"solid and weighty." The case was an extraordinary one: in the usual conventions, made between nations, no part of them were, in general, subject to be executed, till ratified by the respective governments. But the arrangement of 1809 was carried, by the American government, into immediate execution; and the merchants, relying upon the good faith with which it was concluded, sent their vessels to sea, as soon as the time, fixed by the proclamation of the President, would allow. The letter concluded with the following expression:-"To avoid the misconceptions, incident to oral proceedings, I have the honour to intimate, that it is thought expedient, that our further discussions, on the present occasion, be in the written form.” An answer was written to

this letter, on the 11th, by Mr. Jackson:

"I have had the honour of receiving your official letter of the 9th inst. towards the close of which you inform me, that it has 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 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 public 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 public minister, when adopted, as in the present case, without any alleged misconduct on his part."

This declaration was, perhaps, hasty; and the opinion, here expressed, will, on examination, be found to be incorrect. Two discussions had been held, and such progress made in the topic, as to render a precise statement necessary, in order that the views and propositions of the respective parties might be exactly understood, a proceeding not unusual in diplomacy. A very recent instance took place in the negotiation, in 1808, between Mr. Pinkney and Mr. Canning. The late diplomatic intercourse between the two governments rendered such a precaution abundantly necessary, various and important misconceptions having arisen from neglect of this mode of proceeding. The instructions, sent by Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine, originated entirely in a misunderstanding on the part of the latter gentleman of the sentiments expressed in conversation with members* of the government. Mr. Jackson was, also, somewhat incorrect in the construction he put on the intimation of the American secretary; the language not admitting of a meaning, so broad and comprehensive. It was apparently intended, that the restriction to written communication should apply only to the particular discussions then in hand;-by no means to a denial of allverbal intercourse whatever. Mr. Jackson was satisfied with an explanation of this matter, subsequently given.

The correspondence between the American secretary of state and the British minister began under these and other unfavourable auspices; it had a speedy and unfortunate termination. Omitting other matters, that led to some angry remarks, we shall proceed at once to the particular topic, that immediately brought about the dismissal of Mr. Jackson. It turned upon the point, whether the whole of Mr. Erskine's instructions were known to the American government. We shall begin with an extract from Mr. Jackson's letter of October 11, where this subject is first mentioned:

"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.

* Messrs. Gallatin, Smith and Madison.

But in reverting to his official correspondence and particularly to a despatch addressed on the 20th of April to his majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs, I find that he there states, that he had submitted to your consideration the three conditions, specified in those instructions as the ground work of an arrangement, which, according to information received from this country, it was thought in England might be made with a prospect of great mutual advantage. Mr. Erskine there reports verbatim et seriatim your observations upon each of the three conditions, and the reasons, which induced you to think, that others might be substituted in lieu of them. It may have been concluded between you, that these latter were an equivalent for the original conditions, but the very act of substitution evidently shows, that those original conditions were in fact very explicitly communicated to you, and by you of course laid before the President for his consideration. I need hardly add, that the difference between these conditions, and those contained in the arrangement of the 18th and 19th of April, is sufficiently obvious to require no elucidation, nor need I draw the conclusion, which I consider as admitted by all absence of complaint on the part of the American government; viz., that under such circumstances his majesty had an undoubted and incontrovertible right to disavow the act of his minister. I must here allude to a supposition, which you have more than once mentioned to me, and by which, if it had any the slightest foundation, this right might perhaps have been in some degree affected. You have informed me that you understood that Mr. Erskine had two sets of instructions by which to regulate his conduct, and that upon one of them, which had not been communicated either to you or to the public, was to be rested the justification of the terms finally agreed upon between you and him. It is my duty, sir, solemnly to declare to you, and through you to the President, that the despatch from Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine, which you have made the basis of an official correspondence with the latter minister, and which was read by the former to the American minister in London, is the only despatch by which the conditions were prescribed to Mr. Erskine for the conclusion of an arrangement with this country on the matter to which it relates."

This paragraph plainly intimates that the American government were acquainted with Mr. Erskine's instructions.

They, therefore, must have known that the convention was contrary to those instructions; and it cannot and ought not to be matter of surprise, that the convention was disavowed, a conclusion strengthened, in the opinion of the English envoy, by the absence of all complaint on the part of America. But the extract ends with a qualifying phrase, inconsistent in its meaning with the leading feature of the paragraph. If Mr. Erskine had, in the belief of the American government, other instructions than those he communicated to the American secretary, it is quite obvious, the American government could not positively have known that the convention, concluded, was at variance with his instructions. If an envoy has several sets of instructions, if he exhibits only one set to the minister, with whom he treats, and after that makes a treaty at variance with the instructions exhibited, particularly of the simple and precise character of those, shown by Mr. Erskine, the impression on the minister's mind probably would be, that he had not seen all the instructions of the envoy. In the letter of October 19th of the secretary of state will be found a particular answer to the quotation already made from Mr. Jackson's letter of the 11th:

"The stress you have laid on what you have been pleased to state, as the substitution of the terms finally agreed on, for the terms first proposed, has excited no small degree of surprise. Certain it is, that your predecessor did present for my consideration the three conditions, which now appear in the printed document-that he was disposed to urge them more than the nature of two of them (both palpably inadmissible and one more than merely inadmissible) could permit, and that, on finding his first proposal unsuccessful, the more reasonable terms, comprised in the arrangement respecting the orders in council, were adopted."— "The declaration that the despatch from Mr. Canning to Mr. Erskine of the 23d January, is the only despatch by which the conditions were prescribed to Mr. Erskine for the conclusion of an arrangement on the matter to which it relates," is now for the first time made to this government, and I need hardly add, that if that despatch had been communicated at the time of the arrangement, or if it had been known, that the propositions contained in it, and

which were at first presented by Mr. Erskine, were the only ones on which he was authorized to make an arrangement, the arrangement would not have been made."

In this extract the secretary distinctly states, that Mr. Jackson's letter furnished the government with the first information, that Mr. Canning's despatch of the 23d of January contained the conditions upon which a treaty alone could be concluded; a positive declaration, that the American government did not know before that Mr. Erskine did not possess other instructions, than those shown to the secretary; and if the government had possessed that knowledge, the convention never would have been made. It is important to mark this expression, because here the controversy on that particular point could well have terminated; neither party was under any obligation to return to it. The language of these letters, both of secretary and minister, had not been particularly mild or conciliatory. They both obviously wrote

under some degree of irritation. But no permanent offence had been given, Mr. Jackson having declared, he was satisfied with the explanation offered by Mr. Smith respecting the form of intercourse. Mr. Jackson's answer, under date of

October 23d, is in the following words:

"I have, therefore, no hesitation in informing you, that his majesty was pleased to disavow the agreement concluded between you and Mr. Erskine, because it was concluded in violation of that gentleman's instructions, and altogether without authority to subscribe to the terms of it. These instructions, I now understand by your letter, as well as from the obvious deduction, which I took the liberty of making in mine of the 11th instant, were at the time in substance made known to you; no stronger illustration, therefore, can be given of the deviation from them which occurred, than by a reference to the terms of your agreement. Nothing can be more notorious than the frequency with which, in the course of a complicated negotiation, ministers are furnished with a gradation of conditions, on which they may be successively authorized to conclude. So common is the case, which you put hypothetically, that in acceding to the justice of your statement, I feel myself impelled to make only one observation upon it, which