5470. MONROE (James), British treaty and.—
You complain of the manner in which
the [British] treaty was received. But what
was that manner? I cannot suppose you to
have given a moment's credit to the stuff which
was crowded in all sorts of forms into the public
papers, or to the thousand speeches they put
into my mouth, not a word of which I had
ever uttered. I was not insensible at the time
of the views to mischief, with which these lies
were fabricated. But my confidence was firm,
that neither yourself nor the British government,
equally outraged by them, would believe
me capable of making the editors of newspapers
the confidants of my speeches or opinions. The
fact was this. The treaty was communicated
to us by Mr. Erskine on the day Congress was
to rise. Two of the senators enquired of me
in the evening, whether it was my purpose to
detain them on account of the treaty. My
answer was, “that it was not; that the treaty
containing no provision against the impressment
of our seamen, and being accompanied
by a kind of protestation of the British ministers,
which would leave that government free
to consider it as a treaty or no treaty, according
to their own convenience, I should not give
them the trouble of deliberating on it”. This
was substantially, and almost verbally, what I
said whenever spoken to about it, and I never
failed when the occasion would admit of it, to
justify yourself and Mr. Pinckney, by expressing
my conviction, that it was all that could be
obtained from the British government; that
you had told their commissioners that your
government could not be pledged to ratify, because
it was contrary to their instructions; of
course, that it should be considered but as a
projet; and in this light I stated it publicly
in my message to Congress on the opening of
the session. Not a single article of the treaty
was ever made known beyond the members of
the administration, nor would an article of it be
known at this day, but for its publication in
the newspapers, as communicated by somebody
from beyond the water, as we have always understood.
But as to myself, I can solemnly protest,
as the most sacred of truths, that I
never, one instant, lost sight of your reputation
and favorable standing with your country, and
never omitted to justify your failure to attain
our wish, as one which was probably unattainable.
Reviewing, therefore, this whole subject,
I cannot doubt you will become sensible,
that your impressions have been without just
ground.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. v, 254.
Ford ed., ix, 179.
(W.
March. 1808)
See Impressment.
