power of Congress to regulate commerce; but laws to abolish it, and raise a perpetual barrier to foreign intercourse, we believe was never contemplated by our national compact.
Your petitioners inhabit a district of the Union which does not abound with all the conveniences of life. The fisheries and commerce have contributed in an eminent degree to give us whatever of wealth, happiness, and importance, we enjoy. We can never, therefore, subscribe to the opinion, “that it would be unwise evermore to recur to distant countries for the comforts and conveniences of life.” Situated as we are on the shores of the Atlantic, we have occasion to remark and bitterly realize many distressing consequences of the embargo laws, which fall not under the immediate eye of Government, the recital of which, we are confident, will excite all your excellency's philanthropy, and induce you to exercise the power with which you are invested, for the relief of your fellow-citizens. The laws which shut us out from the ocean, the better part of our inheritance, palsied all our enterprise. The farmer gathers his harvest with a heavy heart, while he has no hope of vending his surplus, and the mechanic, sailor, and fisherman, find that their willing industry will no longer enable them to supply their daily wants. Many, very
