The reception of the President in Philadelphia was all that his best friends could have desired. Indeed, the Whigs seemed to vie with the Democrats in doing honor to the Chief Magistrate. Price Wetherell, the President of the Select Council, did his whole duty, though in a fussy manner, and was much gratified with the well-deserved compliments which he received. The dinner at McKibbins’ was excellent and well conducted. We did not sit down to table until nearly nine o’clock. The mayor, Mr. Gilpin, presided. The President sat on his right, and myself on his left. In the course of the entertainment he spoke to me, behind Mr. Gilpin, and strongly expressed the hope that I would accept the mission, to which I made a friendly, but indefinite answer. He then expressed a desire to see me when the dinner should be ended; but it was kept up until nearly midnight, the President cordially participating in the hilarity of the scene. We then agreed to meet the next morning.
After mature reflection, I had determined to reject the mission, if I found this could be done without danger of an open breach with the administration; but if this could not be done, I was resolved to accept it, however disagreeable. The advice of Governor Porter, then at McKibbins’, gave me confidence in the correctness of my own judgment. My position was awkward and embarrassing. There was danger that it might be said (indeed it had already been insinuated in several public journals), that I had selfishly thrown up the mission, because the fishery question had not been entrusted to me, although I knew that actual collision between the two countries on the fishery grounds might be the consequence of the transfer of the negotiation to London. Such a statement could only be rebutted by the publication of the correspondence between the President and myself; but as this was altogether private, such a publication could only be justified in a case of extreme necessity.
Besides, I had no reason to believe that the President had taken from me the reciprocity and fishery questions with any deliberate purpose of doing me injury. On the contrary, I have but little doubt that this proceeded from his apprehension that the suspension of the negotiation might produce dangerous consequences on the fishing grounds. I might add that his instructions to me on the Central American questions were as full and ample as I could desire. Many friends believed, not without reason, that if I should decline the mission, Mr. Dallas would be appointed; and this idea was very distasteful to them, though not to myself.
The following is the substance of the conversation between the President and myself on Wednesday morning, the 13th of July, partly at McKibbins’, and the remainder on board the steamer which took us across to Camden. It was interrupted by the proceedings at Independence Hall on Wednesday morning.
The President commenced the conversation by the expression of his strong wish that I would not decline the mission. I observed that the British government had imposed an absurd construction on the fishery question, and without notice had suddenly sent a fleet there to enforce it, for the purpose, as I believed, of obtaining from us the reciprocity treaty. Under these circumstances I should have said to Great Britain: You shall have the treaty, but you must consent at the same time to withdraw your protectorate from the Mosquito Coast, and restore to Honduras the colony of the Bay of Islands. That this course might still be adopted at Washington, and that in this view all the negotiations had better be conducted there. Without answering these remarks specifically, the President, reiterating his request that I should accept the mission, spoke strongly of the danger of any delay, on our part, in the adjustment of the fishery question, and said that Mr. Crampton, deeply impressed with this danger, had gone all the way to Halifax to see Admiral Seymour, for the purpose of averting this danger. I observed that it was far, very far from my desire, in the present state of the negotiation, to have charge of the fishery negotiation at London; but still insisted that it was best that the Central American questions should also be settled at Washington. To this he expressed a decided aversion. He said that serious difficulties had arisen, in the progress of the negotiations, on the reciprocity question, particularly in regard to the reciprocal registry of the vessels of the two parties; and it was probable that within a short time the negotiation on all the questions would be transferred to me at London, and that my declining the mission at this time would be very embarrassing to his administration, and could not be satisfactorily explained. I replied that I thought it could. It might be stated in the Union that after my agreement to accept the mission, circumstances had arisen rendering it necessary that the negotiations with which I was to be entrusted at London, should be conducted at Washington; that I myself was fully convinced of this necessity; but that this change had produced a corresponding change in my determination to accept a mission which I had always been reluctant to accept, and we had parted on the best and most friendly terms. Something like this, I thought, would be satisfactory.
He answered that after such an explanation it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get a suitable person to undertake the mission. He had felt it to be his duty to offer me this important mission, and he thought it was my duty to accept it. He said that if the Central American questions should go wrong in London, entrusted to other hands than my own, both he and I would be seriously blamed. He said, with much apparent feeling, that he felt reluctant to insist thus upon my acceptance of a mission so distasteful to me.
Having fully ascertained, as I believed, that I could not decline the mission without giving him serious offence, and without danger of an open rupture with the administration, I said: “Reluctant as I am to accept the mission, if you think that my refusal to accept it would cause serious embarrassment to your administration, which I am anxious to support, I will waive my objections and go to London.” He instantly replied that he was rejoiced that I had come to this conclusion, and that we should both feel greatly the better for having done our respective duties. He added that I need not hurry my departure. I told him that although my instructions gave me all the powers I could desire on the Central American questions, yet they had not been accompanied by any of the papers and documents in the Department relating to these questions; that these were indispensable, and without them I could not proceed. He expressed some surprise at this, and said he would write to Governor Marcy that very evening. I told him he need not trouble himself to do this, as I should write to him myself immediately after my return home.
This was on the river. I accompanied him to the cars, where I took leave of him, Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Davis and Mr. Cushing, who all pressed me very much to go on with them to New York.
[TO CITIZENS OF LANCASTER.]
Wheatland, near Lancaster, July 23, 1853.