IN Canning’s note to Pinkney of Sept. 23, 1808,--the same
paper which expressed his Majesty’s regret for the embargo “as a
measure of inconvenient restriction upon the American people,”--a
paragraph easily overlooked had been inserted to provide for future
chances of fortune:--
“It is not improbable, indeed, that some alterations may
be made in the Orders of Council as they are at present
framed,--alterations calculated, not to abate their spirit or
impair their principle, but to adapt them more exactly to the
different state of things which has fortunately grown up in
Europe, and to combine all practicable relief to neutrals with
a more severe pressure upon the enemy. But of alterations to
be made with this view only it would be uncandid to take any
advantage in the present discussion, however it might be hoped
that in their practical effect they might prove beneficial to
America, provided the operation of the embargo were not to
prevent her from reaping that benefit.”
This intended change in the orders depended on the political change
which converted Spain from an enemy into an ally. Spencer Perceval
did not care to press the cause of British commerce so far as to tax
American wheat and salt-fish on their way to Spain and Portugal, where
he must himself provide money to pay for them after they were bought by
the army commissaries. Accordingly, in December, 1808, a new Order in
Council appeared, doing away with the export duties lately imposed by
Parliament on foreign articles passing through England. Thenceforward
American wheat might be shipped at Liverpool for the Spanish peninsula
without paying ten shillings a quarter to the British Treasury,[34] if
only the embargo did not prevent American wheat from entering Liverpool
at all.
In a short note, dated December 24, Canning enclosed to Pinkney a copy
of the new order; and while taking care to explain that this measure
conceded nothing in principle, he offered it as a step toward removing
the most offensive, if not the most oppressive, restraint imposed on
American commerce by the Orders of 1807:--
“As I have more than once understood from you that the part of
the Orders in Council which this order goes to mitigate is that
which was felt most sorely by the United States, I have great
pleasure in being authorized to communicate it to you.”
Pinkney was in no humor to bear more of what he considered Canning’s
bad taste, and he could have but one opinion of the measure which
Canning announced. “This order is a shadow,” he wrote to Madison,[35]
“and if meant to conciliate us, ridiculous.” His reply to Canning
verged for the first time on abruptness, as though the moment were near
when he meant to speak another language.
“It is perfectly true,” began Pinkney’s acknowledgment of Dec.
28, 1808,[36] “as the concluding paragraph of your letter
supposes me to believe, that the United States have viewed with
great sensibility the pretension of this Government (which, as
a pretension, the present order reasserts without much if at
all modifying its practical effect) to levy imposts upon their
commerce, outward and inward, which the Orders in Council of the
last year were to constrain to pass through British ports. But
it is equally true that my Government has constantly protested
against the entire system with which that pretension was
connected, and has in consequence required the repeal, not the
modification, of the British Orders in Council.”
This reception roused the temper of Canning, who could not understand,
if Pinkney honestly wished harmony, why he should repel what might be
taken as a kindness; yet the same reasons which induced him to make the
advance impelled him to bear with the American minister’s roughness.
The moment was ill adapted for more quarrels. Napoleon had occupied
Madrid three weeks before, and was driving Sir John Moore’s army in
headlong flight back to England; the dreams of midsummer had vanished;
the overthrow of France was no nearer than before the Spanish uprising;
the United States were seriously discussing war, and however loudly a
few interested Englishmen might at times talk, the people of England
never wanted war with the United States. Canning found himself obliged
to suppress his irritation, and so far from checking the spirit of
concession to America, was drawn into new and more decided advances.
Spencer Perceval felt the same impulse, and of his own accord proposed
other steps to his colleague, after Pinkney’s letter of December 28 had
been read and considered by the Cabinet. With the impression of that
letter fresh in the minds of both, Canning wrote to Perceval on the
last day of the year:[37]--
“We have given quite proof enough of our determination to
maintain our principle to enable us to relax, if in other
respects advisable, without danger of being suspected of giving
way. The paragraph in my letter to Pinkney, of September 23,
prepares the world for any relaxations that we may think fit to
make, provided they are coupled with increased severity against
France; and though this last consideration is something impaired
by my last communication to Pinkney, yet the manner in which he
has received that communication (with respect to which reception
I partake of the fury which you describe as having been kindled
in Hammond) leaves us quite at liberty to take any new steps
without explanation, and exempts us from any hazard of seeing
them too well received.”
The year 1809 began with this new spirit of accommodation in British
councils. The causes which produced it were notorious. From the moment
Europe closed her ports, in the autumn of 1807, articles commonly
supplied from the Continent rose to speculative prices, and after the
American embargo the same effect followed with American produce. Flax,
linseed, tallow, timber, Spanish wool, silk, hemp, American cotton
doubled or trebled in price in the English markets during the years
1807 and 1808.[38] Colonial produce declined in the same proportion.
Quantities of sugar and coffee overfilled the warehouses of London,
while the same articles could not be bought at Amsterdam and Antwerp at
prices three, four, and five times those asked on the Royal Exchange.
Under the Orders in Council, the whole produce of the West Indies, shut
from Europe by Napoleon and from the United States by the embargo, was
brought to England, until mere plethora stopped accumulation.
Debarred from their natural outlets, English merchandise and
manufactures were forced into every other market which seemed to offer
a hope of sale or barter. When Portugal fell into Napoleon’s hands,
and the royal family took refuge in Brazil under British protection,
English merchants glutted Brazil with their goods, until the beach
at Rio Janeiro was covered with property, which perished for want of
buyers and warehouses. The Spanish trade, thrown open soon afterward,
resulted in similar losses. In the effort to relieve the plethora at
home, England gorged the few small channels of commerce that remained
in her control.
These efforts coincided with a drain of specie on government account to
support the Spanish patriots. The British armies sent to Spain required
large sums in coin for their supplies, and the Spaniards required
every kind of assistance. The process of paying money on every hand
and receiving nothing but worthless produce could not long continue
without turning the exchanges against London; yet a sudden call for
specie threatened to shake the foundations of society. Never was credit
so rotten. Speculation was rampant, and inflation accompanied it. None
of the familiar signs of financial disaster were absent. Visionary
joint-stock enterprises flourished. Discounts at long date, or without
regard to proper security, could be obtained with ease from the private
banks and bankers who were competing for business; and although the
Bank of England followed its usual course, neither contracting nor
expanding its loans and issues, suddenly, at the close of 1808, gold
coin rose at a leap from a nominal rate of 103 to the alarming premium
of 113. The exchanges had turned, and the inevitable crash was near.
The political outlook took the same sombre tone as the finances. The
failure of the Spaniards and the evacuation of Spain by the British
army after the loss of Sir John Moore at Corunna, January 16, destroyed
confidence in all political hopes. Lord Castlereagh, as war-secretary,
was most exposed to attack. Instead of defending him, Canning set the
example of weakening his influence. Aware that the Administration had
not the capacity to hold its own, Canning undertook to reform it. As
early as October, 1808, he talked freely of Castlereagh’s incompetence,
and made no secret of his opinion that the Secretary for War must go
out.[39] Whether his judgment of Castlereagh’s abilities were right or
wrong was a matter for English history to decide; but Americans might
at least wonder that the Convention of Cintra and the campaign of Sir
John Moore were not held to be achievements as respectable as the
American diplomacy of Canning or the commercial experiments of Spencer
Perceval. Canning himself agreed that Perceval was little, if at all,
superior to Castlereagh, and he saw hope for England chiefly in his own
elevation to the post of the Duke of Portland.
Although no one fully understood all that had been done by the Portland
ministry, enough was known to render their fall certain; and Canning
saw himself sinking with the rest. He made active efforts to secure
his own safety and to rise above the misfortunes which threatened to
overwhelm his colleagues. Among other annoyances, he felt the recoil
of his American policy. The tone taken by Pinkney coincided with
the warlike threats reported by Erskine, and with the language of
Campbell’s Report to the House of Representatives. Erskine’s despatch
of November 26, in which Campbell’s Report was enclosed, and his
alarming despatches of December 3 and 4 were received by Canning about
the middle of January,[40] at a time when the Ministry was sustained
only by royal favor. The language and the threats of these advices
were such as Canning could not with dignity overlook or with safety
resent; but he overlooked them. January 18, at a diplomatic dinner
given by him on the Queen’s birthday, he took Pinkney aside to tell him
that the Ministry were willing to consider the Resolutions proposed in
Campbell’s Report as putting an end to the difficulties which prevented
a satisfactory arrangement.[41] Pinkney, surprised by Canning’s “more
than usual kindness and respect,” suggested deferring the subject to a
better occasion; and Canning readily acquiesced, appointing January 22
as the day for an interview.
The next morning, January 19, Parliament met, and American affairs
were instantly made the subject of attack on ministers. In the Lords,
Grenville declared that “the insulting and sophistical answer” returned
by Canning to the American offer, persuaded him “that the intention
of the King’s government is to drive things to extremity with
America.” Lord Hawkesbury the Home Secretary, who had succeeded his
father as Earl of Liverpool, replied in the old tone that ministers
felt no disposition to irritate America, but that national dignity
and importance were not to be sacrificed “at the very moment when
America seemed so blind to her own interest, and betrayed so decided a
partiality in favor of France.”[42] In the Commons, Whitbread and the
other leaders of opposition echoed the attack, but Canning did not echo
the reply.
“The same infatuation,” said Whitbread,[43] “seems now to prevail
that existed in the time of the late American war. There were the
same taunts, the same sarcasms, and the same assertions that America
cannot do without us.” Only a few weeks earlier or later, Canning
would have met such criticisms in his loftiest tone, and with more
reason than in 1807 or in 1808. In his desk were Erskine’s latest
despatches, announcing impending war in every accent of defiance
and in many varieties of italics and capital letters; fresh in his
memory was his own official pledge that “no step which could even
mistakenly be construed into concession should be taken” while a doubt
existed whether America had wholly abandoned her attempt at commercial
restriction. Yet instead of maintaining England’s authority at the
moment when for the first time it was threatened by the United States,
Canning became apologetic and yielding. Repeating the commonplaces of
the newspapers that America had sided with France, and even going so
far as to assert, what he best knew to be an error, that the Orders
in Council had not been the cause of the embargo, and “it was now a
notorious fact that no such ground had been laid for the embargo;”
after declaring the exclusion of British war-vessels from American
harbors to have been the chief obstacle to the compromise offered by
America,--treading, with what seemed a very uncertain foot, among
these slippery and ill-balanced stepping-stones, he reached the
point where he meant to rest. The “Chesapeake” Proclamation, which
excluded British war-ships from American harbors, being his chief
grievance, any settlement which removed that grievance would be so far
satisfactory; and for this reason the measures proposed in Campbell’s
Report, though clothed in hostile language, might, if made known to the
British government in amicable terms, have led to the acceptance of
the compromise proposed, since they excluded French as well as English
ships of war from American ports.
Canning next turned to Pinkney to ascertain how much concession would
be safe. The interview took place January 22; but Pinkney’s powers
had been withdrawn, and he neither could nor would furnish Canning
with any assurance on which a concession could be offered with the
certainty either that it would be accepted, or that it would be
refused. Canning seemed particularly anxious to know how the embargo
could be effectually enforced against commerce with France, after being
removed in regard to England.[44] He “presumed that the government
of the United States would not complain if the naval force of this
country should assist in preventing such a commerce.”[45] Pinkney
felt many doubts of Canning’s good faith,[46] and had every reason
for avoiding committal of himself or of his Government. According to
his own account, he declined to enter into the discussion of details,
and confined himself to general encouragement of Canning’s good
disposition.[47]
After experimenting upon Pinkney, much as he had sounded Parliament,
Canning lost not an hour in composing the new instructions to Erskine.
Four in number, all bearing the same date of January 23, they dealt
successively with each of the disputed points; but in order to
understand the embroilment they caused, readers must carry in mind,
even at some effort of memory, precisely what Canning ordered Erskine
to do, and precisely what Erskine did.
The first instruction dealt with the “Chesapeake” affair, and the
Proclamation occasioned by it. Accepting Gallatin’s idea that the
Proclamation being merged in the general non-intercourse would cease to
exist as a special and separate provision of law, Canning instructed
Erskine that if French ships of war should be excluded from American
ports, and if the Proclamation should be tacitly withdrawn, he need no
longer insist upon the formal recall. Further, Gallatin had suggested
that Congress was about to exclude foreign seamen by law from national
ships; and Canning admitted also this evasion of his demand that the
United States should engage not to countenance desertions. Finally, he
withdrew the demand for disavowals which had wrecked Rose’s mission.
Evidently the British government wished to settle the “Chesapeake”
affair. Had Canning in like manner swept away his old conditions
precedent to withdrawal of the Orders in Council, his good faith
would have been above suspicion; but he approached that subject in a
different spirit, and imposed one condition after another while he
adopted the unusual course of putting each new condition into the
mouth of some American official. He drew from Erskine’s despatches the
inference that Madison, Smith, and Gallatin were willing to recognize
in express terms the validity of the British “Rule of 1756.”[48] For
this misunderstanding Erskine was to blame,[49] but Canning was alone
responsible for the next remark, that “Mr. Pinkney has recently, but
for the first time, expressed to me his opinion that there will be no
indisposition on the part of his Government to the enforcement, by
the naval power of Great Britain,” of the Act of Congress declaring
non-intercourse with France. On the strength of these supposed
expressions of William Pinkney, Madison, Smith, and Gallatin, none of
which was official or in writing, Canning concluded:--
“I flatter myself that there will be no difficulty in obtaining
a distinct and official recognition of these conditions from
the American government. For this purpose you are at liberty
to communicate this despatch _in extenso_ to the American
government.”
The chief interest of these instructions lay in the question whether
Canning meant in good faith to offer on any conditions a withdrawal of
the Orders in Council. The course of his own acts and of Perceval’s
measures, suggested that he did not intend to offer any terms which
the United States could accept. His remark to Perceval three weeks
before, that they were quite at liberty to take new steps without
“any hazard of seeing them too well received,” pointed in the same
direction. Yet motives were enigmas too obscure for search, and the
motives of Canning in this instance were more perplexing than usual. If
he was serious in hoping an agreement, how could he insist on requiring
official recognition of the right of Great Britain to enforce the
municipal laws of the United States when he afterward admitted that
such a claim “could not well find its way into a stipulation; that he
had nevertheless believed it proper to propose the condition to the
United States; that he should have been satisfied with the rejection
of it; and that the consequence would have been that they should have
intercepted the commerce to which it referred, if any such commerce
should be attempted”?[50] In the instructions to Erskine he imposed the
condition as essential to the agreement,--the same condition which he
thought “could not well find its way into a stipulation,” and which “he
should have been satisfied” to see rejected.
For two years Canning had lost no opportunity of charging the American
government with subservience to Napoleon; even in these instructions
he alleged Jefferson’s “manifest partiality” to France as a reason why
England could entertain no propositions coming from him. He had in his
hands Madison’s emphatic threats of war; how then could he conceive of
obtaining from Madison an express recognition of the British Rule of
1756, which Madison had most deeply pledged himself to resist?
On the other hand, Canning showed forbearance and a wish for peace, by
leaving Erskine minister at Washington as well as by passing unnoticed
Madison’s threats of war; and he betrayed a singular incapacity to
understand the bearing of his own demands when he directed Erskine
to communicate his instructions _in extenso_ to the American
government. Had he intelligently acted in bad faith, he would not have
given the President, whose attachment to France he suspected, the
advantage of seeing these instructions, which required that America
should become a subject State of England.
Perhaps a partial clew to these seeming contradictions might be found
in the peculiar traits of Canning’s character. He belonged to a class
of men denied the faculty of realizing the sensibilities of others. At
the moment when he took this tone of authority toward America, he gave
mortal offence to his own colleague Lord Castlereagh, by assuming a
like attitude toward him. He could not understand, and he could never
train himself to regard, the rule that such an attitude between States
as between gentlemen was not admitted among equals.
Whatever was the reason of Canning’s conduct, its effect was that of
creating the impression of bad faith by offering terms intended to
be refused. The effect of bad faith was the more certain because the
instructions closed by giving Erskine some latitude, not as to the
conditions which were to be distinctly and officially recognized, but
as to the form in which the recognition might be required:--
“Upon the receipt here of an official note containing an
engagement for the adoption of the three conditions above
specified, his Majesty will be prepared on the faith of such
engagement,--either immediately, if the repeal shall have been
immediate in America or on any day specified by the American
government for that repeal,--reciprocally to recall the Orders
in Council.”
The form of the required engagement was left to Erskine’s discretion;
and in case Erskine failed, Canning would be still at liberty to claim,
as he afterward did, that his conditions were not so rigorously meant
as Erskine should have supposed them to be.
Meanwhile the Government of England was falling to pieces. Day by day
the situation became more alarming. For months after these despatches
were sent, the Commons passed their time in taking testimony and
listening to speeches intended to prove or disprove that the Duke of
York, commander-in-chief of the army, was in the habit of selling
officers’ commissions through the agency of his mistress, a certain
Mrs. Clarke; and although the Duke protested his innocence, the
scandal drove him from his office. The old King, blind and infirm,
was quite unfit to bear the shame of his son’s disgrace; while the
Prince of Wales stood no better than the Duke of York either in his
father’s esteem or in public opinion. The Ministry was rent by faction;
Perceval, Castlereagh, and Canning were at cross purposes, while the
Whigs were so weak that they rather feared than hoped their rivals’
fall. Whatever might be the factiousness of Congress or the weakness of
government at Washington, the confusion in Parliament was worse, and
threatened worse dangers.
“All power and influence of Perceval in the House is quite gone
by,” wrote a Whig member, February 16.[51] “He speaks without
authority and without attention paid to him; and Canning has
made two or three such rash declarations that he is little
attended to. You may judge the situation of the House, when I
tell you we were last night nearly three quarters of an hour
debating about the evidence of a drunken footman by Perceval
suggesting modes of ascertaining how to convict him of his
drunkenness,--Charles Long [one of the Administration], near
whom I was sitting telling me at the time what a lamentable
proof it was of the want of some man of sense and judgment
to lead the House. There is no government in the House of
Commons,--you may be assured the thing does not exist; and
whether they can ever recover their tone of power remains to be
proved. At present Mr. Croker, Mr. D. Brown, and Mr. Beresford
are the leaders.... The Cintra Convention, or the general
campaign, or the American question, are minor considerations,
and indeed do not enter into the consideration of any one.”
The House of Lords maintained more appearance of dignity; and there,
February 17, four-and-twenty hours after Colonel Fremantle wrote this
letter, Lord Grenville began a debate on American affairs. As a test of
Tory sincerity in view of what Erskine was soon to do at Washington,
the debate--as well as all else that was said of American affairs
during the session--deserved more than ordinary notice, if only in
justice to the British ministry, whose language was to receive a
commentary they did not expect.[52]
The most significant speech came from Lord Sidmouth. The conservatism
of this peer stood above reproach, and compared closely with that of
Spencer Perceval. Rather than abandon the “established principle” of
the Rule of 1756, he far preferred an American war. He proved his
stubborn Tory consistency too clearly, both before and after 1809, to
warrant a suspicion of leanings toward liberal or American sympathies;
but his speech of February 17 supporting Grenville, and charging
ministers with bad faith, was long and earnest. He called attention to
the scandal that while the Government professed in the speech from the
Throne a persuasion “that in the result the enemy will be convinced of
the impolicy of persevering in a system which retorts upon himself, in
so much greater proportion, those evils which he endeavors to inflict,”
yet instead of retorting those evils, Perceval licensed the export and
import both with France and Holland of the very articles which those
countries wished to sell and buy, while Canning at the same moment
rejected the American offers of trade because he thought it “important
in the highest degree that the disappointment of the hopes of the enemy
should not have been purchased by any concession.”
Ministers might disregard Grenville’s furious denunciation of the
orders as an act of the most egregious folly and the most unexampled
ignorance that ever disgraced the councils of a State; they might even
close their ears to Sidmouth’s charge that the folly and ignorance of
the orders were surpassed by their dishonesty,--but not even Spencer
Perceval could deny or forget that while a year before, Feb. 15, 1808,
forty-eight peers voted against him, on Feb. 17, 1809, seventy lords,
in person or by proxy, supported Grenville. While the opposition gained
twenty-two votes, the government gained only nine.
The impression of weakness in the ministry was increased by the energy
with which the authors of the orders stood at bay in their defence.
When Whitbread in the House of Commons renewed the attack, and the
House, March 6, entered on the debate, James Stephen came forward
as the champion of his own cause. Stephen’s speech,[53] published
afterward as a pamphlet, was intended to be an official as well as
a final answer to attacks against the orders, and was conclusive in
regard to the scope and motives of Perceval’s scheme. Neither Canning
nor Liverpool spoke with personal knowledge to be compared with that of
Stephen. Canning in particular had nothing to do with the orders except
as a subject of diplomatic evasion. Stephen, Perceval, and George Rose
were the parents of commercial restriction, and knew best their own
objects. With frankness creditable to him, but contrasting with the
double-toned language of Perceval and Canning, Stephen always placed
in the foreground the commercial objects he wanted and expected to
attain. His speech of March 6, 1809, once more asserted, in language
as positive as possible, that the orders had no other purpose than to
stop the American trade with France because it threatened to supplant
British trade. The doctrine of retaliation, or the object of retorting
evils on France, had nothing to do with Stephen’s scheme. His words
were clear, for like a true enthusiast he was wholly intent on the idea
in which he thought safety depended.
Canning also planted himself on advanced ground. The question, he said,
was between England and France; not between England and America. On
the principles of international law he had no defence to offer for
the Orders in Council as between England and America. “He was willing
to admit that it was not upon the poor pretence of the existing law
of nations, but upon the extension of that law (an extension just and
necessary), that his Majesty’s ministers were to rely, in the present
instance, for justification.” This extension rested on the excuse
that France had first discarded the law of nations; and America, in
attempting to give to Great Britain the priority in wrong, had incurred
this censure,--“that she had brought a false charge, and persisted in
it.” In his opinion, the American offer to withdraw the embargo in
favor of England and to enforce it against France, “was illusory; he
might add, in the language of Mr. Madison, ‘it was insulting.’” Those
who accused ministers of a disinclination to adopt pacific measures
respecting America had lost sight of the facts. “We had rather gone
too far than done too little. We twice offered to negotiate; yet the
Non-importation Act was not revoked.”
If this was Canning’s true state of mind, his instructions to Erskine
less than a month before, offering to abandon the Orders in Council,
seemed to admit no defence. Still less could be explained how President
Madison, after reading these speeches, should have expected from
Canning the approval of any possible arrangement. Yet the irritation
of Canning’s tone showed him to be ill at ease,--he felt the ground
slipping under his feet. The public had become weary of him and his
colleagues. The commercial system they had invented seemed to create
the evils it was made to counteract. The press began to complain. As
early as January 13 the “Times” showed signs of deserting the orders,
which it declared to be no “acts of retaliation,” but “measures of
counteraction,” complicated by transit duties doubtful either in
expediency or justice. “If America will withdraw her Embargo and
Non-importation Acts as far as they relate to England, provided we
rescind the Orders in Council, we cannot consider this as a disgraceful
concession on our part.” After the debate of March 6, the “Times”
renewed its complaints. Every day increased the difficulties of
ministers, until mere change became relief.
At length, April 26, the reality of the weakness of Perceval and
Canning became clear. On that day a new Order in Council[54] appeared,
which roused great interest because it seemed to abandon the whole
ground taken in the Orders of November, 1807, and to return within
the admitted principles of international law. The machinery of the
old orders was apparently discarded; the machinery of blockade was
restored in its place. The Order of April 26, 1809, declared that the
old orders were revoked and annulled except so far as their objects
were to be attained by a general blockade of all ports and places under
the government of France. The blockade thus declared was to extend
northward as far as Ems, and was to include on the south the ports of
northern Italy. Of course the new blockade was not even claimed to
be effective. No squadrons were to enforce its provisions by their
actual presence before the blockaded ports. In that respect the Order
of April 26, 1809, was as illegal as that of Nov. 11, 1807; but the
new arrangement opened to neutral commerce all ports not actually
ports of France, even though the British flag should be excluded from
them,--retaliating upon France only the injury which the French decrees
attempted to inflict on England.
Pinkney was greatly pleased, and wrote to Madison in excellent
spirits[55] that the change gave all the immediate benefits which
could have arisen from the arrangement proposed by him in the
previous August, except the right to demand from France the recall
of her edicts. “Our triumph is already considered as a signal one
by everybody. The pretexts with which ministers would conceal their
motives for a relinquishment of all which they prized in their system
are seen through, and it is universally viewed as a concession to
America. Our honor is now safe; and by management we may probably
gain everything we have in view.” Canning said to Pinkney: “If these
alterations did not do all that was expected, they at least narrowed
extremely the field of discussion, and gave great facilities and
encouragement to reviving cordiality.”[56] Government took pains to
impress the idea that it had done much, and wished to do more for
conciliation; yet the doubt remained whether Government was acting in
good faith. Pinkney overestimated its concessions. If the British navy
was to blockade Holland, France, and northern Italy only in order that
British commerce might be forced, through the blockade and license
system, into the place of neutral commerce, the new system was only the
old one in disguise. Under a blockade, in good faith, licenses seemed
to have no place. In that case, the Order in Council of April 26 might
lead to a real settlement; but how was it possible that Perceval,
George Rose, and James Stephen should have given up what they believed
to be the only hope for England’s safety?
If one frank and straightforward man could be found among the
ministerial ranks, James Stephen had a right to that distinction, and
to his language one might hope to look with confidence for the truth;
yet Stephen seemed for once not to understand himself. In publishing
his speech of March 6, he added an appendix on the new order, and
closed his remarks by a prayer that seemed meant to open the way for
the full admission of American offers:--
“It is not strange that a measure so indulgent [as the new
Order] should be generally approved by the American merchants
and agents resident in England. The most eminent of the
gentlemen of that description who opposed the Orders of November
have openly professed their satisfaction at this important
change. May the same sentiment prevail on notice of it beyond
the Atlantic! Or, what would be still better, may an amicable
arrangement there have already terminated all the differences
between us and our American brethren on terms that will involve
a complete revocation of our retaliatory orders, and impose on
America herself, by her own consent, the duty of vindicating
effectually the rights of neutrality against the aggressions of
France!”