University of Virginia Library

TO WILLIAM PINKNEY.

A vessel having been engaged to carry from the Port of
New York public dispatches and mercantile letters to Europe,
I avail myself of the opportunity of forwarding you a series
of Gazettes which contain the proceedings of Congress and
such current information, as will give you a view of our internal
affairs. They will be put, with this letter, into the
hands of Mr. Nourse a passenger in the Dispatch vessel, who
will deliver them at London; and as the vessel, which will
have previously touched at L'Orient, will after waiting 10 or
12 days at Falmouth, return to that port and thence to the
United States, you will have an opportunity of sending thither
any communications you may wish to make to Paris, as well
as of transmitting to your Government such as may follow
up your correspondence which at the present period will be
the more acceptable, the more it be frequent and full.

My last which was committed to the British packet inclosed
a copy of the Act of Embargo, and explained the policy of the
measure. Among the considerations which inforced it was the
probability of such decrees as were issued by the British
Government on the 11th Novr, the language of the British
Gazettes with other indications, having left little doubt that
such were meditated. The appearance of these decrees, has
had much effect in reconciling all descriptions among us to
the Embargo, and in fixing in the friends of the measure, their
attachment to its provident guardianship of our maritime
interests.

Mr. Erskine communicated a few days ago, the several late
decrees of his Government with expressions of the regret felt

by His Britannic Majesty at the necessity imposed on him,
for such an interference with neutral commerce, and assurances
that his Majesty would readily follow the example, in
case the Berlin decree should be rescinded, or would proceed
pari passu with France in relaxing the rigor of their measures.
Mr. Erskine was asked whether his Government distinguished
between the operation of the French Decree municipally on
land, and its operation on the high seas. On this point he
was unable to answer; as he also was to an enquiry whether
the late British decree had reference to the late extension of
the French decree, with respect to the U. States. He seemed
also, as is perhaps the case with his Government, to have taken
very little into consideration the violations of neutral commerce,
and thro' them, the vast injury to France, antecedent
to the Berlin decree. It is probable that something further is
to pass between us on the subject.

Mr. Rose has now been about a month in this City. He
opened his mission with a demand of the repeal of the President's
proclamation of July 2d, as an indispensable preliminary
to the negotiation of the adjustment to which his Mission related.
The time has hitherto been chiefly spent in informal
experiments to overcome this difficulty at the threshold,
which have led to a glimpse of other prerequisites to the success
of the negotiation as little looked for as they are inadmissible
on the part of the United States. At present it would
seem that the informal communications are at an end, and
that a formal note given in by Mr. Rose sometime ago,
stating his preliminary demand, is to receive a formal and
written answer. The particular turn which the correspondence
may take in its close, I am not yet authorized to state
to you.

It was my purpose to have given greater extent to this
letter; but I have been till within a day or two for nearly two
weeks confined by an indisposition which unfitted me for
business of any sort. And even now I sacrifice the consideration
of health, to my anxiety to avoid a longer detention

of the dispatch vessel which has been some time waiting for
this, and for the communications destined to Genl. Armstrong.