University of Virginia Library

TO JAMES MONROE.

I inclose for your information copies of the letters
which have passed on several subjects between Mr. Erskine
and the Department of State; and which it may be useful for
you to possess. The proceedings at Halifax with respect to
one of the men taken from the Chesapeake, and whose restoration
was included in the demand of reparation for that
outrage, are calculated to inspire great distrust of the temper
and intentions of the British Government towards this
Country. Is it conceivable that at so late a day Berkley could
be unapprized of the light in which his original offence was
viewed by his superiors, or that if apprized of their displeasure
at it, he would brave the consequences of an additional temerity
of so irreparable a character. Before the receipt of this
communication you will probably have been enabled to

interpret the phenomenon, and this communication suggests
the light in which it is to be presented to the British Government.
If the responsibility rests on Berkley or any other
Officer, and that Government means to give the satisfaction
due to the honor of the United States, there can be no pretext
for refusing to make the severest example of the Offender or
Offenders. Among the papers accompanying this will be
found British evidence that the seaman sentenced to death
was not a deserter from a British ship of war as alleged on his
trial, but a merchantman only. You will find also that,
according to information received here thro' the Collector of
Baltimore the Court martial at Halifax, disregarding still
further every restraint of law, of decency and of common
prudence, proceeded to the trial of the three other men taken
from the Chesapeake, without even pretending that they
were British subjects, that a partial execution of the sentence
on one of them was fatal to his life, and that the two others
were forced into the service of a British Ship of War, by
making that the alternative of the doom to which they were
sentenced. Should this information be confirmed, and it has
not yet been impaired by any circumstance whatever, the
measure of atrocity will be filled up, and every motive supplied
for requiring on our part and for affording on that
of Great Britain the full measure of punishment due to it.

The last letter received from Mr. Erskine respecting the
detention of a letter to him from Vice Admiral Berkley will
not be answered, unless the subject should be resumed after
receiving mine which had not reached him at the date of
his. If a further answer should be required, it may be
necessary to remind him that if the ground for a prosecution
were as legal as he supposes, the measure however it might be
dictated by the respect which the United States owe to themselves,
could not be demanded of right by a Government
which has left unpunished the repeated violations committed
by its officers on the most solemn dispatches of the United
States. Instances of these have from time to time been transmitted

to you. In that of the letter from the President to the
King of Holland with the great seal internally impressed, the
offence was of the most flagrant kind, and rendered the more
conspicuous by its publication in the British Newspapers.
This circumstance, whilst it necessarily brought the aggravated
insult to the notice of the Government might the
rather have been expected to be followed by the punishment
of the guilty officer, as this course alone could guard the
Government itself to which the copy of the President's letter
must be presumed to have been sent by the officer who violated
it, against appearances and conjectures of the most unfavorable
sort.