When Parliament met Jan. 21, 1808, the paroxysm of excitement which
followed the “Chesapeake” affair and the attack on Copenhagen had
begun to subside. War with America was less popular than it had been
six months before. The “Morning Post”[261] exhorted the British public
to maintain “that sublime pitch” from which all opposition was to be
crushed; but the Whigs came to Parliament eager for attack, while
Perceval and Canning had exhausted their energies, and were thrown
back on a wearisome defensive.
The session--which lasted from January 21 to July 4--was remarkable
chiefly for an obstinate struggle over the Orders in Council. Against
Perceval’s commercial measures the Whigs bent the full strength of
their party; and this strength, so far as intelligence was concerned,
greatly outmatched that of the Ministry. New men made reputations
in the conflict. In January, 1808, Alexander Baring--then about
thirty-four years of age, not yet in Parliament, but second to no
English merchant in standing--published a pamphlet, in reply to
Stephen’s “War in Disguise;” and his superior knowledge and abilities
gave, for the first time since 1776, solid ground of support to
American influence in British politics. Side by side with Baring,
a still younger man thrust himself into public notice by force of
qualities which for half a century were to make him the object of
mixed admiration and laughter. The new American champion, Henry
Brougham, a native of Edinburgh, thirty years of age, like many
other Scotch lawyers had come to seek and find at Westminster the
great prize of his profession. Like Baring, Brougham was not yet in
Parliament; but this obstacle--which would have seemed to most men
final--could not prevent him from speaking his mind, even in presence
of the House.
Lord Grenville began the attack, and Canning the defence, on the first
day of the session; but not until after January 27, when news of the
embargo arrived, and all immediate danger of war vanished, did the
situation become clear. February 5 the debate began. The Whigs found
that Perceval met their assaults on the character and policy of his
orders by quotations from Lord Howick’s Order, which the Whigs only
twelve months before had issued and defended as an act of retaliation.
Narrow as this personal rejoinder might be, it was fatal to the Whig
argument. Baring and Brougham might criticise Spencer Perceval; but
Lord Grenville and Lord Howick had enough to do in explaining their
own words. The more vehement they became, the more obstinately their
opponents persevered in holding them to this single point.
Yet the issue the Whigs wished to make was fairly met. Government
showed remarkable candor in avowing the commercial object of the
so-called retaliation. Admitting that even if Napoleon had issued no
decrees England might have been obliged to enforce the Rule of 1756,
Spencer Perceval declared that after the Berlin Decree a much stronger
measure was necessary in order to protect British commerce. Lord
Bathurst, Lord Hawkesbury, and Lord Castlereagh took the same tone.
Their argument, carried to its ultimate conclusion, implied that Great
Britain might lawfully forbid every other nation to trade with any
country that imposed a prohibitive duty on British manufactures. Not
even a state of war seemed essential to the soundness of the principle.
Already Lord Grenville had declared that “this principle of forcing
trade into our markets would have disgraced the darkest ages of
monopoly,”[262] when March 8 Lord Erskine spoke in support of a series
of resolutions condemning the orders as contrary to the Constitution,
the laws of the realm, and the rights of nations, and a violation of
Magna Charta. With especial energy he declaimed against Perceval’s
favorite doctrine of retaliation as applied to the protection of
British commerce. Lord Erskine, like Lord Grenville, never spared
epithets.
“It is indeed quite astonishing,” he said,[263] “to hear the word
‘retaliation’ twisted and perverted in a manner equally repugnant to
grammar and common-sense.... It is a new application of the term,
that if A strikes me, I may retaliate by striking B.... I cannot, my
Lords, conceive anything more preposterous and senseless than the
idea of retaliation upon a neutral on whom the decree has never been
executed, because it is only by its execution on him that we can be
injured.”
Erskine supported his positions by a long professional argument.
Lord Chancellor Eldon replied by developing international law in a
direction till then unexplored.[264]
“I would beg the House to consider what is meant by the law of
nations,” he began. “It is formed of an accumulation of the dicta of
wise men in different ages, and applying to different circumstances,
but none resembling in any respect such a state of things as at
present exists in the face of the world. Indeed, none of the writers
upon the subject of this law appear to have such a state in their
contemplation. But yet nothing is to be found in their writings which
does not fully warrant the right of self-defence and retaliation.
Upon that right the present ministers acted in advising those Orders
in Council, and upon the same right their predecessors issued the
order of the 7th of January.”
The doctrine that because international law wanted the sanction of
a well-defined force it was, strictly speaking, no law at all, was
naturally favored by the school of common law; but Lord Eldon’s
doctrine went further, for he created a sanction of one-sided force
by which international law might supersede its own principles. His
brother, Sir William Scott, carried out the theory by contending in
the House of Commons that “even if the French Decree was not acted
upon (which rested with the other party to prove), it was nevertheless
an injury, because it was an insult to the country,”[265]--a dictum
which could hardly find a parallel as the foundation for an attack on
the rights and property of an innocent third party.
Erskine’s Resolutions were of course rejected; but meanwhile the
merchants of the chief cities began to protest. As the bill for
carrying the orders into effect came to its engrossment, March 7, the
resistance became hot. March 11 the bill passed the House by a vote
of 168 to 68; but Brougham had yet to be heard, and no ordinary power
was capable of suppressing Henry Brougham. As counsel for the American
merchants of Liverpool, Manchester, and London, he appeared March 18
at the bar of the House, and for the next fortnight occupied most of
its time in producing testimony to prove that the orders had ruinously
affected the commercial interest. April 1 he summed up the evidence
in a speech of three hours, which James Stephen thought pernicious
and incendiary.[266] Perceval was obliged to produce witnesses on
the other side; and Stephen, who had been brought into Parliament for
the purpose, devoted himself to the task of proving that the orders
had as yet been allowed no chance to produce any effect whatever,
and that the commercial distress was due to the recent enforcement
of the Berlin Decree. That much distress existed no one denied; but
its causes might well be matter of dispute; and Parliament left the
merchants to decide the point as they pleased. Brougham’s inquiry had
no other effect.
Pinkney’s dealings with Canning were equally fruitless. January
26, when Pinkney received official news of the embargo, he went
instantly to Canning, “who received my explanations with great
apparent satisfaction, and took occasion to express the most-friendly
disposition toward our country.”[267] Pinkney used this opportunity
to remonstrate against the tax imposed on American cotton by the
Orders in Council. A week afterward Canning sent for him, and gravely
suggested a friendly arrangement. He wished to know Pinkney’s private
opinion whether the United States would prefer an absolute interdict
to a prohibitory duty on cotton intended for the continent.[268] The
sting of this inquiry rested not so much in the alternative thus
presented as in the seriousness with which Canning insisted that his
overture was a concession to America. With all his wit, as Lord
Castlereagh soon had reason to learn, Canning could not quite acquire
tact or understand the insults he offered. Pinkney tried, with much
good temper, to make him aware that his offer was in bad taste; but
nothing could stop him in the path of conciliation, and February 22
he addressed to Pinkney a note announcing that the British government
meant to prohibit the export of American cotton to the continent of
Europe.
“I flatter myself,” he continued,[269] “that this alteration in
the legislative regulations by which the Orders of Council are
intended to be carried into execution, will be considered by you as a
satisfactory evidence of the disposition of his Majesty’s government
to consult the feelings as well as the interests of the United
States in any manner which may not impair the effect of that measure
of commercial restriction to which the necessity of repelling the
injustice of his enemies has compelled his Majesty reluctantly to
have recourse.”
“One object of all this is certainly to conciliate us,” wrote Pinkney
to Madison.[270] On the day of Canning’s note Spencer Perceval
carried out the promise by moving the House for leave to bring in
a bill prohibiting the export of cotton, except by license. At
the same time he extended the like prohibition to Jesuit’s bark,
or quinine. Impervious to indignation and ridicule,--caring as
little for the laughter of Sydney Smith as for the wrath of Lord
Grenville,--Perceval pushed all his measures through Parliament, and
by the middle of April succeeded in riveting his restrictive system on
the statute-book. No power short of a new political revolution could
thenceforward shake his grasp on American commerce.
Yet Perceval felt and dreaded the effects of the embargo, which
threatened to paralyze the healthiest industries of England. To escape
the effects of this weapon Perceval would have made every possible
concession short of abandoning his great scheme of restrictive
statesmanship. March 26 he submitted to his colleagues a paper
containing suggestions on this point.[271] “It must be admitted,”
he began, “that it is extremely desirable that America should relax
her embargo at least as far as respects the intercourse with this
country.” The Americans submitted to it with reluctance, chiefly
because they feared the seizure of their vessels in case England
or France should declare war. To profit by this situation Perceval
proposed a new order, which should guaranty the safety of every
merchant-vessel, neutral or belligerent, on a voyage to or from a
British port. The advantages of this step were political as well as
commercial. The British ministry was disposed to meet the wishes of
the Boston Federalists. Such an order, Perceval said, “would have the
appearance of a friendly act on the part of this government toward
America, and would increase the embarrassment and difficulties of
that government in prevailing upon their subjects to submit to the
embargo.”
Lord Bathurst approved the suggestion; Lord Castlereagh opposed it,
for reasons best given in his own words:[272]--
“If the only object to be aimed at in conducting ourselves toward
America was to force the abrogation of the embargo, I agree with Mr.
Perceval that the proposed measure would make it more difficult for
the American government to sustain it; but in yielding so far to the
popular feeling the governing party would still retain much of their
credit, and they would continue to act on all the unsettled questions
between the two countries in their past spirit of hostility to Great
Britain and partiality to France. I think it better to leave them
with the full measure of their own difficulties to lower and degrade
them in the estimation of the American people. The continuance of the
embargo for some time is the best chance of their being destroyed
_as a party_; and I should prefer exposing them to the disgrace
of rescinding their own measure at the demand of their own people
than furnish them with any creditable pretext for doing so. I look
upon the embargo as operating at present more forcibly in our favor
than any measure of hostility we could call forth were war actually
declared, and doubt the policy of exhibiting too great an impatience
on our part of its continuance, which so strong a departure from our
usual practice toward neutrals would indicate.”
Secretary Canning wrote to his colleague in accord with Castlereagh’s
views.[273]
“It is so plain upon the face of this measure,” began Canning, “that
however comprehensive it may be made in words, it _in fact_ refers
to America _only_; and the embargo in America seems to be working so
well for us, without our interference, that on that ground alone I
confess I could wish that no new steps should be taken, at least till
we have more certain information of the real issue of the present
crisis in America. I have no apprehension whatever of a war with the
United States.... Above all things I feel that _to do nothing now_,
at this precise moment,--absolutely nothing,--is the wisest, safest,
and most manful policy. The battle about the Orders in Council is
just fought. They are established as a system. We have reason to hope
that they are working much to good, and very little to mischief.
Every day may be expected to bring additional proofs of this. But
whether this be true to the extent that we hope or no, their effects,
whatever they are, have been produced in America. Nothing that we
now do can alter those effects; but an attempt to do something will
perplex the view of them which we shall otherwise have to present to
the country in so short a time, and which there is so much reason to
believe will be highly satisfactory.”
Perceval, was less certain than Canning that the country would feel
high satisfaction with the effect of the orders; and he rejoined by an
argument which overthrew opposition:--
“The reason which strongly urges me to continue the circulation of
this paper, after having read Mr. Canning’s paper, in addition to
those already stated, is the apprehension I feel of the want of
provision not only for Sweden, but for the West Indies; and therefore
every possible facility or encouragement which we could give to
prevail upon the American people either to evade the embargo by
running their produce to the West Indian Islands, or to compel their
government to relax it, would in my opinion be most wise.”
The order was accordingly issued. Dated April 11, 1808,[274] it
directed British naval commanders to molest no neutral vessel on a
voyage to the West Indies or South America, even though the vessel
should have no regular clearances or papers, and “notwithstanding
the present hostilities, or any future hostilities that may take
place.” No measure of the British government irritated Madison more
keenly than this. “A more extraordinary experiment,” he wrote to
Pinkney,[275] “is perhaps not to be found in the annals of modern
transactions.” Certainly governments did not commonly invite citizens
of friendly countries to violate their own laws; but one avowed object
of the embargo was to distress the British people into resisting their
government, and news that the negroes of Jamaica and the artisans of
Yorkshire had broken into acts of lawless violence would have been
grateful to the ears of Jefferson. So distinct was this object, and
so real the danger, that Perceval asked Parliament[276] to restrict
the consumption of grain in the distilleries in order to countervail
the loss of American wheat and avert a famine. The price of wheat had
risen from thirty-nine to seventy-two shillings a quarter, and every
farmer hoped for a rise above one hundred shillings, as in 1795 and
1800. Disorders occurred; lives were lost; the embargo, as a coercive
measure, pressed severely on British society; and Madison, with such
a weapon in his hand, could not require Perceval to perceive the
impropriety of inviting a friendly people to violate their own laws.
The exact cost of the embargo to England could not be known. The
total value of British exports to America was supposed to be nearly
fifty million dollars; but the Americans regularly re-exported to the
West Indies merchandise to the value of ten or fifteen millions. The
embargo threw this part of the trade back into British hands. The
true consumption of the United States hardly exceeded thirty-five
million dollars, and was partially compensated to England by the gain
of freights, the recovery of seamen, and by smuggling consequent on
the embargo. Napoleon’s decrees must in any case have greatly reduced
the purchasing power of America, and had in fact already done so.
Perhaps twenty-five million dollars might be a reasonable estimate
for the value of the remaining trade which the embargo stopped; and
if the British manufacturers made a profit of twenty per cent on this
trade, their loss in profits did not exceed five million dollars for
the year,--a sum not immediately vital to English interests at a time
when the annual expenditure reached three hundred and fifty million
dollars, and when, as in 1807, the value of British exports was
reckoned at nearly two hundred million dollars. Indeed, according to
the returns, the exports of 1808 exceeded those of 1807 by about two
millions.
Doubtless the embargo caused suffering. The West Indian negroes
and the artisans of Staffordshire, Lancashire, and Yorkshire were
reduced to the verge of famine; but the shipowners rejoiced, and the
country-gentleman and farmers were enriched. So ill balanced had the
British people become in the excitement of their wars and industries
that not only Cobbett but even a man so intelligent as William Spence
undertook to prove[277] that foreign commerce was not a source of
wealth to England, but that her prosperity and power were derived from
her own resources, and would survive the annihilation of her foreign
trade. James Mill replied[278] at great length to the eccentricities
of Spence and Cobbett, which the common-sense of England would in
ordinary times have noticed only with a laugh.
The population of England was about ten millions. Perhaps two millions
were engaged in manufactures. The embargo by raising the price of
grain affected them all, but it bore directly on about one tenth of
them. The average sum expended on account of the poor was £4,268,000
in 1803 and 1804; it was £5,923,000 in 1811; and in 1813, 1814, and
1815, when the restrictive system had produced its full effect, the
poor-rates averaged £6,130,000. The increase was probably due to
the disturbance of trade and was accompanied by a state of society
bordering on chronic disorder.
Probably at least five thousand families of working-men were reduced
to pauperism by the embargo and the decrees of Napoleon; but these
sufferers, who possessed not a vote among them and had been in no way
party to the acts of either government, were the only real friends
whom Jefferson could hope to find among the people of England; and
his embargo ground them in the dust in order to fatten the squires
and ship-owners who had devised the Orders in Council. If the English
laborers rioted, they were shot: if the West Indian slaves could not
be fed, they died. The embargo served only to lower the wages and the
moral standard of the laboring classes throughout the British empire,
and to prove their helplessness.
Each government thus tried to overthrow the other; but that of
England was for the moment the more successful. The uneducated
force of democracy seemed about to break against the strength of an
aristocratic system. When Parliament rose, July 4, domestic opposition
was silenced, and nothing remained but to crush the resistance of
America,--a task which all advices from the United States showed to be
easy; while as though to make ministers invulnerable, Spain suddenly
opened her arms to England, offering new markets that promised
boundless wealth. At this unexpected good fortune England went
well-nigh mad; and the Spanish revolution, which was in truth a gain
to democracy, seemed to strike Jefferson a mortal blow. During the
month of July, 1808, Canning and his colleagues exulted over Europe
and America alike, looking down on Jefferson and his embargo with the
disgust and horror which they might have felt for some monster of
iniquity like the famous butcher of the Marrs, who was to rouse the
shudders of England during these lurid years. According to Canning,
Napoleon’s system was already “broken up into fragments utterly
harmless and contemptible.”[279] According to Henry Brougham,[280]
hardly ten men could be found in London who did not believe Bonaparte
utterly broken, or think him worth paying one hundred pounds a year
to live in retirement at Ajaccio the rest of his life. America was
still more contemptible, and equally hated. Early in August, at a
great dinner given at the London Tavern to the Spanish patriots, Sir
Francis Baring, of the house of Baring Brothers,--a man who for a
whole generation had stood at the head of British merchants,--proposed
as chairman, among the regular toasts, the health of the President
of the United States, and his voice was instantly drowned in hisses
and protests. Jefferson, thanks to the slanders of Pickering and
the Federalists, stood before England in the attitude of a foiled
cutthroat, at the moment when by his order the American minister in
London came to the British Foreign Office with a request that the
Orders in Council should be withdrawn.
“That the Orders in Council did not produce the embargo, that they
were not substantially known in America when the embargo took
place,”[281] was the burden of Canning’s and Castlereagh’s constant
charge against the United States government. Canning was one of six or
eight men in the world who might with truth have said that they knew
the orders to have produced the embargo. He alone could have proved
it by publishing Erskine’s official evidence;[282] but he preferred
to support Timothy Pickering and Barent Gardenier in persuading
the world that Jefferson’s acts were dictated from Paris, and that
their only motive was the assassination of England. “Nor, sir, do I
think,” continued Canning before the whole House of Commons, “that
the Orders in Council themselves could have produced any irritation
in America.... Since the return of Mr. Rose no communication has
been made by the American government in the form of complaint, or
remonstrance, or irritation, or of any description whatever.” With
infinite industry the assertions of Pickering and Gardenier, of John
Randolph and of the Boston newspapers and pamphlets, were reprinted
and circulated in London. “Your modesty would suffer,” wrote Rose to
Pickering,[283] “if you were aware of the sensation produced in this
country by the publication of a letter from a senator of Massachusetts
to his constituents.”
Every American slander against Jefferson was welcomed in England,
until Pinkney asked Madison in disgust, “Have you prohibited the
exportation of all pamphlets which uphold our rights and honor?”[284]
The English people could hardly be blamed if they became almost
insane under the malice of these falsehoods, for no whisper of Iago
was more poisonous than Canning’s innuendoes. Believing Jefferson
to be in secret league with Napoleon, they insisted that the United
States should be punished for the treason Jefferson had planned.
Joseph Marriatt, a prominent member of Parliament, in a pamphlet[285]
published in August, reminded President Jefferson of the fate of the
late Czar Paul. The feeling of society was so bitter that by tacit
agreement America ceased to be talked about; no one ventured longer to
defend her.
In June Pinkney received instructions, dated April 30,[286]
authorizing him to offer a withdrawal of the embargo on condition
that England should withdraw the Orders in Council. In the situation
of English feeling such an offer was almost an invitation to insult,
and Pinkney would have gladly left it untouched. He tried to evade the
necessity of putting it in writing; but Canning was inexorable. From
week to week Pinkney postponed the unpleasant task. Not until August
23 did he write the note which should have been written in June. No
moment could have been more unfortunate; for only two days before,
Arthur Wellesley had defeated Junot at Vimieiro; and August 30 Junot
capitulated at Cintra. The delirium of England was higher than ever
before or since.
September 23 Canning replied.[287] Beginning with a refusal to admit
the President’s advance, his note went on to discuss its propriety.
“His Majesty,” it said, “cannot consent to buy off that hostility
which America ought not to have extended to him, at the expense of a
concession made, not to America, but to France.” Canning was a master
of innuendo; and every sentence of his note hinted that he believed
Jefferson to be a tool of Napoleon; but in one passage he passed the
bounds of official propriety:--
“The Government of the United States is not to be informed that the
Berlin Decree of Nov. 21, 1806, was the practical commencement of
an attempt, not merely to check or impair the prosperity of Great
Britain, but utterly to annihilate her political existence through
the ruin of her commercial prosperity; that in this attempt almost
all the Powers of the European continent have been compelled more
or less to co-operate; and that the American embargo, though most
assuredly not intended to that end,--for America can have no real
interest in the subversion of the British power, and her rulers are
too enlightened to act from any impulse against the real interests of
their country,--but by some unfortunate concurrence of circumstances,
without any hostile intention, the American embargo did come in
aid of the ‘blockade of the European continent’ precisely at the
very moment when if that blockade could have succeeded at all, this
interposition of the American government would most effectually have
contributed to its success.”
Like his colleague Lord Castlereagh, Canning deliberately tried to
“lower and degrade” the American government in the eyes of its own
people. His defiance was even more emphatic than his sarcasm.
“To this universal combination,” he continued, “his Majesty
has opposed a temperate but a determined retaliation upon the
enemy,--trusting that a firm resistance would defeat this project,
but knowing that the smallest concession would infallibly encourage a
perseverance in it.
“The struggle has been viewed by other Powers not without an
apprehension that it might be fatal to this country. The British
government has not disguised from itself that the trial of such
an experiment might be arduous and long, though it has never
doubted of the final issue. But if that issue, such as the British
government confidently anticipated, has providentially arrived
much sooner than could even have been hoped; if ‘the blockade of
the Continent,’ as it has been triumphantly styled by the enemy,
is raised even before it had been well established; and if that
system, of which extent and continuity were the vital principles,
is broken up into fragments utterly harmless and contemptible,--it
is, nevertheless, important in the highest degree to the reputation
of this country (a reputation which constitutes a great part of
her power), that this disappointment of the hopes of her enemies
should not have been purchased by any concession; that not a doubt
should remain to distant times of her determination and of her
ability to have continued her resistance; and that no step which
could even mistakenly be construed into concession should be taken
on her part while the smallest link of the confederacy remains
undissolved, or while it can be a question whether the plan devised
for her destruction has or has not either completely failed or been
unequivocally abandoned.”
With this sweeping assertion of British power Canning might well have
stopped; but although he had said more than enough, he was not yet
satisfied. His love of sarcasm dragged him on. He thought proper to
disavow the wish to depress American prosperity, and his disavowal was
couched in terms of condescension as galling as his irony; but in one
paragraph he concentrated in peculiar force the worst faults of his
character and taste:--
“His Majesty would not hesitate to contribute, in any manner in his
power, to restore to the commerce of the United States its wonted
activity; and if it were possible to make any sacrifice for the
repeal of the embargo without appearing to deprecate it as a measure
of hostility, he would gladly have facilitated its removal as a
measure of inconvenient restriction upon the American people.”
Earl Grey, although he approved of rejecting the American offer, wrote
to Brougham that in this note Canning had outdone himself.[288] No
doubt his irony betrayed too much of the cleverness which had been so
greatly admired by Eton schoolboys; but it served the true purpose of
satire,--it stung to the quick, and goaded Americans into life-long
hatred of England. Pinkney, whose British sympathies had offered long
resistance to maltreatment, fairly lost his temper over this note.
“Insulting and insidious,” he called it in his private correspondence
with Madison.[289] He was the more annoyed because Canning wrote him
an explanatory letter of the same date which gave a personal sting
to the public insult.[290] “I feel that it is not such a letter as I
could have persuaded myself to write in similar circumstances,” he
complained.[291]
Pinkney’s abilities were great. In the skirmish of words in which
Canning delighted, Pinkney excelled; and in his later career at the
bar, of which he was the most brilliant leader, and in the Senate,
where he was heard with bated breath, he showed more than once a
readiness to overbear opposition by methods too nearly resembling
those of Canning; but as a diplomatist he contented himself with
preserving the decorous courtesy which Canning lacked. He answered the
explanatory letter of September 23 with so much skill and force that
Canning was obliged to rejoin; and the rejoinder hardly raised the
British secretary’s reputation.[292]
With this exchange of notes, the diplomatic discussion ended for the
season; and the packet set sail for America, bearing to Jefferson the
news that his scheme of peaceable coercion had resulted in a double
failure, which left no alternative but war or submission.
FOOTNOTES:
[261] The Morning Post, Jan. 16, 1808.
[262] Cobbett’s Debates, x. 482, 483.
[263] Cobbett’s Debates, x. 937, 938.
[264] Cobbett’s Debates, x. 971.
[265] Cobbett’s Debates, x. 1066.
[266] Brougham to Grey, April 21, 1808; Brougham’s Memoirs, i. 399.
[267] Pinkney to Madison, Jan. 26, 1808; State Papers, iii. 206.
[268] Pinkney to Madison, Feb. 2, 1808; State Papers, iii. 207.
[269] Canning to Pinkney, Feb. 22, 1808; State Papers, iii. 208.
[270] Pinkney to Madison, Feb. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 208.
[271] Suggestions by S. P. for a Supplementary Order in Council, March
26, 1808; Perceval MSS.
[272] Opinion of Lord Castlereagh, March-April, 1808; Perceval MSS.
[273] Opinion of Mr. Canning, March 28, 1808; Perceval MSS.
[274] American State Papers, iii. 281.
[275] Madison to Pinkney, July 18, 1808; State Papers, iii. 224.
[276] Cobbett’s Debates, xi. 536.
[277] Britain Independent of Commerce, by William Spence (London),
1808.
[278] Commerce Defended, by James Mill (London), 1808.
[279] Canning to Pinkney, Sept. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 231.
[280] Brougham to Grey, July 2, 1808; Brougham’s Memoirs, i. 405.
[281] Speech of Mr. Canning, June 24, 1808; Cobbett’s Debates, xi.
1050.
[282] See pp. 175, 176.
[283] Rose to Pickering, May 8, 1808; New England Federalism, p. 371.
[284] Wheaton’s Life of Pinkney, p. 91.
[285] Hints to both Parties (London), 1808, pp. 64, 65.
[286] Madison to Pinkney, April 30, 1808; State Papers, iii. 222.
[287] Canning to Pinkney, Sept. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 231.
[288] Grey to Brougham, Jan. 3, 1809; Brougham’s Memoirs, i. 397.
[289] Pinkney to Madison, Oct. 11, 1808; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 412.
[290] Canning to Pinkney, Sept. 23, 1808; State Papers, iii. 230.
[291] Pinkney to Madison, Nov. 2, 1808; Wheaton’s Pinkney, p. 416.
[292] Pinkney to Canning, Oct. 10, 1808; State Papers, iii. 233.
Canning to Pinkney, Nov. 22, 1808; State Papers, iii. 237.