prived it of its embarrassments. In the present state of things, I have only to wish that your diplomatic situation may continue to be less incommodious than it was at first found; and that opportunities of rendering it useful to your Country may equal her confidence in the fidelity and ability which you will apply to them.

Count Pahlen has just delivered his letter of leave, in pursuance of the order of the Emperor which translates him to Rio Janeiro. His excellent dispositions, and amicable deportment, have justly rendered him so highly & universally agreeable here, that we take for granted that no doubt on that point can have been among the reasons of his sovereign for this change of his destination.

You will receive by this conveyance from the Department of State, the late communications to Congress, including the adjustment of the rusty and corrosive affair of the Chesapeake. The pretension of G. B. which requires us as a neutral nation to assert agst one belligerent an obligation to open its markets to the products of the other, shews a predetermination to make her orders in Council codurable with the war, for she cannot be unaware that nothing but a termination of the war if even that, will fulfill the condition annexed to their repeal. The

1 November 1, the British Minister wrote to Monroe formally disavowing Admiral Berkeley's act and offering to restore the men taken from the Chesapeake to that vessel and make compensation for their injuries. The two surviving seamen were accordingly brought from Halifax, where they were in jail, and restored to the deck of the Chesapeake in Boston Harbor.-Henry Adams, vi., 122.

question to be decided, therefore, by Congress, according to present appearances, simply is, whether all the trade to which the orders are and shall be applied, is to be abandoned, or the hostile operation of them, be hostilely resisted. The apparent disposition is certainly not in favor of the first alternative, though it is more than probable, that if the second should be adopted, the execution of it will be put off till the close of the Session approaches; with the exception perhaps of a licence to our Merchantmen to arm in self-defence, which can scarcely fail to bring on war in its full extent unless such an evidence of the disposition of the U. S. to prefer war to submission should arrest the cause for it. The reparation made for the attack on the American frigate Chesapeake, takes one splinter out of our wounds; but besides the provoking tardiness of the remedy, the moment finally chosen deprives it of much of its effect, by giving it the appearance of a mere anadyne to the excitements in Congs & the nation produced by the cotemporary disclosures.

It will afford you pleasure to know that the aggregate of our Crops was never greater than for the present year. The grain part of them is particularly abundant.

I tender you assurances of my great esteem and friendly respects.

TO JOEL BARLOW.1

(Private.)

MAD. MSS.

WASHINGTON Nov 17, 1811

DEAR SIR You will receive by this conveyance the proper communications from the Dept of State. You will see in them, the ground now avowed for the B. Orders in Council. It must render them codurable with the war; for nothing but a termination of it will re-open the continental market to British products. Nor is it probable that peace will do it in its former extent. The pretension which requires the U. S. as a neutral power to assert an obligation on one belligerent, to favor, by its internal regulations, the manufactures of another, is a fitter subject for ridicule than refutation. It accordingly has no countenance here even among the most devoted champions of G. B. Whether some of them, by arming themselves with simulated facts & sophistical distinctions, may not be emboldened to turn out in her defence, will soon be seen. Nothing has yet passed in Cong disclosing the sense of that Body, with respect to the moment & manner of meeting the conduct of G. B. in its present hostile shape. A disposition appears to enter at once on preparations, which will probably be put in force or not, as the effect of them on the British Councils, shall be ascertained in the course of the session. In the mean

1 Joel Barlow was appointed consul at Algiers March 3, 1797, and Minister to France, February 27, 1811, and left for Paris July, 1811, arriving in Paris Sept. 19th.

time it is not improbable that the merchant vessels may be permitted to arm for self-defence. This can scarcely fail to bring on maritime reprisals; and to end in the full extent of war, unless a change in the British system should arrest the career of events. All proceedings however relating to G. Britain, will be much influenced by the conduct of France not only as it relates to a violation of our neutral rights; but of our national ones also, and to justice for the past as well as for the future and that too not only in cases strictly French, but in those in Naples & elsewhere indirectly so. Altho' in our discussions with G. B. we have been justified in viewing the repeal of the French Decrees as sufficiently substantiated to require a fulfilment of the pledge to repeal the orders in Council; yet the manner in which the F. Govt has managed the repeal of the decrees, and evaded a correction of other outrages, has mingled with the conciliatory tendency of the repeal, as much of irritation and disgust as possible. And these sentiments are not a little strengthened by the sarcastic comments on that management, with which we are constantly pelted in our discussions with the B. Govt and for which the F. Gov ought to be ashamed to furnish the occasion. In fact without a systematic change from an appearance of crafty contrivance, and insatiate cupidity, for an open manly, & upright dealing with a nation whose example demands it, it is impossible that good will can exist; and that the ill-will which her policy aims at directing against her enemy, should not, by her folly and iniquity, be

drawn off against herself. The late licentiousness of the F. privateers in the Baltic, the ruinous transmission of their cases to Paris, and the countenance said to be there given to such abuses, are kindling a fresh flame here; And if a remedy be not applied, & our merchantmen should arm, hostile collisions will as readily take place with one nation as the other. Were it not that our frigates would be in danger of rencounters with British ships of superior force in that quarter, there could be no scruple at sending thither some of them, with orders to suppress by force the French and Danish depredations. I am aware that a pretext for these has been sought in the practice of our vessels in accepting British Convoy; but have they not in many instances at least been driven to this irregular step by the greater irregularities practised agst them? We await the return of the Constitution not without a hope of finding the good effect of your remonstrances in a radical change of the French policy towards this Country.

The reparation for the outrage on the Chesapeake frigate, which you will find in the correspondence between Mr. Foster and Mr. Monroe, tho' in a stile & extent sufficiently admissible under actual circumstances, has been so timed as to lose its conciliatory effect, by wearing the appearance of a diplomatic ruse. Those who value it most, do so on the calculation that Mr. F. is authorized to go forward in the road from which he has removed the stumbling-block. In this they allow their wishes to mislead their judgments.