Permit me therefore to request, that you will inform me, whether you understood me on those two points, as I certainly meant to be understood; namely, that the relinquishment, during the present war, of what is called the direct trade was alone contemplated; and that no arrangement on that subject was suggested as a condition of the revocation of the orders in council.

I have the honour to be, &c.

ALBERT GALLATIN.

Mr. Erskine to the Secretary of the Treasury. Washing. ton, August 15, 1809.

SIR, I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 13th instant, in which you have been pleased to say, that although you "do not believe that, in the conversations we have had respecting the practicability of an adjustment of the differences between the United States and Great Britain, we ever have misunderstood one another; yet as from Mr. Canning's instructions, lately published by my government, it would seem that some opinions are ascribed to several members of this administration which they did not entertain, it appears necessary to ascertain, whether on any point a misapprehension can have taken place."

In answer to your inquiries, I have great satisfaction in assuring you, that there appears to have been no misunderstanding respecting the substance or meaning of the conversations which passed between us, as stated in Mr. Canning's instructions alluded to.

After the most careful perusal of your statement of the purport of our conversations, I cannot discover any material difference from the representation which I have made upon that subject to the Secretary of State, (Mr. Robert Smith) in my letter to him of the 14th instant, to which I will therefore beg to refer you, as I have therein detailed the substance of the conversation, according to my recollection of it; which is, in every respect, essentially the same as that which you seem to have entertained.

During the conversation which we held respecting the practicability of an amicable adjustment of the differences

between the two countries, when the relinquishment by the United States, during the present war, of what is called the colonial trade, was suggested by you, I conceived that you meant, (as you have stated) "the trade carried directly from belligerent colonies to the belligerents in Europe, when that trade was not permanently, in peace as in war, permitted by the laws of the country to which those colonies belonged."

I never supposed that you intended to convey an opinion, that the government of the United States would make any arrangement respecting the colonial trade, as a condition of the revocation of the orders in council, the two subjects being altogether unconnected; nor have I ever represented to his majesty's government that such preliminary pledges would be given.

With sentiments of the highest respect, I have the honour to be, &c.

The Hon. Albert Gallatin, &c. &c.

D. M. ERSKINE.

The Secretary of State to Mr. Jackson.

State, October 9, 1809.

Department of

SIR,-An arrangement, as to the revocation of the British orders in council, as well as to the satisfaction required in the case of the attack on the Chesapeake frigate, has been made in due form by the government of the United States, with David Montague Erskine, Esq. an accredited minister plenipotentiary of his Britannick majesty. And after it had been faithfully carried into execution on the part of this government, and under circumstances rendering its effects on the relative situation of the United States irrevocable, and in some respects, irreparable, his Britannick majesty has deemed it proper to disavow it, to recall his minister, and to send another to take his place.

In such a state of things, no expectation could be more reasonable, no course of proceeding more obviously prescribed by the ordinary respect due to the disappointed party, than a prompt and explicit explanation, by the new functionary, of the grounds of the refusal, on the part of his government, to abide by an arrangement so solemn

ly made accompanied by a substitution of other propo

sitions.

Under the influence of this reasonable expectation, the President has learned, with no less surprise than regret, that in your several conferences with me you have stated: 1. That you have no instructions from your government which authorize you to make any explanations whatever to this government, as to the reasons which had induced his Britannick majesty to disavow the arrrangement lately made by your predecessor, and that therefore you could not make any such explanations.

2. That in the case of the Chesapeake, your instructions only authorize you, (without assigning any reason whatever why the reasonable terms of satisfaction, tendered and accepted, have not been carried into effect) to communicate to this government a note tendering satisfaction, with an understanding, that such note should not be signed and delivered by you, until you should have previously seen and approved the proposed answer of this government, and that the signing and the delivery of your note and of the answer of this government, should be simultaneous.

3. That you have no instructions which authorize you to make to this government any propositions whatever, in relation to the revocation of the British orders in council; but only to receive such as this government may deem it proper to make to you.

4. That, at all events, it is not the disposition or the intention of the British government to revoke their orders in council, as they respect the United States, but upon a formal stipulation on the part of the United States, to accede to the following terms and conditions, viz.

1. That the act of Congress, commonly called the nonintercourse law, be continued against France so long as she shall continue her decrees.

2. That the navy of Great Britain be authorized to aid in enforcing the provisions of the said act of Congress.

3. That the United States shall explicitly renounce, during the present war, the right of carrying on any trade whatever, direct or indirect, with any colony of any enemy of Great Britain, from which they were excluded during peace; and that this renunciation must extend, not only to the trade between the colony and the mother coun

try, but to the trade between the colony and the United States.

If in the aforegoing representation it should appear, that I have in any instance misapprehended your meaning, it will afford me real pleasure to be enabled to lay before the President a statement corrected agreeably to any suggestions with which you may be pleased to favour me.

To avoid the misconceptions incident to oral proceedings, I have also the honour to intimate, that it is thought expedient that our further discussions, on the present occasion, be in the written form. And with great sincerity I assure you, that whatever communications you may be pleased thus to make, will be received with an anxious solicitude to find them such as may lead to a speedy removal of every existing obstacle to that mutual and lasting friendship and cordiality between the two nations, which it is obviously the interest of both to foster.

I have the honour to be, &c.

R. SMITH.

Mr. Jackson to Mr. Smith.

Washington, Oct. 11, 1809.

SIR, I have had the honour of receiving your official letter of the 9th instant, towards the close of which you inform me, that it had been thought expedient to put an end to all verbal communication between yourself and me, in discussing the important objects of my mission. Considering that a very few days have elapsed since I delivered to the President a credential letter from the king my master, and that nothing has been even alleged to have occurred, to deprive me of the facility of access, and of the credit to which, according to immemorial usage, I am by that letter entitled, I believe there does not exist in the annals of diplomacy a precedent for such a determination between two ministers, who have met for the avowed purpose of terminating amicably the existing differences between their respective countries; but, after mature reflection, I am induced to acquiesce in it by the recollection of the time that must necessarily elapse before I can receive his majesty's commands upon so unexpected an occurrence, and of the detriment that would ensue to the publick service, if my ministerial functions were, in the

interval, to be altogether suspended. I shall therefore content myself with entering my protest against a proceeding which I can consider in no other light, than as a violation, in my person, of the most essential rights of a publick minister when adopted, as in the present case, without any alleged misconduct on his part. As a matter of opi

nion, I cannot I own, assent to the preference which you give to written, over verbal intercourse for the purpose of mutual explanation and accommodation. I have thought it due to the publick character with which I have the honour to be invested, and to the confidence which his majesty has most graciously been pleased to repose in me, to state to you unreservedly my sentiments on this point. I shall now proceed to the other parts of your letter, and apply to them the best consideration that can arise from a zeal proportioned to the increase of difficulty thus thrown in the way of the restoration of a thorough good understanding between our respective

countries.

You state, sir, very truly, that an arrangement had been made between you and Mr. Erskine, and that his majesty had thought proper to disavow that arrangement.

I have here in the outset, to regret the loss of the advantage of verbal intercourse with you, as I should have availed myself of it to inquire whether by your statement, it were your intention to complain of the disavowal itself, or of a total want of explanation of it, or of the circumstance of that explanation not having been made through

I observe that in the records of this mission there. is no trace of a complaint, on the part of the United States, of his majesty having disavowed the act of his minister. You have not in the conferences we have hitherto held, distinctly announced any such complaint, and I have seen with pleasure, in this forbearance, on your part, an instance of that candour, which I doubt not, will prevail in all our communications, inasmuch as you could not but have thought it unreasonable to complain of the disavowal of an act, done under such circumstances, as could only lead to the consequences that have actually followed.

It was not known when I left England, whether Mr. Erskine had, according to the liberty allowed him, communicated to you in extenso his original instructions. It now appears that he did not. But in reverting to his offi