ciated by our Government in the correspondence beyond that of the inadmissibility of the British claim to impressment, and as the inviolability of ships-of-war was conceded by the British Government, it is unnecessary here to do more than to state these points in the present condensed shape. The correspondence between Mr. Monroe, minister at London, and Mr. Canning, foreign secretary, in reference to the outrage on the Chesapeake, is given in 3 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.) 186 ff. See also 6 Wait's St. Pap., 5 ff, 51, 86, 124. The main points of this correspondence are stated supra, § 3156. The personal relations of the British negotiators at Washington to the Administration are discussed supra, §§ 84, 107 ff. It was stated by Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, July 16, 1811, to Mr. Foster, British minister at Washington, that "no order had been given by the Government for the recovery by force of any citizen so impressed (from American vessels) from any British ship-of-war." This statement was repeated by Mr. Monroe in a note of Sept. 14, 1811. For President Madison's message of July 6, 1812, with papers on impressments, see 3 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 573. As to impressment, see Mr. Crawford to Mr. Clay, June 10, 1814. Colton's Correspondence of Clay, 34 ff. "Peace having happily taken place between the United States and Great Britain, it is desirable to guard against incidents which, during periods of war in Europe, might tend to interrupt it; and, it is believed, in particular, that the navigation of American vessels exclusively by American seamen, either natives or such as are already naturalized, would not only conduce to the attainment of that object, but also to increase the number of our seamen, and consequently to render our commerce and navigation independent of the service of foreigners, who might be recalled by their Governments under circumstances the most inconvenient to the United States. I recommend the subject, therefore, to the consideration of Congress; and in deciding upon it, I am persuaded that they will sufficiently estimate the policy of manifesting to the world a desire on all occasions to cultivate harmony with other nations by any reasonable accommodations which do not impair the enjoyment of any of the essential rights of a free and independent people. The example on the part of the American Government will merit, and may be expected to receive, a reciprocal attention from all the friendly powers of Europe." Message of President Madison, Feb. 25, 1815. 9 Wait's St. Pap., 438. "I sincerely congratulate you on the peace, and more especially on the éclat with which the war was closed. The affair of New Orleans was fraught with useful lessons to ourselves, our enemies, and our friends, and will powerfully influence our future relations with the nations of Europe. It will show them we mean to take no part in their wars, and count no odds when engaged in our own. I presume that having spared to the pride of England her formal acknowledgment of the atrocity of impressment in an article of the treaty, she will concur in a convention for relinquishing it. Without this she must understand that the present is but a truce, determinable on the first act of impressment of an American citizen committed by an officer of hers. Would it not be better that this convention should be a separate act, unconnected with any treaty of commerce, and made an indispensable preliminary to any other treaty. If blended with a treaty of commerce she will make it the price of injurious concessions. Indeed, we are infinitely better without such treaties with any nation. We cannot too distinctly detach ourselves from the European system, which is essentially belligerent, nor too sedulously cultivate an American system, essentially pacific. But if we go into commercial treaties at all, they should be with all at the same time with whom we have important commercial relations. France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, all should proceed pari passu. Our ministers, marching in phalanx on the same line, and intercommunicating freely, each will be supported by the weight of the whole mass, and the facility with which the other nations will agree to equal terms of intercourse will discountenance the selfish higglings of England, or justify our rejection of them. Perhaps, with all of them, it would be best to have but the single article gentis amicissimæ, leav ing everything else to the usages and courtesies of civilized nations." Mr. Jefferson to President Madison, Mar. 23, 1815. 6 Jeff. Works, 453. 66 "I see by several papers that a very unfair play is going on with respect to the unpublished residue of the dispatches from Ghent. given out that the suppression was the act of the Republicans in the Senate, and that an article prohibiting impressment was rejected by the British commissioners in a manner involving an abandonment of the American doctrine. The fact is, that the vote against publication was founded on the report of Mr. King, etc., and that the rejection of the American propositions as to impressment was followed by a protest, neutralizing at least the proceeding on that subject." Mr. Madison, President, to Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State (unofficial), Apr. 4, 1815. "If they (the British Government) refuse to settle it (impressment), the first American impressed should be a declaration of war. The depredations on our merchants I would bear with great patience, as it is their desire. They make themselves whole by insurances, very much done in England. If the consequently increased price falls on the consumer, it still costs him less than a war, and still operates as a premium to our own manufactures. The other point, therefore, being settled, I should be slow to wrath on this." Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Monroe, Sec. of State, July 15, 1815; ibid. "The permanency of peace between the two countries is utterly incompatible with the assumption of the practice of impressing seamen from our vessels on the high seas." Mr. Adams, Sec. of State, to Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, Nov. 2, 1818. By a proclamation issued on October 17, 1822, the British Government expressly disavowed the claim of searching neutral national ves sels for deserters. See Mr. Canning's statement to Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney, Oct. 22, 1807. 3 Am. St. Pap. (For. Rel.), 197. Mr Canning to Mr. Monroe, Sept. 23, 1807; ibid., 200. While the United States Government declines to further press on Great Britain the express abandonment of all claims to impressment, it is understood that the United States Government will continue to resist any attempts by the British Government to impress sailors from vessels sailing under the flag of the United States. Mr. Clay, Sec. of State, to Mr. Gallatin, June 21, 1826. MSS. Inst. Ministers, In reference to certain alleged instances of impressment in 1828, Mr. Clay, Secretary of State, in a letter of January 26, 1829, to Mr. Barbour, minister to England, said: "If these proceedings have had the sanction of the British Government, you will inform it that the American Government cannot tolerate them; that, if persisted in, they will be opposed by the United States, and that the British Government must be answerable for all the consequences, whatever they may be, which may flow from perserverance in a practice utterly irreconcilable with the sovereign rights of the United States. If those proceedings have taken place without the sanction of the British Government you will demand the punishment of the several British naval officers at whose instance they occurred, and the immediate adoption of efficacious measures to guard the navigation of the United States against the occurrence of similar irregularities." As to certain cases of impressment subsequent to the Treaty of Ghent, see House "The pretension set up by the British commander of his right to interfere" [in impressing from a United States vessel] "because the seamen claimed to be British is altogether inadmissible. It is understood that, in time of peace, British seamen are free, under their own laws, to engage in the foreign merchant service; but if it were otherwise, and if such service were forbidden by the laws of England, it can never be admitted that the commander of a British ship-of-war has authority to enforce the municipal law of Great Britain on board a foreign vessel, and within a foreign jurisdiction." Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Vail, July 31, 1834. MSS. Inst., Gr. Brit. Seamen on board vessels of the United States are protected by their flag from impressment, whether in foreign ports or on the high seas. Mr. Forsyth, Sec. of State, to Mr. Stevenson, Jan. 20, 1837; ibid. S. Mis. 162-VOL. III-15 225 "The American Government, then, is prepared to say that the practice of impressing seamen from American vessels cannot be allowed to take place. That practice is founded on principles which it does not recognize, and is invariably attended by consequences so unjust, so injurious, and of such formidable magnitude as cannot be submitted to." Mr. Webster, Sec. of State, to Lord Ashburton, Aug. 8, 1842. MSS. Notes, Gr. Brit. "The impressment of seamen from merchant vessels of this country by British cruisers, although not practiced in time of peace, and therefore not at present a productive cause of difference and irritation, has, nevertheless, hitherto been so prominent a topic of controversy, and is so likely to bring on renewed contentions at the first breaking out of a European war, that it has been thought the part of wisdom now to take it into serious and earnest consideration. The letter from the Secretary of State to the British minister explains the grounds which the Government has assumed and the principles which it means to uphold. For the defense of these grounds and the maintenance of these principles, the most perfect reliance is placed on the intelligence of the American people, and on their firmness and patriotism, in whatever touches the honor of the country, or its great and essential interest." President Tyler's message, transmitting the Treaty of Washington to the Senate, The protection given by a national flag to persons sailing under it ceases when such persons leave the ship and go on the shores of a neutral sovereign who directs their surrender. Mr. Seward, Sec. of State, to Mr. McMath, Apr. 28, 1862. MSS. Inst., Barb. Mr. King, at the close of his mission to England, in 1804, entered into an informal agreement with Lord St. Vincent, first lord of the admiralty, that neither nation should for the period of five years take seamen from the ships of the other on the high seas. When, however, this agreement was submitted to the ministry, it was returned with the qualification that it should not apply to the seas immediately washing Great Britain, which, it was alleged, had always been considered under British dominion. As this, in Mr. King's opinion, would be an admission of the right of impressment in those waters, he gave up the project entire. 5 Hildreth's Hist. U. S., 536. By Gouverneur Morris the surrender to the British Government of impressment was urged, as his life by Sparks shows, with much persistency. But as to how far Gouverneur Morris, after his abandonment of his French mission, became a representative of the British Government, see 1 J. Q. Adams's Mem., 149, 209. The claim of right by British men-of-war to search American vessels for British seamen, and to impress them when so found, though one of the causes of the war of 1812, was not formally surrendered by the Treaty of Ghent. The Government of the United States did not insist on such surrender as a sine qua non. The instructions by the Secretary of State of October 4, 1814, when the fall of Napoleon left this country the sole power with whom Great Britain was at war, gave the commissioners authority "should you find it impracticable to make an arrangement more conformable to the instructions originally given, to agree to the status quo ante bellum as the basis of negotiation." It was added, however, after a clause guarding the fisheries, "nor is anything to be done which would give a sanction to the British claim of impressment on board our vessels." (MSS. Dept. of State, cited in Mr. J. C. B. Davis's Notes on Treaties, 99.) The treaty as executed contained no provision on the subject; but the claim was never afterwards asserted or exercised by Great Britain. "Rush, according to his instruction, made two successive proposals to the British Government upon impressment-one the 18th of April and the other the 20th of June last. The first was to restrict reciprocally the naturalization of sailors, the other was totally to exclude each other's seamen from the respective service, whether in public or in merchant vessels, with a positive stipulation against the impressment of men in any case. The British Government, in the first instance, rejected both, but afterwards, on the 13th of August, Castlereagh intimated to Rush, as a suggestion of his own, upon which he had not consulted the other members of the Cabinet, that the second proposition might be accepted with two modifications: one, that either party may withdraw from the engagement of the stipulation after three or six months' notice, as in the agreement concerning armaments on the lakes; the other, that if a British officer, after entering an American vessel for purposes admitted to be lawful, should find a seaman there whom he should suspect to be English, he should be authorized to make a record or process verbal of the fact, that it may be brought to the knowledge of the American Government, though not to take the man. The deliberation of this day was whether Messrs. Gallatin and Rush should be instructed to agree to these modifications or not. Strong objections were urged against them both, particularly by Mr. Calhoun. Mr. Crawford inclined to accede to them both, and the President (Monroe) inclined to the same. Mr. Wirt, without expressing himself very decidedly, thought like the President. My own greatest objections were against the proposal as made by ourselves, to which I have always been utterly averse, thinking it an illiberal engagement. * As, however, we made the proposal, we must abide by it, if accepted; but its own character may justly make us scrupulous against accepting any modifications which render it still more exceptionable." * * On the next day "the question upon Lord Castlereagh's proposed modifications to our proposal for abolishing impressment on the high seas was again resumed and argued with much earnestness, Crawford and Wirt adhering to their opinions, Calhoun and I to ours. The President ultimately found a middle term, upon which he concluded, after expressing his regret that he was obliged to decide between us, equally divided in opinion as we were. He determined to reject the second modification; first, because it implied that the boarding officer should have the power of mustering the men of an American vessel and passing them individually under his inspection; and, secondly, because it implied a suspicion that we should not faithfully and sincerely carry our own laws into execution." "He was convinced that if the British Government once brought themselves to contract the engagement not to take men from our ships, though it should be only for a year, they would never resort to the practice again." 4 J. Q. Adams's Memoirs, 146 f. |