“So far, therefore, from the American government having any reason to complain of the non-ratification of Mr. Erskine’s unauthorized agreement, his Majesty has on his part just ground of complaint for that share of the inconvenience from the publication which may have fallen upon his Majesty’s subjects, so far as their interests may have been involved in the renewed speculations of their American correspondents; and his Majesty cannot but think any complaint, if any should be made on this occasion in America, the more unreasonable, as the government of the United States is that government which perhaps of all others has most freely exercised the right of withholding its ratification from even the authorized acts of its own diplomatic agents.”
In this spirit Jackson was to meet any “preliminary discussion” which might arise before he could proceed to negotiation. Canning did not touch on the probability that if Jackson met preliminary discussion in such a spirit as this, he would run something more than a risk of never reaching negotiation at all; or if Canning considered this point, he treated it orally. The other written instructions given to Jackson dealt at once with negotiation.
The “Chesapeake” affair came first in order, and was quickly dismissed. Jackson was to require from the President a written acknowledgment that the interdict on British ships was annulled before any settlement could be made. The Orders in Council came next, and were the subject of a long instruction, full of interest and marked by many of Canning’s peculiarities. Once more he explained that Erskine had inverted the relation of things by appearing to recall the orders as an inducement to the renewal of trade,—“as if in any arrangement, whether commercial or political, his Majesty could condescend to barter objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with another country. The character even more than the stipulations of such a compact must under any circumstances have put out of question the possibility of his Majesty’s consenting to confirm it.” He related the history of the orders, which he called “defensive retaliation,” and explained why Erskine’s arrangement failed to effect the object of that system:—
“In the arrangement agreed to by Mr. Erskine the incidental consequence is mistaken for the object of the negotiation. His Majesty is made by his minister to concede the whole point in dispute by the total and unconditional recall of the Orders in Council; and nothing is done by the United States in return except to permit their citizens to renew their commercial intercourse with Great Britain. Whereas, before his Majesty’s consent to withdraw or even to modify the Orders in Council was declared, the United States should have taken upon themselves to execute in substance the objects of the Orders in Council by effectually prohibiting all trade between their citizens and France, or the Powers acting under her decrees, and by engaging for the continuance of that prohibition so long as those decrees should continue unrepealed.”
As in the “Chesapeake” affair, so in regard to the orders,—Canning’s objection to Erskine’s arrangement was stated as one of form. That the “Chesapeake” proclamation was no longer in force; that Congress had effectually prohibited trade with France; and that the President had engaged as far as he could to continue that prohibition till the French Decrees were repealed,—these were matters of notoriety. England took the ground that the United States were liable to the operation of the British retaliatory orders against France, even though Congress should have declared war upon France, unless the declaration of war was regularly made known to the British minister at Washington, and unless “the United States should have taken upon themselves,” by treaty with England, to continue the war till France repealed her decrees.
Canning was happy in the phrase he employed in Parliament, March 6, to justify the course of ministers toward America. “Extension of the law of nations” described well the Orders in Council themselves; but the instruction to Jackson was remarkable as a prodigious extension of the extended orders. The last legal plea was abandoned by these instructions, and the subject would have been the clearer for that abandonment were it not that owing to the rapidity of events the new extravagance was never known; with Canning himself the subject slipped from public view, and only the mystery remained of Canning’s objects and expectations.
Another man would have temporized, and would have offered some suggestion toward breaking the force of such a blow at a friendly people. Not only did Canning make no new suggestion, but he even withdrew that which he had made in February. He told Jackson to propose nothing whatever:—
“You are to inform the American Secretary of State that in the event of the government of the United States being desirous now to adopt this proposal, you are authorized to renew the negotiation and to conclude it on the terms of my instructions to Mr. Erskine; but that you are not instructed to press upon the acceptance of the American government an arrangement which they have so recently declined, especially as the arrangement itself is become less important, and the terms of it less applicable to the state of things now existing.”
The remainder of this despatch was devoted to proving that, the late order of April 26 had so modified that of November, 1807, as to remove the most serious American objections; and although the blockade was more restrictive than the old orders as concerned French and Dutch colonies, yet the recent surrender of Martinique had reduced the practical hardship of this restriction so considerably that it was fairly offset by the opening of the Baltic. America had the less inducement to a further arrangement which could little increase the extent of her commerce, while England was indifferent provided she obtained her indispensable objects:—
“I am therefore not to direct you to propose to the American government any formal agreement to be substituted for that which his Majesty has been under the necessity of disavowing. You are, however, at liberty to receive for reference home any proposal which the American government may tender to you; but it is only in the case of that proposal comprehending all the three conditions which Mr. Erskine was instructed to require.”