5476. MONROE (James), English mission.—
I perceive that painful impressions
have been made on your mind during your late
mission, of which I had never entertained a
suspicion. I must, therefore, examine the
grounds, because explanations between reasonable
men can never but do good. 1. You consider
the mission of Mr. Pinkney as an associate,
to have been in some way injurious to
you. Were I to take that measure on myself,
I might say in its justification, that it has been
the regular and habitual practice of the United
States to do this, under every form in which
their government has existed. I need not recapitulate
the multiplied instances, because you
will readily recollect them. I went as an adjunct
to Dr. Franklin, and Mr. Adams, yourself
as an adjunct first to Mr. Livingston, and
then to Mr. Pinkney, and I really believe there
has scarcely been a great occasion which has
not produced an extraordinary mission. Still,
however, it is well known that I was strongly
opposed to it in the case of which you complain.
A committee of the Senate called on
me with two resolutions of that body, on the
subject of impressment and spoliations by
Great Britain, and requesting that I would demand
satisfaction. After delivering the resolutions,
the committee entered into free conversation,
and observed that although the Senate
could not, in form, recommend any extraordinary
mission, yet that as individuals, there
was but one sentiment among them on the
measure, and they pressed it. I was so much
averse to it, and gave them so hard an answer,
that they felt it, and spoke of it. But it did not
end here. The members of the other House
took up the subject, and set upon me individually,
and these the best friends to you, as
well as myself, and represented the responsibility
which a failure to obtain redress would
throw on us both, pursuing a conduct in opposition
to the opinion of nearly every member
of the Legislature. I found it necessary, at
length, to yield my own opinion to the general
sense of the national council, and it really
seemed to produce a jubilee among them; not
from any want of confidence in you, but from
a belief in the effect which an extraordinary
mission would have on the British mind, by
demonstrating the degree of importance which
this country attached to the rights which we
considered as infracted.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. v, 253.
Ford ed., ix, 178.
(W.
March. 1808)
