Relations with Great Britain.

for apprehended injuries, which the future may or may not produce, but which it is certain have no existence now. I do not mean to grant, for I do not think, that the edict of Berlin did at any period lend even a color of equity to the British Orders in Council with reference to the United States; but it might reasonably have been expected that they, who have so much relied upon it as a justification, would have suffered it and them to sink together. How this is forbidden by your safety or your honor remains to be explained, and I am not willing to believe that either the one or the other is inconsistent with the observance of substantial justice and with the prosperity and rights of peaceful States.

Although your Lordship has slightly remarked upon certain recent acts of the French Government, and has spoken in general terms of " the system of violence and injustice now pursued by France" as requiring "some precautions of defence on the part of Great Britain," I do not perceive that you deduce any consequence from these observations in favor of a perseverance in the Orders in Council. I am not myself aware of any edicts of France, which, now that the Berlin and Milan decrees are repealed, affect the rights of neutral commerce on the seas. And you will yourselves admit that, if any of the acts of the French Government, resting on territorial sovereignty, have injured, or shall hereafter injure, the United States, it is for them, and for them only, to seek redress. In like manner, it is for Great Britain to determine what precautions of defence those measures of France which you denominate unjust and violent, may render it expedient for her to adopt. The United States have only to insist that a sacrifice of their rights shall not be among the number of those precautions.

[Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's letter of January 17.]
Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley.
GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE,
January 14, 1811.

MY LORD: After a lapse of many months since I had the honor to receive and convey to my Government your Lordship's repeated assurances, written as well as verbal, (which you declined, however, to put into an official form,) "that it was your intention immediately to recommend the appointment of a Minister Plenipotentiary from the King to the United States," the British Government continues to be represented at Washington by a Chargé d'Affairs, and no steps whatever appear to have been taken to fulfil the expectation which the abovementioned assurances produced and justified.

In this state of things, it has become my duty to inform your Lordship, in compliance with my instructions, that the Government of the United States cannot continue to be represented here by a Minister Plenipotentiary.

As soon, therefore, as the situation of the King's Government will permit, I shall wish to take my leave, and return to America in the United States' frigate Essex, now at Plymouth, having first named, as I am specially authorized to do, a fit person to take charge of the affairs of the American Legation in this country.

WILLIAM PINKNEY.
The MARQUIS OF WELLESLEY, &c.
[Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's despatch of January 17.]
Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley.

GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE,
January 15, 1811.

MY LORD: I have the honor to inform you that it has been represented to me that two American vessels, (the schooner Polly and the schooner Mary,) laden with codfish, and bound from Marblehead to Bordeaux, in France, have, since the 1st instant, been captured and brought into Plymouth, as prize, for an imputed breach of the British Orders in Council.

It is my duty to demand the restoration of these vessels and their cargoes to the American owners, together with compensation for their unjust detention, and liberty to resume the voyages which that detention has interrupted. I have the honor to be, &c.

WILLAM PINKNEY The MARQUIS OF WELLESLEY, &c.

In reply to that passage of your letter which adverts to the American act of non-intercourse, it is only necessary to mention the Proclamation of the President of the United States of the 2d of November last, and the act of Congress, which my letter of the 21st of September communicated; and to add, that it is in the power of the British Government to prevent the non-intercourse from being enforced against Great Britain. Upon the concluding paragraph of your letter I will barely observe, that I am not in possession of any document, which you are likely to consider as authentic, showing that the French decrees are absolutely revoked upon the single condition of the revocation of the British Orders in Council; but that the information, which I have lately Extract of a letter from Mr. Pinkney to the Secretary received from the American Legation at Paris, confirms what I have already stated, and I think proven, to your Lordship, that those decrees are repealed, and have ceased to have any effect. I will now trespass on you no further than to suggest that it would have given me sincere pleasure to be enabled to say as much of the British Orders in Council, and of the blockades, from which it is impossible to distinguish them. I have the honor to be, &c.

&c.

WILLIAM PINKNEY. The MARQUIS OF WELLESLEY, 12th CoN. 1st SESS.-55

of State of the United States.

LONDON, Feb. 12, 1811.

I received, a few hours since, a letter from Lord Wellesley, (a copy of which is enclosed.) in answer to mine of the 14th ultimo, respecting the British Orders in Council and blockades.

[Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's despatch of Feb. 17.] The Marquis of Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney. FOREIGN OFFICE, Feb. 11, 1811. SIR: The letter which I had the honor to receive from you, under date of the 14th of January

Relations with Great Britain.

1811, has been submitted to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent.

In communicating to you the orders which I have received from His Royal Highness on the subject of your letter, I am commanded to abstain from any course of argument, and from any expression, which, however justified by the general tenor of your observations, might tend to interrupt the good understanding which it is the wish of His Royal Highness, on behalf of His Majesty to maintain with the Government of the United States.

No statement contained in your letter appears to affect the general principles which I had the honor to communicate to you in my letter of the 29th of December, 1810.

Great Britain has always insisted upon her right of self-defence against the system of commercial warfare pursued by France; and the British Orders in Council were founded upon a just principle of retaliation against the French decrees. The incidental operation of the Orders of Council upon the commerce of the United States, (although deeply to be lamented,) must be ascribed, exclusively, to the violence and injustice of the enemy, which compelled this country to resort to adequate means of defence. It cannot new be admitted that the foundation of the original question should be changed, that the measure of retaliation adopted against France should now be relinquished at the desire of the Government of the United States, without any reference to the actual conduct of the enemy.

LONDON, Feb. 16, 1811. SIR: I received at a very late hour last night two notes from Lord Wellesley, (bearing date "February 15, 1811,") of which copies, marked No. 1, and No. 2, are enclosed. Taken together, (as of course they must be,) they announce the appointment of Mr. Foster, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, and set forth the reasons why an appointment has been so long delayed.

You will perceive, in the second and third paragraphs of the unofficial paper, a distinct disavowal of the offensive views which the appoint. ment of a mere Chargé des Affaires, and other circumstances, appeared originally to indicate.

The intention has been repeatedly declared of repealing the Orders of Council, whenever France shall actually have revoked the decrees of Berlin and Milan, and shall have restored the trade of neutral nations to the condition in which it stood previously to the promulgation of those decrees. Even admitting that France has suspended the operation of those decrees, or has repealed them with reference to the United States, it is evident that she has not relinquished the conditions expressly declared in the letter of the French Min- We are now told, in writing, that the delay in ister, under date of the 5th of August, 1810. appointing a Minister Plenipotentiary was occaFrance, therefore requires that Great Britain sioned, in the first instance, not by any such conshall not only repeal the Orders of Council, but siderations as have been supposed, but “by an renounce those principles of blockade, which are earnest desire of rendering the appointment satisalleged, in the same letter, to be new; an alle-factory to the United States, and conducive to gation which must be understood to refer to the introductory part of the Berlin decree. If Great Britain shall not submit to those terms, it is plainly intimated in the same letter that France requires America to enforce them. To these conditions His Royal Highness, on behalf of His Majesty, cannot accede. No principles of blockade have been promulgated or acted upon by Great Britain previously to the Berlin decree, which are not strictly conformable to the rights of civilized war, and to the approved usages and law of nations. The blockades established by the Orders of Council rest on separate grounds, and are justified by the principle of necessary retaliation, in which they originated.

The conditions exacted by France would require Great Britain to surrender to the enemy the

the effectual establishment of harmony between the two Governments" that, more recently, "the state of His Majesty's Government rendered it impossible to make the intended appointment;" and that Lord Wellesley was therefore "concerned to find, by my letter of the 14th of January, that the Government of the United States should be induced to suppose that any indisposition could exist, on the part of His Majesty's Government to place the British mission in America on the footing most acceptable to the United States, as soon as might be practicable, consistently with the convenience of affairs in this country.'

The two papers are evidently calculated to prevent me from acting upon my late request of an audience of leave; and they certainly seem to

Relations with Great Britain.

put it in my power, if they do not make it my duty, to forbear to act upon it.

I have it under consideration (looking to the instructions contained in your letter of the 15th of November) what course I ought to pursue. It is at any rate my intention to return to America in the Essex, as I shall doubtless have the President's permission to do in consequence of my letter to you of the 24th of November. I have the honor to be, &c.

[Transmitted by Mr. Pinkney's despatch of Feb. 16.] [Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's despatch of Feb. 16.] Lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney.

Relations with Great Britain.

[Referred to in the preceding despatch.]

Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley. GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, Feb. 17, 1811. MY LORD: Before I reply to your official communication of the 15th instant, you will, perhaps, allow me, in acknowledging the receipt of the unofficial paper which accompanied it, to trouble you with a few words.

In shaping my course on this occasion, I have endeavored to conform to the orders of the President, signified to me in your letter of the 15th of November. With those orders, as I understand them, my own wishes have certainly concurred ; but I trust that I have not suffered inclination to influence my interpretation of them.

According to your letter, my functions were to From the appointment which you have done be considered as suspended on the receipt of it, me the honor to announce to me, of a Minister if the British Government had not then apPlenipotentiary to the United States, as well as pointed a Minister Plenipotentiary to the United from the language of your private letter, I conStates. Such an appointment had not at that clude that it is the intention of the British Gov-time been made, and consequently the suspension ernment to seek immediately those adjustments took place. with America, without which that appointment can produce no beneficial effect. I presume that, for the restoration of harmony between the two countries, the Orders in Council will be relinquished without delay; that the blockade of May, 1806, will be annulled; that the case of the Chesapeake will be arranged in the manner heretofore intended; and, in general, that all such just and reasonable acts will be done as are necessary to make us friends.

My motives will not, I am sure, be misinterpreted, if, anxious to be enabled so to regulate my conduct, in the execution of my instructions, as that the best results may be accomplished, I take the liberty to request such explanations on these heads as your Lordship may think fit to give me.

I ought to add, that as the levee of His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, has been postponed until Tuesday, the 26th instant, I have supposed that my audience of leave is postponed to the same day, and that I have, on that ground undertaken to delay my reply to your official communication until I receive an answer to this letter. I have the honor to be, &c.

WM. PINKNEY.

Mr. Pinkney to Mr. Smith.

LONDON, February 24, 1811. SIR: I received last night Lord Wellesley's answer (of which a copy is enclosed) to my letter of the 17th instant. He has marked it private, and speaks of my letter to him as being private also. My letter, however, was not so marked or intended; and his answer, however marked, is essentially an official communication of great importance.

His letter amounts to an explicit declaration that the Orders in Council are to be persisted in; and it furnishes no evidence of a disposition_to give us anything but vague and general professions on any subject. I did not, therefore, hesitate to send him a reply, declaring my intention to take leave on Thursday, the 28th, in pursuance of my request of the 13th, and declining to attend the Prince's levee on Tuesday, the 26th. Of this reply, a copy is now transmitted.

To mistake the views of this Government is now impossible. They are such as I always believed them to be, and will, I hope, be resisted with spirit and firmness.

Upon a careful consideration of your letter, it appeared to me to look to a revival of my functions in the event of "a satisfactory change in the posture of our relations" with this country. I could not, indeed, find in it any precise provision to that effect, but there was apparently room for such a construction; and I have already informed you that, however anxious to close my mission and retire from the public service, I was disposed to act for a few weeks upon that implication, in case such a change occurred in our relations as I deemed a satisfactory one.

It could not be imagined that the appointment of Mr. Foster produced that change; and, supposing it to be left, in some degree at least, to my discretion to determine in what it should consist, I had no difficulty in deciding that the immediate repeal of the Orders in Council and the blockade of May, 1806, a distinct pledge on the affair of the Chesapeake, and a manifestation of a disposition to accommodate with us, on principles of justice, on all other concerns, were indispensable ingredients. It followed that, upon receiving Lord Wellesley's letter of yesterday's date, I had no choice but to press for my audience of leave.

It may perhaps, be thought that I ought not to have refused to appear at Cariton House on the 26th, for the purpose of being presented, with the other foreign Ministers, to the Regent. I have not myself any doubt at all upon that point. My appearance at the levee for such a purpose would import that I consider my capacity, as the Minister of the United States, to be entire, and would, moreover, encourage the delusion which now prevails concerning the views of the British Government towards America.

I have the honor to be, &c.

WILLIAM PINKNEY.

[Referred to in Mr. Pinkney's despatch, Feb. 24, 1811.] Lord Wellesley to Mr. Pinkney.

APSLEY HOUSE, Feb. 23, 1811. Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your private* letter under the date of the 17th instant.

I take the liberty of referring you to my former unofficial letters and communications for an explanation of the motives which have induced

*N. B. This is a mistake. Mr. Pinkney's letter was not marked private, nor intended to be so.

WM. PINKNEY.

Relations with Great Britain.

I have expressed to you, without reserve, a desire to arrange the case of the Chesapeake on just and equitable principles; and I trust that no apprehension can be entertained of the general disposition of this Government to adopt every rea-present at this audience. sonable measure which may be necessary to conciliate the friendship of the United States. But it would be neither candid towards you, nor just towards this Government, to countenance any interpretation which might favor a supposition that it was intended by this Government to relinquish any of the principles which I have so often endeavored to explain to you.

I enclose duplicate copies (more legible than His Royal Highness's levee will take place on Tuesday the 26th instant; but I have received his those transmitted in my letter of the 13th of commands to signify to such of the foreign Min-March) of Mr. Russell's communications to me isters as may desire to have private audiences, that of the 1st, 11th, 27th, and 30th of December last. His Royal Highness will receive them on Thurs- They are necessary to account for, not the genday, the 28th instant. The foreign Ministers, eral character or substance of my late corresponhowever, will all be presented to His Royal High-dence with Lord Wellesey, but the particular part ness on Tuesday, the 26th instant, on which day I shall attend for that purpose.

Mr. Pinkney to Lord Wellesley.

GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, February 23, 1811. MY LORD: I have had the honor to receive your private letter of this day's date.

It only remains for me to inform your Lordship that I have transmitted to the Secretary of State of the United States a copy of your official communication of the 15th instant, and of the unofficial paper which accompanied it; and that I will avail myself of the disposition of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent to give me an audience of leave on Thursday next, the 28th of February, in pursuance of the request contained in my letter of the 13th instant, which referred to my letter of the 14th of January.

I take the liberty to add, that until the time ap