University of Virginia Library

TO GEORGE JOY.[15]

—I have recd your favor of the 10th.

Your anxiety that our Country may be kept out of
the vortex of war, is honorable to your judgment as
a Patriot, & to your feelings as a man. The same
anxiety is, I sincerely believe, felt by the great body
of the nation, & by its Public councils; most assuredly
by the Executive Branch of them. But the
question may be decided for us, by actual hostilities
agst. us or by proceedings leaving no choice but between
absolute disgrace & resistance by force. May
not also, manifestations of patience under injuries
& indignities be carried so far as to invite this very
dilemma?

I devoutly wish that the same disposition to cultivate
peace by means of justice, which exists here,
predominated elsewhere, particularly in G. B. But
how can this be supposed, whilst she persists in proceedings,
which comprize the essence of hostility;
whilst she violates towards us rules, which she enforces
agst. us in her own favor; more particularly
whilst we see her converting the late reconciliation
thro one of the Ministers, into a source of fresh
difficulties & animosities thro another. For in this
light must be viewed her disavowal of Mr. Erskine,
and the impressions made thro his successor. Had
the disavowal been deemed essential to her interests,
a worse plaister could not have been devised for the

wound necessarily inflicted here. But was the disavowal
essential to her interests? was it material to
them, taking for the test, her own spontaneous
change of system, and her own official language?
By the former I refer to her orders of April, restricting
their original orders agst neutrals, to a trade with
France & Holland; by the latter to the conversation
of Mr. Canning with Mr. P., in which he abandons as
he could not but do, two of the conditions which had
been contemplated; & admits that a non-intercourse
law here agst. Holland was not a sine qua non. So
that the arrangement of Mr. E. was disavowed essentially
for want of a pledge that our non-intercourse
would be continued agst. France & her dominions.
But why disavow absolutely, why at all, on this
account? The law was known to be in force agst.
France at the time of the arrangement. It was
morally certain that if put in force agst. F whilst she
was pleading the British orders, it would not be
withdrawn if she should persist in her Decrees after
being deprived of this plea. And there would be
no fair ground to suppose, that the condition wd. not
be pledged & stipulated, if required, as soon as the
Requisite Authorities here should be together. The
disavowal is the more extraordinary, as the arrangement
was to be respected till the 20th of July, and
therefore with the addition of four or five weeks only
would have afforded an opportunity of knowing the
sense of this Govt., and of supplying all that was
wanted to satisfy the British Ultimatum. This
course was so obvious, and that pursued so opposite,
that we are compelled to look to other motives for
an explanation, & to include among these, a disinclination
to put an end to differences from which
such advantages are extracted by British Commerce
& British Cruisers.

Notwithstanding all these grounds of discontent &
discouragement, we are ready as the B. Govt. knows,
to join in any new experiment, and thro either our
diplomatic channel there or hers here, for a cordial
and comprehensive adjustment of matters between
the two countries.

Let reparation be made for the acknowledged
wrong committed in the case of the Chesapeak, a
reparation so cheap to the wrong-doer, yet so material
to the honor of the injured party; & let the orders
in Council, already repealed as to the avowed object
of retaliation; be repealed also as an expedient for
substituting an illicit commerce, in place of that to
which neutrals have as such, an incontestable right.
The way will then be open for negotiation at large;
And if the B. Govt. would bring into it the same
temper as she would find in us; and the same disposition
to insist on nothing inconsistent with the
rule of doing as she would, or rather as she will be
done by, the result could not fail to be happy for
both.

Permit me to remark that you are under a mistake
in supposing that the Treaty concluded by Messr.
M. & P. was rejected because it did not provide that
free ships should make free goods. It never was
required nor expected that such a stipulation should

be inserted. As to deserting Seamen, you will find
that G. B. practises agst us the principles we assert
agst. her, and in fact goes further; that we have always
been ready to enter into a convention on that subject
founded on reciprocity; and that the documents long
since in print shew, that we are willing, on the subject
of impressment, to put an end to it, by an arrangement,
which most certainly would be better for the
British Navy, than that offensive resource; and
which might be so managed as to leave both parties
at liberty to retain their own ideas of right. Let me
add that the acceptance of that Treaty would have
very little changed the actual situation of things
with G. B. The orders in Council wd. not have been
prevented, but rather placed on stronger ground;
the case of the Chesapk̃e, the same as it is; so also,
the case of impressments, of factitious blockades &c
all as at present pregnant sources of contention and
ill humour.

From this view of the subject, I cannot but persuade
myself that you will concur in opinion, that
if unfortunately, the calamity you so benevolently
dread should visit this hitherto favored Country,
the fault will not lye where you would not wish it to
lye.