The next day, accordingly, this genial pair again encountered. Mr. Adams noted at first in Mr. Canning's manner "an effort at coolness, but no appearance of cheerfulness or good humor. I saw there was no relaxation of the tone he had yesterday assumed, and felt that none would on my part be suitable." They went over quietly enough some of the ground traversed the day before, Mr. Adams again explaining the impropriety of Mr. Canning questioning him concerning remarks made in debate in Congress. It was, he said, as if Mr. Rush, hearing in the House of Commons something said about sending troops to the Shetland Islands, should proceed to question Lord Castlereagh about it.
"'Have you,' said Mr. Canning, 'any claim to the Shetland Islands?' 'Have you any claim,' said I, 'to the mouth of Columbia River?' 'Why, do you not know,' replied he, 'that we have a claim?' 'I do not know,' said I, 'what you claim nor what you do not claim. You claim India; you claim Africa; you claim'—'Perhaps,' said he, 'a piece of the moon.' 'No,' said I, 'I have not heard that you claim exclusively any part of the moon; but there is not a spot on this habitable globe that I could affirm you do not claim!'"
The conversation continued with alternations of lull and storm, Mr. Canning at times becoming warm and incensed and interrupting Mr. Adams, who retorted with a dogged asperity which must have been extremely irritating. Mr. Adams said that he did "not expect to be plied with captious questions" to obtain indirectly that which had been directly denied. Mr. Canning, "exceedingly irritated," complained of the word "captious." Mr. Adams retaliated by reciting offensive language used by Mr. Canning, who in turn replied that he had been speaking only in self-defence. Mr. Canning found occasion to make again his peculiarly rasping remark that he should always strive to show towards Mr. Adams the deference due to his "more advanced years." After another very uncomfortable passage, Mr. Adams said that the behavior of Mr. Canning in making the observations of members of Congress a basis of official interrogations was a pretension the more necessary to be resisted because this
"'was not the first time it had been raised by a British minister here.' He asked, with great emotion, who that minister was. I answered, 'Mr. Jackson.' 'And you got rid of him!' said Mr. Canning, in a tone of violent passion—'and you got rid of him!—and you got rid of him!' This repetition of the same words, always in the same tone, was with pauses of a few seconds between each of them, as if for a reply. I said: 'Sir, my reference to the pretension of Mr. Jackson was not'—Here Mr. Canning interrupted me by saying: 'If you think that by reference to Mr. Jackson I am to be intimidated from the performance of my duty you will find yourself greatly mistaken.' 'I had not, sir,' said I, 'the most distant intention of intimidating you from the performance of your duty; nor was it with the intention of alluding to any subsequent occurrences of his mission; but'—Mr. Canning interrupted me again by saying, still in a tone of high exasperation,—'Let me tell you, sir, that your reference to the case of Mr. Jackson is exceedingly offensive.' 'I do not know,' said I, 'whether I shall be able to finish what I intended to say, under such continual interruptions.'"
Mr. Canning thereupon intimated by a bow his willingness to listen, and Mr. Adams reiterated what in a more fragmentary way he had already said. Mr. Canning then made a formal speech, mentioning his desire "to cultivate harmony and smooth down all remnants of asperity between the two countries," again gracefully referred to the deference which he should at all times pay to Mr. Adams's age, and closed by declaring, with a significant emphasis, that he would "never forget the respect due from him to the American Government." Mr. Adams bowed in silence and the stormy interview ended. A day or two afterward the disputants met by accident, and Mr. Canning showed such signs of resentment that there passed between them a "bare salutation."
In the condition of our relations with Great Britain at the time of these interviews any needless ill-feeling was strongly to be deprecated. But Mr. Adams's temperament was such that he always saw the greater chance of success in strong and spirited conduct; nor could he endure that the dignity of the Republic, any more than its safety, should take detriment in his hands. Moreover he understood Englishmen better perhaps than they have ever been understood by any other of the public men of the United States, and he handled and subdued them with a temper and skill highly agreeable to contemplate. The President supported him fully throughout the matter, and the discomfiture and wrath of Mr. Canning never became even indirectly a cause of regret to the country.
As the years allotted to Monroe passed on, the manœuvring among the candidates for the succession to the Presidency grew in activity. There were several possible presidents in the field, and during the "era of good feeling" many an aspiring politician had his brief period of mild expectancy followed in most cases only too surely by a hopeless relegation to obscurity. There were, however, four whose anticipations rested upon a substantial basis. William H. Crawford, Secretary of the Treasury, had been the rival of Monroe for nomination by the Congressional caucus, and had then developed sufficient strength to make him justly sanguine that he might stand next to Monroe in the succession as he apparently did in the esteem of their common party. Mr. Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, had such expectations as might fairly grow out of his brilliant reputation, powerful influence in Congress, and great personal popularity. Mr. Adams was pointed out not only by his deserts but also by his position in the Cabinet, it having been the custom heretofore to promote the Secretary of State to the Presidency. It was not until the time of election was near at hand that the strength of General Jackson, founded of course upon the effect of his military prestige upon the masses of the people, began to appear to the other competitors a formidable element in the great rivalry. For a while Mr. Calhoun might have been regarded as a fifth, since he had already become the great chief of the South; but this cause of his strength was likewise his weakness, since it was felt that the North was fairly entitled to present the next candidate. The others, who at one time and another had aspirations, like De Witt Clinton and Tompkins, were never really formidable, and may be disregarded as insignificant threads in the complex political snarl which must be unravelled.
