University of Virginia Library

TO WILLIAM PINKNEY.[20]

Dear Sir,—You will learn from the Department

of State, as you must have anticipated, our surprise
that the answer of Lord Wellesley to your very just
and able view of the case of Jackson corresponded
so little with the impressions of that Minister manifested
in your first interviews with him. The date
of the answer best explains the change; as it shows
that time was taken for obtaining intelligence from
this Country, and adapting the policy of the answer
to the position taken by the advocates of Jackson.
And it must have happened that the intelligence
prevailing at that date was of the sort most likely
to mislead. The elections which have since taken
place in the Eastern States, and which have been
materially influenced by the affair of Jackson, and
the spirit of party connected with it, are the strongest
of proofs that the measure of the Executive coincided
with the feelings of the Nation. In every
point of view, the answer is unworthy of the source
from which it comes.

From the manner in which the vacancy left by
Jackson is provided for, it is inferred that a sacrifice
is meant of the respect belonging to this Government,
either to the pride of the British Government, or to
the feelings of those who have taken side with it
against their own. On either supposition, it is necessary
to counteract the ignoble purpose. You
will accordingly find that on ascertaining the substitution
of a Chargé to be an intentional degradation
of the diplomatic intercourse on the part of Great
Britain, it is deemed proper that no higher functionary
should represent the United States at London.

I sincerely wish, on every account, that the views of
the British Government, in this instance, may not
be such as are denoted by appearances, or that, on
finding the tendency of them, they may be changed.
However the fact may turn out, you will, of course,
not lose sight of the expediency of mingling in every
step you take as much of moderation, and even of
conciliation, as can be justifiable; and will, in particular,
if the present despatches should find you in
actual negotiation, be governed by the result of it
in determining the question of your devolving your
trust on a Secretary of Legation.

The act of Congress, transmitted from the Department
of State, will inform you of the footing on
which our relations to the belligerent powers were
finally placed. The experiment now to be made, of
a commerce with both, unrestricted by our laws,
has resulted from causes which you will collect from
the debates and from your own reflections. The new
form of appeal to the policy of Great Britain and
France, on the subject of the Decrees and Orders,
will most engage your attention. However feeble
it may appear, it is possible that one or other of
those powers may allow it more effect than was
produced by the overtures heretofore tried. As far
as pride may have influenced the reception of these,
it will be the less in the way, as the law in its present
form may be regarded by each of the parties, if it so
pleases, not as a coercion or a threat to itself, but a
promise of attack on the other. Great Britain,
indeed, may conceive that she has now a compleat

interest in perpetuating the actual state of things,
which gives her the full enjoyment of our trade, and
enables her to cut it off with every other part of the
world; at the same time that it increases the chance
of such resentments in France at the inequality as
may lead to hostilities with the United States.
But, on the other hand, this very inequality, which
France would confirm by a state of hostilities with
the United States, may become a motive with her
to turn the tables on G. Britain, by compelling her
either to revoke her orders, or to lose the commerce
of this country. An apprehension that France may
take this politic course would be a rational motive
with the British Government to get the start of her.
Nor is this the only apprehension that merits attention.
Among the inducements to the experiment of
an unrestricted commerce now made, were two which
contributed essentially to the majority of votes in
its favor; first, a general hope, favoured by daily
accounts from England, that an adjustment of differences
there, and thence in France, would render the
measure safe and proper; second, a willingness in
not a few to teach the advocates for an open trade,
under actual circumstances, the folly as well as
degradation of their policy. At the next meeting of
Congress, it will be found, according to present appearances,
that instead of an adjustment with either
of the belligerents, there is an increased obstinacy
in both; and that the inconveniences of the embargo
and non-intercourse have been exchanged for the
greater sacrifices, as well as disgrace, resulting from
a submission to the predatory systems in force. It
will not be wonderful, therefore, if the passive spirit
which marked the late session of Congress should at
the next meeting be roused to the opposite point;
more especially as the tone of the nation has never
been as low as that of its Representatives, and as it
is rising already under the losses sustained by our
commerce in the Continental ports, and by the fall
of prices in our produce at home, under a limitation
of the market to G. Britain. Cotton, I perceive,
is down at 10 or 11 cents in Georgia. The great mass
of Tobacco is in a similar situation. And the effect
must soon be general, with the exception of a few
articles which do not at present glut the British
demand. Whether considerations like these will
make any favorable impression on the British
Cabinet, you will be the first to know. Whatever
confidence I may have in the justness of them, I must
forget all that has past before I can indulge very
favorable expectations. Every new occasion seems
to countenance the belief that there lurks in the
British Cabinet a hostile feeling towards this Country,
which will never be eradicated during the present
reign; nor overruled, whilst it exists, but by some
dreadful pressure from external or internal causes.

With respect to the French Government, we are
taught by experience to be equally distrustful. It
will have, however, the same opportunity presented
to it, with the British Government, of comparing the
actual state of things with that which would be produced
by a repeal of its Decrees, and it is not easy to

find any plausible motive to continue the former, as
preferable to the latter. A worse state of things
than the actual one could not exist for France, unless
her preference be for a state of war. If she be sincere,
either in her late propositions relative to a
chronological revocation of illegal Edicts against
neutrals, or to a pledge from the United States not
to submit to those of Great Britain, she ought at
once to embrace the arrangement held out by Congress,
the renewal of a non-intercourse with Great
Britain being the very species of resistance most
analogous to her professed views.

I propose to commit this to the care of Mr. Parish,
who is about embarking at Philadelphia for England;
and finding that I have missed a day in my computation
of the opportunity, I must abruptly conclude,
with assurances of my great esteem, &c.