APPENDIX TO THE HISTORY OF THE ELEVENTH CONGRESS. [ THIRD SESSION.] COMPRISING THE MOST IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS ORIGINATING DURING THAT CONGRESS, AND THE PUBLIC ACTS PASSED BY IT. GREAT BRITAIN. [Communicated to Congress, December 5, 1810; and severally and jointly to you and Mr. Monroe. January 12, and February 19, 1811.] To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: I transmit to Congress copies of a letter from the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States at London, to the Secretary of State; and of another from the same to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. [The following documents were communicated to Congress at the commencement of the third session of the eleventh Congress, and by Messages of the 12th January and 19th February, 1811.] sume the negotiations with the British Government, under the full power that had been given, And, in your discussions therein, you will be reg-. ulated by the instructions heretofore given to Mr. Monroe and yourself. It is, however, not intended that you should commence this negotiation until the requisite satisfaction shall have been made in the affair of the Chesapeake. And, in the adjustment of this case, you will be guided by the instructions which you have heretofore received from this Department in relation to it. It is, moreover, desirable, that, preparatory to a treaty upon all the points of difference between made for the revocation of the Orders in Counthe two countries, an arrangement should be cil. As it is uncertain what may be the ultimate measures of Congress, at the present session, it cannot be expected that the President can, at this time, state the precise condition to be annexed to a repeal of the Orders in Council. But, in general, you may assure the British Government of his cordial disposition to exercise any power with which he may be invested, to put an end to acts of Congress which would not be resorted to but for the Orders in Council, and, at the same time, of his determination to keep them in force against France, in case her decrees should not also be repealed. [Enclosed in the foregoing letter.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE. Extract Mr. Smith to Mr. Pinkney. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, January 20, 1810. In my letter to you of the 11th of November, 1809, you were authorized to assure the British Government that the United States sincerely retained the desire, which they have constantly professed, to facilitate a friendly accommodation of SIR: The President, anxious to adjust the exall the existing differences between the two coun-isting differences between the United States and tries; and that nothing would be more agreeable Great Britain, and deeming it expedient to make to them, than to find the successor of Mr. Jack-another effort for that purpose, has given it in son invested with all the authorities necessary for the accomplishing of so desirable an event; and, moreover, that if the attainment of this object, through your agency, should be considered more expeditious or otherwise preferable, it would be a course entirely satisfactory to the United States. I am now charged, by the President, to transmit to you the enclosed letter, authorizing you to re charge to me to instruct you to renew negotia- Relations with Great Britain. Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith. LONDON, February 19, 1810. [Enclosed in the preceding despatch.] From General Armstrong to Mr. Pinkney. PARIS, January 25, 1810. SIR: A letter from Mr. Secretary Smith, of the 1st of December last, made it my duty to inquire of his Excellency the Duke of Cadore what were the conditions on which His Majesty the Emperor would annul his decree, commonly called the Berlin decree; and whether, if Great Britain revoked her blockades of a date anterior to that decree, His Majesty would consent to revoke the said decree? To these questions I have this day SIR: I received on the 12th instant, by Mr. Powell, whom I had sent some time before to France, a letter from Gen. Armstrong, of which a copy is enclosed; and, keeping in view the instructions contained in your letter to me of the 11th of November last, I have written to Lord Wellesley to inquire whether any, and, if any, what blockades of France, instituted by Great Britain during the present war, before the 1st of January, 1807, are understood here to be in force. A copy of my letter to Lord Wellesley is en-received the following answer, which I hasten to closed. It is not improbable that this official inquiry will produce a declaration, in answer to it, that none of those blockades are in force; and I should presume that such a declaration will be received in France as substantially satisfying the condition announced to me by General Armstrong. I am not aware that this subject could have been brought before the British Government in any other form than that which I have chosen. It would not, I think, have been proper to have applied for a revocation of the blockades in question, (at least before it is ascertained that they are in existence.) or to have professed, in my letter to Lord Wellesley, to found, upon General Armstrong's communication, my inquiry as to their actual state. I have, however, supposed it to be indispensable (and have acted accordingly) that I should explain to Lord Wellesley in conversation the probability afforded, by Gen. Armstrong's letter, that a declaration by this Government, to the effect above-mentioned, would be followed by the recall of the Berlin decree. I cannot, perhaps, expect to receive from Lord Wellesley an answer to my letter in time to send a copy by the John Adams, now in the Downs or at Portsmouth; but I will send it by an early opportunity, and will take care that General Armstrong shall be made acquainted with it without delay. I have the honor to be, &c. WM. PINKNEY. MARCH 23, 1810. P. S. Since the writing of this letter Lord Wellesley has sent me the answer, (of the 20 instant.) of which a copy is now enclosed. It was not satisfactory, and I pointed out its deficiencies to Lord Wellesley in conversation, and proposed to him that I should write him another letter requesting explanations. He assented to this course, and I have written him the letter of the 7th instant, of which also a copy is enclosed. His reply has been promised very frequently, but has not yet been received. I have reason to expect that it will be sufficient, but I cannot think of detaining the corvette any longer. The British packet will furnish me with an opportunity of forwarding it to you, and I will send Mr. Lee with it to Paris, by the way of Morlaix. I have the honor to be, &c. Hon. R. SMITH, &C. WM. PINKNEY. convey to you by a special messenger: ANSWER." The only condition required for the revocation, by His Majesty the Emperor, of the decree of Berlin will be, a previous revocation by the British Government of her blockades of France, or part of France, (such as that from the Elbe to Brest, &c.,) of a date anterior to that of the aforesaid decree." I have the honor to be, &c. JOHN ARMSTRONG. WM. PINKNEY, Esq., &c. Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley. GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, February 15, 1810. MY LORD: In pursuance of the intimation which I had the honor to give to your Lordship a few days ago, I beg to trouble your Lordship with an inquiry whether any, and, if any, what blockades of France, instituted by Great Britain, during the present war, before the 1st day of January, 1807, are understood by His Majesty's Gorernment to be in force? I am not able at present to specify more than one of the blockades to which this inquiry applies, namely, that from the Elbe to Brest, declared in May, 1806, and afterward limited and modified; but I shall be much obliged to your Lordship for precise information as to the whole. I have the honor to be, &c. WM. PINKNEY. The Marquis WELLESLEY, &c. Lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney. FOREIGN OFFICE, March 2, 1810. SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 15th ultimo, wherein you request to be informed whether any, and, if any, what blockades of France, instituted by Great Britain, during the present war, before the 1st day of January, 1807, are understood by His Majesty's Government to be in force? I have now the honor to acquaint you that the coast, rivers, and ports, from the river Elbe to Brest, both inclusive, were notified to be under the restrictions of blockade, with certain modifications, on the 16th of May, 1806; and that these restrictions were afterwards comprehended in the Order of Council of the 7th of January, 1807; which order is still in force. I have the honor to be, &c. WM. PINKNEY, Esq., &c. WELLESLEY. Relations with Great Britain. WM. PINKNEY. Hon. ROBERT SMITH, &c. [Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's letter of February 23.] Lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney. The undersigned requests Mr. Pinkney to accept the assurances of his high consideration. WELLESLEY. WM. PINKNEY, Esq., &c. Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith. LONDON. March 21, 1810. SIR: On the the 27th of November, Mr. Brunell delivered to me your letters of the 11th, 14th, and 23d of the preceding month, and on the Saturday following I had a conference with the Marquis of Wellesley, in the course of which I explained to him fully the grounds upon which I was instructed to request Mr. Jackson's immediate recall, and upon which the official intercourse between that Minister and the American Government had been suspended. Lord Wellesley's reception of what I said to him was frank and friendly, and I left him with a persuasion that we should have no cause to be dissatisfied with the final course of his Government on the subject of our conference. We agreed in opinion that this interview could only be introductory to a more formal proceeding on my part; and it was accordingly settled between us that I should present an official letter, to the effect of my verbal communication. Having prepared such a letter, I carried it myself to Downing street a few days afterwards, and accompanied the delivery of it to Lord Wellesley, with some explanatory observations, with which it is not, I presume, necessary to trouble you. You will find a copy of this letter enclosed, and will be able to collect from it the substance of the greater part of the statements and remarks which I thought it my duty to make in the conversation above-mentioned. Although I was aware that the answer to my letter would not be very hastily given, I certainly was not prepared to expect the delay which has actually occurred. The President will do me FOREIGN OFFICE, February 20, 1810. the justice to believe, that I have used every exThe undersigned, His Majesty's principal Se-ertion, consistent with discretion and the nature cretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has re- of the occasion, to shorten that delay, which, ceived His Majesty's commands to inform Mr. though not ascribable, as I persuade myself, to Pinkney, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister any motive unfriendly or disrespectful to the Plenipotentiary from the United States of Amer- United States, may, I am sensible, have been ea, that the King has judged it expedient to sig-productive of some disadvantage. A copy of the nify his commands to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to establish a strict blockade of the coasts and ports of Spain, from Gijon to the French territory, which will be maintained and enforced, according to the usages of war acknowledged and observed in similar cases. answer, received on the day of its date, is enclosed. Between the delivery of my letter and the receipt of the reply, I had frequent conversations with Lord Wellesley, some of which were at his own request, and related altogether to the subject of my letter. The rest were on other subMr. Pinkney is, therefore, requested to apprizejects; but Mr. Jackson's affair was incidentally the American Consuls and merchants residing mentioned in all. in England, that the whole of the Spanish coast above-mentioned is, and must be considered as, in a state of blockade; and that, from this time, all the measures, authorized by the law of nations and the respective treaties between His Majesty and the different neutral Powers, will be adopted and executed with respect to vessels attempting to violate the said blockade after this notice. 11th CoN. 3d SESS.-37 A particular account of what was said on these several occasions would scarcely be useful, and could not fail to be tedious It will, perhaps, be sufficient to observe, that, although these conversations were less satisfactory to me than the first, there was always an apparent anxiety on the part of Lord Wellesley to do what was conciliatory; and that, in the share which I took in them, I was governed by an opinion that, although it might become my duty Relations with Great Britain. Of my letter to Lord Wellesley of the 2d of January, I have very little to say. I trust it will be found faithful to my instructions; and that. while it maintains the honor of my Government, it does not neglect what is due to conciliation. to avoid, with more than ordinary care, all ap- I spoke of the affair of the Chesapeake and the pearance of my being a party to the ultimate pro-Orders in Council, and concluded my explanaceeding of the British Government upon my ffions, which did not lose sight of your letter of cial representation, it could not be otherwise than the 23d of November, by expressing a wish that proper, in any turn which the affair could take. Lord Wellesley would allow me an early opporthat I should avail myself of every opportunitytunity of a free communication with him on these of bringing to Lord Wellesley's mind such con- heads. From the disposition evinced by Lord siderations as were calculated to produce a bene- Wellesley, in the notice which he took of these ficial influence upon the form and character of suggestions and of that wish, I was inclined to that proceeding. In what light the President hope that it might be in my power to announce to will view the course, after so much deliberation, you, by the return of the corvette, that a new enthis Government has adopted, it would not be- voy would be charged, as the successor of Mr. come me even to conjecture. If, either in man-Jackson, with instructions adapted to the purner or effect, it should not fulfil his expectations, pose of honorable accommodation. My letter to I shall have to regret that the success of my his Lordship was written under the influence of humble endeavors to make it what it ought to this hope, and concludes, as you will perceive, be, has not been proportioned to my zeal and with as strong an appeal to the disposition on diligence. which it rested, as could with propriety be made. I recurred, in subsequent conversations, as often as occasion presented itself, to the attack on the Chesapeake and to the Orders in Council. It soon appeared, however, that a new Envoy would not, in the first instance, be sent out to I am not sure that I ought to have quoted in it replace Mr. Jackson, and, consequently, that an your letter to me of the 11th of November, of arrangement of these subjects was not, in that which the subject is undoubtedly given in the mode, to be expected. A special mission would quotation from your subsequent letter of the 23d still less be resorted to; and it was not likely of the same month. But I saw no objection to a that approaches to negotiation would be made repetition of the just and amicable sentiment ex- through a Chargé d'Affaires. It was still barely pressed in these quotations; and, as I had been possible that, though I had no powers to negoinduced, at my first interview with Lord Welles- tiate and conclude, the British Government might ley, to read to his Lordship each of the passages, not be disinclined to make advances through me, I felt that I was in some sort bound to the intro- or that Lord Wellesley would suffer me so far to duction of both into my written communication. understand the views of his Government, as that I My letter avoids all discussion, and all invita- might enable you to judge upon what conditions tion to discussion, on the business of the Chesa- and in what mode arrangement was practicable. peake, on the Orders in Council, and on other This was possible, though not very probable; topics which circumstances have connected with but it finally became certain that no definite proboth. It does not, however, entirely pass them posal would, for the present at least, be made to by; but contains such references to them as, I sup-us through any channel, and that Lord Wellesposed, were likely to be useful. I feel assured that, ley would not commit himself upon the details in this respect, I have acted in conformity with to which I wished him to speak, but upon which, the President's intentions. Indeed, if I had acted of course, I did not press him. otherwise, I should have complicated and em- It only remains to refer you, for the actual senbarrassed a question which I was ordered to sim-timents of this Government, with regard to fuplify, and forced into combination the peculiar difficulties of several subjects, to counteract the wishes of my own Government upon each. I should have done so, too, without inducement; for I had no authority to make any demand or proposal in the cases of the Chesapeake and Or ders in Council, or to act upon any proposal which Lord Wellesley might be inclined to make to me; and it was perfectly clear that these sub jects were not susceptible of any very material written illustrations which they had not already received. I did not, however, imagine that was to make no use of the reflections upon these which you had furnished in your letter of the 23d of November. I was, on the contrary, convinced that it would be proper to suggest them occasionally in conversation, with a view to dispose Lord Wellesley, and, through him, the Bitish Government, to seek such fair and liberal adjustments with us as would once more make us friends. Accordingly, in my first conference, ture negotiation, to the concluding paragraph of Lord Wellesley's letter to me; which is substantially the same with his recent verbal explanations; and to add that, in a short conversation since the receipt of his letter, he told me that, if I thought myself empowered to enter upon and adjust the case of the Chesapeake, he would proceed without delay to consider it with me. I have not supposed that Lord Wellesley's letter requires any other than the common answer; and I have, accordingly, given the reply of which a copy is now transmitted. I have, &c. WILLIAM PINKNEY. - Hon. ROBERT SMITH, &c. [Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's despatch March 21, 1810.] Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley. GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, Jan. 2, 1810. MY LORD: In the course of the official correspondence which has lately taken place between Relations with Great Britain. the Secretary of State of the United States, and Mr. Jackson, His Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at Washington, it bas unfortunately happened that Mr. Jackson has made it necessary that I should receive the commands of the President to request his recall, and that, in the mean time, the intercourse between that Minister and the American Government should be suspended. I am quite sure, my Lord, that I shall best consult your Lorship's wishes, and the respect which I owe to His Majesty's Government, by executing my duty on this occasion with perfect simplicity and frankness. My instructions, too, point to that course as required by the honor of the two Governments, and as suited to the confidence which the President entertains in the disposition of His Majesty's Government to view in its true light the subject to which they relate. With such inducements to exclude from this communication everything which is not intimately connected with its purpose, and, on the other hand, to set forth, with candor and explicitness, the facts and considerations which really belong to the case, I should be unpardonable if I fatigued your Lordship with unnecessary details, or affected any reserve. It is known to your Lordship that Mr. Jackson arrived in America, as the successor of Mr. Erskine, while the disappointment, produced by the disavowal of the arrangement of the 19th of April, was yet recent, and while some other causes of dissatisfaction, which had been made to associate themselves with that disappointment, were in operation; but your Lordship also knows that his reception by the American Government was marked by all that kindness and respect which were due to the representative of a Sovereign, with whom the United States were sincerely desirous of maintaining the most friendly relations. It is evident, my Lord, from Mr. Jackson's reply of the 11th of the same month, that he received this intimation (which, carefully restricted as it was, he seems to have been willing to understand in a general sense) with considerable sensibility. He speaks of it in that reply as being without example in the annals of diplomacy; as a step against which it was fit to enter his protest; as a violation, in his person, of the most essential rights of a public Minister; as a new difficulty thrown in the way of a restoration of a thorough good understanding between the two countries. I need not remark to your Lordship that nothing of all this could, with propriety, be said of a proceeding, in itself entirely regular and usual, required by the state of the discussions to which only it was to be applied, and proposed in a manner perfectly decorous and unexceptionable. The Government of the United States had expected from Mr. Jackson an explanation of the grounds of the refusal, on the part of his Government, to abide by Mr. Erskine's arrangement, accompanied by a substitution of other propositions. It had been collected from Mr, Jackson's conversations, that he had no power whatsoever to give any such explanation; or, in the business of the Orders in Council, to offer any substitute for the rejected agreement; or, in the affair of the Chesapeake, to offer any substitute that could be accepted; and it had been inferred, from the same conversations, that, even if the American Government should propose a substitute for that part of the disavowed adjustment which regarded the Orders in Council, the substitute could not be agreed to, (if, indeed, Mr. Jackson had power to do more than discuss it,) unless it should distinctly recognise conditions which had already been declared to be wholly inadmissible. To what valuable end, my Lord, loose conversations, having in view either no definite result, or none that was attainable, could, under such circumstances and upon such topics, be continued, it would not be easy to discover; and I think Í may venture to assume that the subsequent written correspondence has completely shown that they could not have been otherwise than fruitless, and that they were not too soon abandoned for that formal course to which, from the beginning, they could only be considered as preparatory. Whatever were the hopes which Mr. Jack son's mission had inspired of satisfactory explanations and adjustments upon the prominent points of difference between the two countries, they certainly were not much encouraged by the conferences, in which, as far as he thought proper, he opened to Mr. Smith, soon after his arrival, the nature and extent of his powers and the views of his Government. After an experiment, deemed by After remonstrating against the wish of the the Government of the United States to be suffi- American Government to give to the further discient, it appeared that these conferences, neces-cussions a written form, Mr. Jackson disposes sarily liable to misconception and want of precision, were not likely to lead to any practical conclusion. Accordingly, on 9th of October, Mr. Smith addressed a letter to Mr. Jackson, in which, after stating the course of proceeding which the American Goverument had supposed itself entitled to expect from him with regard to the rejected ar rangement and the matters embraced by it, after recapitulating what Mr. Smith believed to have passed in their recent interviews relative to those subjects, he intimated that it was thought expedient that their further discussions, on that particular occasion, should be in writing. himself to conform to it; and, speaking in the same letter of the disavowal of the arrangement of April, he declares that he was not provided with instructions to explain the motives of it; and he seems to intimate that explanation, through him, was unnecessary, not only because it had already been made through other channels, but because the Government of the United States had entered into the arrangement with a knowledge "that it could only lead to the consequences that actually followed." In the conclusion of the fourth paragraph of the letter, he informs Mr. Smith that the despatch of Mr. Canning to Mr, Erskine," which Mr. Smith had made the basis |