It will strike any reader conversant with the history of that period, that Clay's argument, if taken as a plea for protection, was far less decided in tone and strong in reasoning than many speeches which had been made in Congress on that side of the question before; and also that the methods of encouraging manufacturing industries suggested by him were, although less clearly stated, not materially different from those suggested by Gallatin, who was on principle a free trader.
This topic was, in fact, only one of a great variety of subjects to which he devoted his attention. He evidently endeavored to become not only a brilliant speaker, but a useful, working legislator. During the same session he made a report on a bill granting a right of preëmption to settlers on public land in certain cases, which was passed without amendment. Indian affairs, too, received his intelligent attention. A bill supplementary to “an Act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontier,” was introduced by him and referred to a committee of which he was made chairman; and his report displayed sentiments as wise as they were humane. More conspicuous and important was the part he took during the session of 1810-11 in the debates on the occupation of West Florida, and on a bill to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States.
The West Florida case gave him his first introduction to the field of foreign affairs, and at
