“It remains for me,” he continued, “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 shown himself so far insensible of what is due to the dignity of his sovereign as to have consented to receive and transmit a note in which such expressions were contained.”
Canning was hardly the proper person to criticise Robert Smith’s disrespectful expressions, which, whatever their intention, failed to be nearly as offensive as many of his own; but this was a matter between himself and Erskine. Even after granting the propriety of his comment, diplomatic usage seemed to require that some demand of explanation or apology from the American government should precede the rejection of an engagement otherwise satisfactory; but no such step was in this case taken through Erskine. His settlement of the “Chesapeake” outrage was repudiated without more words, and the next day Canning repudiated the rest of the arrangement.
Nothing could be easier than to show that Erskine had violated his instructions more plainly in regard to the Orders in Council than in regard to the “Chesapeake” affair. Of the three conditions imposed by Canning, not one had been fulfilled. The first required the repeal of all Non-intercourse Acts against England, “leaving them in force with respect to France;” but Erskine had doubly failed to secure it:[72]—
“As the matter at present stands before the world in your official correspondence with Mr. Smith, the American government would be at liberty to-morrow to repeal the Non-intercourse Act altogether, without infringing the agreement which you have thought proper to enter into on behalf of his Majesty; and if such a clause was thought necessary to this condition at the time when my instructions were written, it was obviously become much more so when the Non-intercourse Act was passed for a limited time. You must also have been aware at the time of making the agreement that the American government had in fact formally exempted Holland, a Power which has unquestionably ‘adopted and acted under the Decrees of France,’ from the operation of the Non-intercourse Act,—an exemption in direct contravention of the condition prescribed to you, and which of itself ought to have prevented you from coming to any agreement whatever.”
Here, again, sufficient reasons were given for punishing Erskine; but these reasons were not equally good for repudiating the compact with the United States. No American vessels could enter a Dutch port so long as the British blockade lasted; therefore the exemption of Holland from the non-intercourse affected England only by giving to her navy another chance for booty, and to the Americans one more empty claim. Canning himself explained to Pinkney[73] “that the exemption of Holland from the effect of our embargo and non-intercourse would not have been much objected to by the British government” if the President had been willing to pledge himself to enforce the non-intercourse against France; but for aught that appeared to the contrary, “the embargo and non-intercourse laws might be suffered without any breach of faith to expire, or might even be repealed immediately, notwithstanding the perseverance of France in her Berlin and other edicts; and that Mr. Erskine had in truth secured nothing more, as the consideration of the recall of the Orders in Council, than the renewal of American intercourse with Great Britain.”
Thus Canning justified the repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement by the single reason that the United States government could not be trusted long enough to prove its good faith. The explanation was difficult to express in courteous or diplomatic forms; but perhaps its most striking quality, next to its want of courtesy, was its evident want of candor. Had the American government evaded its obligation, the British government held the power of redress in its own hands. Clearly the true explanation was to be sought elsewhere, in some object which Canning could not put in diplomatic words, but which lay in the nature of Perceval’s system. Even during the three days while the decision was supposed to be in doubt, alarmed merchants threw themselves in crowds on the Board of Trade, protesting that if American vessels with their cheaper sugar, cotton, and coffee were allowed to enter Amsterdam and Antwerp, British trade was at an end.[74] The mere expectation of their arrival would create such a fall in prices as to make worthless the accumulated mass of such merchandise with which the warehouses were filled, not only in London, but also in the little island of Heligoland at the mouth of the Elbe, where a system of licensed and unlicensed smuggling had been established under the patronage of the Board of Trade. Deputations of these merchants waited on Earl Bathurst to represent the danger of allowing even those American ships to enter Holland which might have already sailed from the United States on the faith of Erskine’s arrangement. Somewhat unexpectedly ministers refused to gratify this prayer. An Order in Council of May 24, while announcing the Royal repudiation of Erskine’s arrangement, declared that American vessels which should have cleared for Holland between April 19 and July 20 would not be molested in their voyage.
The chief objection to Erskine’s arrangement, apart from its effect on British merchants, consisted in the danger that by its means America might compel France to withdraw her decrees affecting neutrals. The chance that Erskine’s arrangement might involve America in war with Napoleon was not worth the equal chance of its producing in the end an amicable arrangement with Napoleon which would sacrifice the last defence of British commerce and manufactures. Had the British government given way, Napoleon, to whom the most solemn pledges cost nothing, would certainly persuade President Madison to lean once more toward France. The habit of balancing the belligerents—the first rule of American diplomacy—required the incessant see-saw of interest. So many unsettled questions remained open that British ministers could not flatter themselves with winning permanent American favor by partial concession.
To Canning’s despatch repudiating the commercial arrangement, Erskine made a reply showing more keenness and skill than was to be found in Canning’s criticism.
“It appears from the general tenor of your despatches,” wrote Erskine[75] on receiving these letters of May 22 and 23, “that his Majesty’s government were not willing to trust to assurances from the American government, but that official pledges were to have been required which could not be given for want of power, some of them also being of a nature which would prevent a formal recognition. Had I believed that his Majesty’s government were determined to insist upon these conditions being complied with in one particular manner only, I should have adhered implicitly to my instructions; but as I collected from them that his Majesty was desirous of accomplishing his retaliatory system by such means as were most compatible with a good understanding with friendly and neutral Powers, I felt confident that his Majesty would approve of the arrangement I had concluded as one likely to lead to a cordial and complete understanding and co-operation on the part of the United States, which co-operation never could be obtained by previous stipulations either from the government of the United States, who have no power to accede to them, or from Congress, which would never acknowledge them as recognitions to guide their conduct.”
This reply, respectful in form, placed Secretary Canning in the dilemma between the guilt of ignorance or that of bad faith; but the rejoinder of a dismissed diplomatist weighed little except in history, and long before it was made public Erskine and his arrangement had ceased to interest the world. Canning disposed of both forever by a third despatch, dated May 30, enclosing to Erskine an Order in Council disavowing his arrangement and ordering him back to England.