“On three points we were perhaps vulnerable. 1. The delay in renewing the negotiation. 2. The omission of having revoked the restriction on the indirect intercourse when that of Great Britain had ceased. 3. Too long an adherence to the opposition to her right of laying protecting duties. This might have been given up as soon as the Act of 1825 had passed. These are the causes assigned for the late measures adopted towards the United States on that subject, and they have undoubtedly had a decisive effect as far as relates to the order in council, assisted as they were by the belief that our object was to compel this country to regulate the trade upon our own terms. But even this will not account for the refusal to negotiate and the apparent determination to exclude us altogether hereafter from a participation in the trade of the colonies. There is certainly an alteration in the disposition of this government since the year 1818, when I was last here. Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Robinson had it more at heart to cherish friendly relations than Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson. The difference may, however, be in the times rather than in the men. Treated in general with considerable arrogance till the last war, with great attention, if not respect, during the years that followed it, the United States are now an object of jealousy; and a policy founded on that feeling has been avowed.”[160]

The first part of the above paragraph, down to the words “upon our own terms,” was afterwards paraphrased by Mr. Van Buren as the ground of his celebrated deprecation to Great Britain, when giving his instructions, as Secretary of State, to Mr. McLane, as Minister to England. This fact was discovered by Mr. Benton, who has, in his “Thirty Years’ View,”[161] printed that portion of the above despatch of 22d September, 1826, at the same time judiciously omitting the remainder, as had been done by Mr. Van Buren himself. This is not the place for making any comment either upon Mr. Van Buren’s statesmanship or Mr. Benton’s merits as a historian; but it is proper to point out that nothing in Mr. Gallatin’s despatch could honestly be made to support the credit of either the one or the other.[162]

But Mr. Gallatin’s remarks of September 22 were written before receiving the explanations of his own government, and they did not express a matured opinion. He was greatly perplexed to understand the real motives of Mr. Canning. On the 18th October, not one month after this despatch to Mr. Clay, he wrote a private letter to the President, giving some interesting information he had obtained on a short visit to Paris.[163] In this letter he mentioned having received information from a respectable quarter that “a few days before the publication of the order in council of July last, one of the King’s ministers had complained to a confidential friend of the general tone of the American diplomacy towards England, still more as respected manner than matter, and added that it was time to show that this was felt and resented.” Puzzled to know what could have caused such displeasure, Mr. Gallatin adds that he had looked through all the published correspondence and could find nothing with which the British government could have taken offence, unless it were Mr. Adams’s instructions to Mr. Rush, with which that government had no concern. Even in this supposition, however, it soon appeared that he was mistaken; for on the 27th November he wrote to Mr. Clay that he had further ascertained the name of the “King’s minister” before mentioned. It was no less a person than Mr. Canning himself; he had said that the language used by America was almost tantamount to a declaration of war; he had used the same language to Mr. Gallatin, and his grievance was not at all against the President or his officers, but against a certain Mr. Baylies, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, who, as chairman of a committee, had made a belligerent report to the House, which had never even been taken into consideration. “It is most undoubtedly that report which has given great offence, and I am apt to think that, though not the remote, or only, it was the immediate cause of the order in council.”

Feeling his way in this tentative manner, always the most difficult task of a new minister in critical times, Mr. Gallatin approached the other subjects of negotiation. At the close of the year he wrote to the President, sketching the state of each disputed point and earnestly pressing for instructions. This letter closes with the following unusually severe remarks:

1827.

“Although all my faculties are exerted, and it is far from being the first time, in trying to accommodate differences and to remove causes of rupture, it is impossible for me not to see and feel the temper that prevails here towards us. It is perceptible in every quarter and on every occasion, quite changed from what it was in 1815-1821; nearly as bad as before the last war, only they hate more and despise less, though they still affect to conceal hatred under the appearance of contempt. I would not say this to any but to you and your confidential advisers, and I say it not in order to excite corresponding feelings, but because I think that we must look forward and make those gradual preparations which will make us ready for any emergency, and which may be sufficient to preserve us from the apprehended danger.... I must say, after my remarks on the temper here, that I have been personally treated with great, by Mr. Canning with marked, civility.”

Thus difficulties thickened round him as he advanced. The West India negotiation could not take place; there was no hope for the navigation of the St. Lawrence; there was no chance of fixing a definitive boundary in Oregon; even to make the preliminary arrangements for compromising the dispute about the Maine boundary would be laborious and arduous; the only point settled was that of payment in a gross sum for captured slaves.

ALBERT GALLATIN TO JAMES GALLATIN.

London, 13th January, 1827.

... We continue all well, and I anticipate nothing that can prevent our taking our departure about the middle of June. All that I can possibly do here must be terminated by that time, provided the instructions I have asked on some points be such as not to render another reference to Washington necessary. I have written to the Department of State accordingly, and asked for leave to return by that time, to which I presume no objection will be made, as it was explicitly understood that I should remain no longer than the pending negotiations required, and Mr. Adams’s conjecture that they would occupy about twelve months is confirmed. I have written to him a private letter by the last packet, most earnestly entreating him both to direct the necessary instructions to be sent and to grant me leave to return. As you know him, and he has always shown kindness to you, I wish you would join your solicitations to mine, either in writing or by waiting in person on him. There are many things which you may say or explain showing the importance of my return to my family. As to myself, whether it is the result of age (you know that in a fortnight I will enter my sixty-seventh year) or increased anxiety about you and your brother, my mind is enervated, and I feel that a longer absence would have a most serious effect upon me. As it is, though my health is tolerable, I hardly dare to hope that I will see you again. Nor will my return be any public loss. The United States want here a man of considerable talent, but he must be younger than I am and capable of going through great labor with more facility than I now possess. This is at all times the most laborious foreign mission. It is at this time, owing to the negotiations, one of the most laborious public offices. I cannot work neither as long nor do as much work in the same time as formerly. To think and to write, to see the true state of the question, and to state it, not with eloquence, but with perspicuity, all that formerly was done instantaneously and with ease is now attended with labor, requires time, and is not performed to my satisfaction. I believe that Mr. Lawrence will prove a useful public servant. Yet I have missed and do miss your assistance every day. I did not like French diplomacy; I cannot say that I admire that of this country. Some of the French statesmen occasionally say what is not true (cordon sanitaire); here they conceal the truth. The temper also towards us is bad. After all, though it is necessary to argue well, you may argue forever in vain; strength and the opinion of your strength are the only efficient weapons. We must either shut ourselves in our shell, as was attempted during the Jefferson policy, and I might say mine, or we must support our rights and pretensions by assuming at home a different attitude. I think that we are now sufficiently numerous and rich for that purpose, and that with skill our resources would be found adequate. But that is a subject requiring more discussion than can be encompassed in a letter. I fear that you will find this written in a too desponding mood; and I do not wish you to despond as relates to yourself.... What you may, or rather ought to, do about our lands, it belongs to you to decide. They are yours and Albert’s, and you must consider them as such, keep or sacrifice, since there is no chance of a favorable sale at present, as you shall think best. It is a troublesome and unproductive property, which has plagued me all my life. I could not have vested my patrimony in a more unprofitable manner....