orders in council of January and November, 1807, would be favourably received.

I, of course, declined to give any such previous assurance; but as you appeared to attach great importance to this suggestion, and as I was led to think that a compliance with it might relieve you from a difficulty in executing the instructions of your government, I consented to take a few days to consider of it, and to reserve my definitive answer until I should see you again.

I never doubted in my own mind, as to the inexpediency and impropriety of encouraging you to take an unauthorized step, by an unofficial promise that it should be well received.

But, in a matter of such delicacy, I was desirous of either confirming or correcting my own opinion by the opinions of others.

The result was, that in a third interview which took place shortly after the second, I had the honour to inform you, that after the most mature deliberation, I found it impossible to yield to your suggestion, and that it therefore remained for you to frame your proposition according to the instructions of your government or to your own unbiassed dis

cretion.

My own share in these several conferences beyond what is implied in the above statement, was very small.

I have, as you know, always rather wished to refer the argumentative discussion of the subject of the orders in council, to the official correspondence, I have more than once been taught to expect you to open upon it, than to engage with you in a verbal controversy, which, if confined to ourselves, would be useless; if afterwards to be reduced. into writing for the purpose of being communicated to our respective governments, superfluous.

But to the representations which you have repeatedly made against the orders in council, of January and November, as "violating the rights of the United States, and affecting most destructively their best interests, upon grounds wholly inadmissible both in principle and in fact," Thave uniformly maintained the " unquestionable right" of his majesty to "resort to the fullest measures of retaliation, in consequence of the unparalleled aggression of the enemy, and to retort upon that enemy, the evils of his own injustice;" and have uniformly contended that "if third

parties suffer from those measures, the demand of reparation must be made to that power which first violates the established usages of war and the rights of neutral states."

There was indeed one point upon which I was particularly anxious to receive precise information, and upon which, from your candour and frankness, I was fortunate enough to obtain it.

The connecting together, in your proposed overture, the suspension of the embargo and the repeal of the orders in council (as well those of November, as the preceding one of the 7th of January) might appear to imply that the embargo had been the immediate consequence of those orders; and I was therefore desirous to ascertain whether, in fact, the orders in council of November, had been known to the government of the United States, previously to the message of the President, proposing the embargo, so as to be a moving consideration to that message.

I had the satisfaction to learn from you, sir, that such was not the fact; that rumours indeed might have reached America of some measure of further retaliation being in the contemplation of the British government, that perhaps (as I understood you) some more severe and sweeping measure might have been expected:-but that of the orders in council of the 11th of November, as having been actually issued, there was no certain knowledge in America, or at least none in the possession of the American government, at the time of proposing the embargo.

Such, sir, is according to the best of my recollection, correctly the substance of what has passed between us at our several interviews, previous to the presentation of your official letter;-and such I have represented to have been the substance of what passed on these several occasions, in the report of our conferences which it has been my duty to make to the king.

If, in this recapitulation, there is any thing mistaken, or any thing omitted, you will do me the justice to believe the errour unintentional, and you may rely on my readiness to set it right.

I have the honour to be, &c.

William Pinkney, &c. &c. &c.

GEORGE CANNING.

Great Cumberland Place, September 24, 1808.

SIR,-I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your answer to my official note of the 23d of last month, relative to the British orders in council of January and November, 1807, together with a statement of "the substance of what has passed between us at our several interviews, previous to the presentation of that note."

I shall lose no time in transmitting to my government copies of both these papers, upon the last of which I will take the liberty, in the course of a few days, to trouble you with some observations.

I have the honour to be, &c.

WILLIAM PINKNEY.

The Right Hon. George Canning, &c. &c. &c.

TRIPLICATE.

London, Oct. 11, 1808.

SIR, I have the honour to transmit enclosed a copy of my reply to Mr. Canning's letter to me of the 23d of last month, accompanying his official answer, of the same date, to my note of the 23d of August.

I have the honour to be, &c.

WM. PINKNEY. The Hon. James Madison, &c. &c. &c.

To Mr. Canning. Great Cumberland Place, October 10,

1808.

SIR,-If my reply to the letter which you did me the honour to address to me on the 23d of last month, should be of greater length than the occasion may be thought to require, you will, I am sure, impute it to its real cause, an earnest desire on my part, arising from a feeling of sincere respect for you, that the statement, which I am to give of facts deemed by you to be important, should be full as well as accurate.

I will not fatigue you, sir, with assurances that no person could be less disposed than I am to find fault with the object of your letter, which appears to be to guard against all misrepresentation of "what has passed in our late interviews beyond what you find recorded in my note." You have told me that I have, personally, no concern in that object, and I did not require to be told that my government has as little. I understand, indeed, that the circumstance which has suggested a peculiar motive for this proceeding, was one of those newspaper misrepresentations, which every day produces where the press is free, which find no credit and beget no consequence, and for which it is greatly to be feared your expedient will provide no remedy. Of my conduct, when that circumstance occurred, in giving you unsolicited proofs that I had transmitted to Mr. Secretary Madison a faithful report of our conferences, mistaken by publick rumour or private conjecture, it is not necessary for me to speak, for you have yourself done justice to it.

The motive, to which I am indebted for the honour of your letter, appears to have been instrumental in producing another effect equally unexceptionable. But you will allow me to say, that until the receipt of that letter, I had not been apprized, by the slightest intimation, that it was in any degree owing to such a cause that you declined, on the part of his majesty's government, after two conferences, in which I had been suffered, if not encouraged, to unfold myself, individually as well as officially, at greatlength and with perfect frankness, to give an answer to my verbal overture.

At our first interview, (on the 29th of June) verbal communication was not discountenanced, but commended: For, after I had made myself understood as to the purpose for which the interview had been requested, you asked me if I thought of taking a more formal course, but immediately added, that you presumed I did not; for that the course 1 had adopted was well suited to the occasion. My reply was in substance, that the freedom of conversation was better adapted to our subject, and more likely to conduct us to an advantageous conclusion, than the constraint and formality of written intercourse, and that I had not intended to present a note. At the second interview, (on the 22d of July) it did not occur to me that I had any reason

to conclude, and certainly I did not conclude, that verbal communication had not continued to be acceptable, as a preparatory course; and it was not until the third interview, (on the 29th July) that it was rejected as inadmissible. But even then I was not told, and had not the smallest suspicion, that this rejection was to be ascribed, either wholly or partially, to the motive which your letter has since announced to me. That this motive had, nevertheless, all the influence now imputed to it I am entirely confident, and I take notice of it only because, as I have not mentioned it to my government in my official account of our conferences, I can no otherwise justify the omission, either to it or to you, than by showing that I had in truth no knowledge of the fact when that account was transmitted.

I may take occasion to set forth, in the present letter, the import of all that can be material of our several conversations, according to my recollection of them; but there are some points to which I ought to pay a more particular attention, because you have thought them entitled to it; although I should myself, perhaps, have been inclined to think that they had lost much of their importance by the presentation of my note and the receipt of your written answer; both of which are perfectly intelligible, upon these points at least, without the aid of the conferences that preceded them.

You observe that "the principal points, in which the suggestions, brought forward by me in personal conference, appear to you to have differed in some degree from the proposal stated by me in writing, are two; the first, that in conversation the proposal itself was not distinctly stated, as an overture authorized by my government; the second, that the beneficial consequences, likely to result to this country from the acceptance of that proposal, were "pursued" through more ample "illustrations."

With regard to the first of these supposed differences, I feel persuaded, sir, that, upon further recollection, it will occur to you, that, at our first conference, I told you explicitly that the substance of what I then suggested, that is to say, that your orders being repealed as to us, we would suspend the embargo as to Great Britain, was from my government; but that the manner of conducting and illustrating the subject, upon which I had no precise or