you are authorized to assure the American Government, of the readiness with which we shall be prepared to enter into the amicable discussions of the commercial relations of the two countries, on the basis of the latter of the two principles proposed by Mr. Galatin, whenever those obstacles which stood in the way of the renewal of their intercourse shall have been happily removed. In this case, as in respect to the subject of my other Dispatches, you will see that the sincerity of the good disposition professed by the persons composing the new administration, is the point the most important in the view of the British Government.-If such a disposition really exists, all difficulties will (as Mr. Galatin has expressed himself) be easily smoothed away. If unfortunately this hope should be disappointed, Great Britain has only to continue the system of self-defence and retaliation upon her enemies to which she has been compelled to have recourse, with the consciousness of having eagerly seized the first opportunity that appeared to be offered to her of obtaining through an amicable arrangement with America, the object for which that system was established. I am, &c.

GEO. CANNING.

No. V. Dispatch from Mr. Secretary Canning to the Hon. D. Erskine, dated Foreign Office, May 22, 1809.

(No. 10.)

Sir; Your Dispatches (Nos. 19. and 20.) of the 19th and 20th of April, have been received here this day, and laid before the King. I have lost no time in receiving his Majesty's commands to signify to you his Majesty's sentiments on the manner in which you have executed the instructions conveyed to you in my Dispatches by Mr. Oakley. It is much to be regretted, that in the execution of instructions upon points of so much delicacy and importance, you should have thought yourself authorized to depart so widely, not only from their letter but from their spirit. With respect to the instructions relating to the Chesapeake, which form the subject of my Dispatch No. 1. I have to remark, first, the total omission by you of a preliminary of the most material importance; 2dly, a departure from the terms of your instructions in the manner of conducting the negotiation; and, 3dly, the admission by you, and so far as appears without remonstrance or observation, of a Note contain

ing expressions offensive to his Majesty's dignity, such as no Minister of his Majesty ought to have submitted to receive, and to transmit to his Government.

1st. It is distinctly stated by me, as the condition of his Majesty's "no longer insisting upon the recall of the Proclamation of July 1807, as a preliminary to the adjustment of the difference arising from the affair of the Chesapeake, That the ships of war of France shall, in point of fact, have been excluded from the ports of the United States, and such ships of that description as were in those ports, shall have been warned to depart."

Of this condition you appear to have taken no notice whatever. The Non-intercourse Bill operated only to the prospective exclusion; but as to the warning to be given to any ships of war of France (if any such there were) in the ports of the United States, it no where appears that even a question was put by you on this subject, much less that you received any satisfactory assurance upon it.

2dly. But if this preliminary condition had been fulfilled, your instructions proceed to state, that even then" it would still be necessary that either the Proclamation should be withdrawn, or its operation formerly declared to be at an end; withdrawal or declaration should be rethough it would be sufficient that such corded in the same instrument, or at the same time with the terms of reparation."

So far from this indispensible condition having been obtained by you, Mr. Smith, in the answer returned by him to your Note, studiously avoids any thing like a recognition of the principle on which alone the demand of the formal recall of the Proclamation was to be waved. Neither is the Proclamation itself withdrawn, nor its operation declared to be at an end. The obvious consequence of this omission is, that if the Non-intercourse act, which is a temporary act, were to be suffered to expire, the Proclamation might revive, and the inequality between the two belligerents be thereby restored

It was obviously your duty, before you committed his Majesty's name by a written offer of reparation, to ascertain in what manner that offer would be received and answered; and if you found that the express conditions, either of the withdrawing the Proclamation, or declaring its operation to be at an end, would not be complied with, to abstain from proceeding one single step in the negociation

until you had referred home for further instructions.

That part of your Instructions which directed that this arrangement, if not made the subject of a convention, should be settled" by the exchange of ministerial "Notes dated on the same day, and reci. procally delivered at the same time," was expressly intended to guard against the possibility of your committing yourself by a written proposal, in the uncertainty of what might be the nature of the answer to be returned to it.-His Majesty will not suppose it possible that Mr. Smith's intended answer can have been communicated to you previously, and have obtained your approbation. In the proposal for restoring the men taken from on board of the Chesapeake, it was not intended that the condition of his Majesty's right to reclaim them in a regular way from the American Government, if either natural born subjects of his Majesty, or deserters from his Majesty's service, should have been omitted. Idwell however the less on this point, as his Majesty's right in this respect is founded on public law, and does not require to be fortified by the recognition of any other Government.-But I cannot forbear observing with regret, that the bounty of his Majesty in the intended provision for the relations of the men killed on board of the Chesapeake, is not only stated by you without a similar restriction, but is brought forward at once as a part of the reparation originally offered; and thus converted by you from an act of spontaneous generosity, into one of positive obligation.

3dly. In addition to the substance of Mr. Smith's Note, which I have already mentioned, it remains for me to notice the expressions so full of disrespect to his Majesty with which that Note concludes. And I am to signify to you the displeasure which his Majesty feels, that any Minister of his Majesty should have shewn himself so far insensible of what is due to the dignity of his Sovereign, as to have consented to receive and transmit to be laid before his Majesty a Note in which such expressions were contained. I am, &c. GEO. CANNING.

No.VI.-Dispatch from Mr. Secretary Canning, to the Hon. David Erskine, dated Foreign Office, May 23d, 1809.

Sir; I proceed in this Dispatch, to point out to you those deviations from the instructions conveyed to you in my Dispatch VOL. XVII.-Appendix.

No. 2. which you have unfortunately thought yourself at liberty to adopt, and of which I am to express to you his Majesty's entire disapprobation.-I do not dwell upon the singular and offensive step taken by the American Government in publishing the whole of the correspondence which had taken place between you and the American Secretary of State; because his Majesty is willing to believe, that you cannot have been a party to this publication; his Majesty conceives it impossible that you should have given your consent to such a proceeding, especially in respect to a transaction which you pro fess yourself to consider as merely "conditional." But as the publication appears to have taken place on the 19th of April, the day of the date of your Dispatches, it seems difficult to understand how it happens, that your Dispatches should not contain any notification of your intention to remonstrate against a proceeding, so extraordinary as that of the publication of the Correspondence of a Minister without his concurrence, and previously to his transmission of it to his court.

I am in the first place to observe to you that the Instructions which I transmitted to you, by his Majesty's command, in my Dispatch No. 1. expressly stated, "That the manner in which the proposal for the adjustment of that difference may "be received, would be the best test of the general disposition of the American Government, and would naturally indicate the course to be pursued in respect to the further Instructions," which I proceed to communicate to you in another Dispatch; and I am to express his Majesty's sur prize and regret, that such a Note as that which you received from Mr. Smith, in answer to your offer, of reparation for the affair of the Chesapeake, can have been received by you as a proof of the acceptance by the Government of the United States, of the honourable reparation tendered by his Majesty" in the same spirit of conciliation in which it was proposed"

that Note itself being an offence against his Majesty's dignity, such as no Minister of his Majesty ought to have passed by unresented.

I am at a loss to conceive on what

ground you thought yourself authorized to open your correspondence on the subject of the Orders in Council, with the intimation of his Majesty's determination to send to the United States an Envoy Extraordinary invested with full powers (I)

by his Majesty's Government, and the Correspondencies between their Minister in France with the French Minister, respecting the Decrees of Berlin and Milan, should be deliberately considered, particularly the strong remonstrance of Mr. Armstrong to the French Government of the 12th of November, 1807, that it would be acknowledged that the United States had exerted all the efforts which remonstrances could have been supposed to be capable of producing, and that in failure of any effect from them, in persuading the French Government to withdraw their unjust restrictions upon neutral commerce, recourse might have been had by the United States to measures of more activity and decision against France; but that in the mean time Great Britain had issued her Orders in Council before it was known whether the United States would acquiesce in the aggressions of France, and thereby rendered it impossible to distinguish between the conduct of the two belligerents, who had equally committed aggressions against the United States.

He went also into all the arguments upon that subject which are detailed in his correspondences with the American Ministers in London and Paris, as published in the Documents referred to in the President's Message, but which I do not now repeat, as my object is merely to inform you of the result of his observations, which was, That as the world must be convinced that America had in vain taken all the means in her power to obtain from Great Britain and France a just attention to their rights as a neutral power, by representations and remonstrances, that she would be fully justified in having recourse to hostilities with either belligerent, and that she only hesitated to do so, from the difficulty of contending with both; but that she must be driven even to endeavour to maintain her rights against the two greatest powers in the world, unless either of them should relax their restrictions upon neutral commerce, in which case the United States would side with that power, against the other which might continue the aggression.

Mr. Madison observed to me, that it must be evident that the United States would enter upon measures of hostility with great reluctance, as he acknowledged that they are not at all prepared for war, much less with a power so irresistibly strong as Great Britain; and that nothing would be thought to be too great a sacri

fice to the preservation of peace, except their independence and their honour. He said that he did not believe that any Ame ricans would be found willing to submit to (what he termed) the encroachments upon the liberty and the rights of the United States by the belligerents, and therefore the alternatives were, Embargo or War. He confessed that the people of this country were beginning to think the former alternative too passive, and would perhaps soon prefer the latter, as even less injurious to the interests, and more congenial with the spirit of a free people.

He declared to me, that every opinion which he entertained respecting the best interests of his country, led him to wish that a good understanding should take place between Great Britain and the United States, and that he thought that the obvious advantages which would thereby result to both countries were a sufficient pledge of the sincerity of his sentiments.

The reasons which induce me to believe that the views and determinations of this Government, as described to me by Mr. Madison, are their real sentiments, and that they will pursue that course of conduct which they have marked out, arise from a mature consideration of the actual state of the affairs of this country, the particular situation of the Government and ruling party, and from certain private but important communications which have been made to me by some of the members of the administration, who are sincerely desirous of a conciliation with Great Britain.

It is evident from every thing which has lately taken place in this country, that the people at large are desirous of having the Embargo removed; but it is also to be collected from the result of the elections throughout the United States, that the present ruling party have a decided majority of the people with them; and as they have pledged themselves not to repeal it, while the restrictions upon their neutral rights continue in force by both belligerents, without substituting war measures; and as they themselves acknowledge, "that the ultimate and only "effectual mode of resisting such warfare, "if persisted in, is war," and that "a

permanent suspension of commerce, "would not properly be resistance, but " submission," I cannot therefore conceive that it would be possible for them to retract their declarations, and indeed they