University of Virginia Library

TO WILLIAM PINKNEY.

Having just learnt that the present Mail will arrive at New
York in time for the British packet, I avail myself of the
opportunity of forwarding your Commission and letters of
credence, as successor to Mr. Monroe, in the Legation at
London.

Since my last which went by Mr. Nourse in a dispatch vessel
bound first to L'Orient and then to Falmouth, I have received
your communications of the 23d Nov. and of Decr.
These with a representation from Genl. Armstrong to the
French Government on the subject of the Decree of Berlin as
expounded and enforced in the case of the ship Horizon, were
thought by the President to throw so much light on the course
likely to be pursued by Great Britain and France in relation
to the United States, that he had the documents confidentially
laid before Congress. By an inadvertence, the documents
were read in the Senate with unshut doors; and one of the
family of Mr. Rose being, as is said, present, it is not improbable
that your statement of the conversations with Mr.
Canning will be reported to him; and possibly with such errors,
as are incident to that mode of obtaining information. I
mention this circumstance, that in case you should perceive
any misimpression to have been made, you may take occasion
to correct them.

The Embargo continues to take deeper root in the public
sentiment, and in the measures of Congress. Several supplemental
Acts for enforcing it have passed, and another is on
its passage, for the same purpose. The modifications of the

British orders, admitting a trade with her enemies in her own
behalf, and subjecting neutrals to special licenses and to
tribute, prove that retaliation is a cover for usurpation and
monopoly and awaken feelings, sometimes stronger than
interest itself, in stimulating perseverance in a remedial
system.

Mr. Erskine has made a written communication on the
subject of the British orders. I shall answer him as soon as
the urgent business on hand will permit.

Mr. Rose will probably return in a short time, the Frigate
in which he came being kept in waiting for him. His mission
has not been successful, except in obtaining a separation
of the general subject of impressments from the case of the
Chesapeake. The way being opened to him by an acquiescence
of the President in the mode of discussing the latter
insisted on by the British Government, Mr. Rose disclosed
the preliminary categorically required by his instructions,
that the proclamation of July should be annulled, as the only
condition on which he could "enter upon any negotiation for
the adjustment with which he was charged." After various
informal conferences and experiments, which did not lessen
the apprehension from passages in Mr. Cannings letter to Mr.
Monroe (interpreted as the passage relating to the proclamation
was interpreted by the preliminary) that if this difficulty
at the threshold could have been parried, others of an
insuperable nature would have grown out of the negotiation
itself, the business has been put into the form of a regular
correspondence. My answer to Mr. Rose's first communication
was sent to him on the fifth instant. As soon as his
reply is received, it is probable that the whole will be laid
before Congress. And as Mr. Rose will, it is understood, depart
immediately after the correspondence is closed, I shall
have an opportunity by him of transmitting to you copies of
it. In the mean time I can only observe that the operative
impressions to be made on Congress by the correspondence
will necessarily depend much on the tenor and tone of Mr.

Rose's concluding letter, which will probably be pacific and
even conciliatory.