1

Sir,

Mr. Russel to the Secretary of State, dated London, Sept. 17, 1812. On the 12th instant, I had the honour to receive your letter of the 27th of July last. I called immediately at the Foreign Office to prepare lord Castlereagh, by imparting to him the nature and extent of my instructions, for the communication which it became me to make to him. His lordship was in the country, and I was obliged to write to him without previously seeing him. I however accompanied my official note (A*) with a private letter (B*), offering explanation, if required, and soliciting despatch.

I waited until 2 o'clock, the 16th instant, without hearing from his lordship, when I was much surprised at receiving a note (C*) from Mr. Hamilton, the under secretary, indefinitely postponing an official reply. To give more precision to the transaction, I instantly addressed to him an answer (D*), and a little before 5 o'clock, on the same day, I received an invitation (E*) from lord Castlereagh to meet him at his house that evening at 9 o'clock.

I waited on his lordship at the time appointed, and found him, in company with Mr. Hamilton, at a table loaded with the records of American correspondence, which they appeared to have been examining.

I was courteously received, and after a conversation of a few minutes on indifferent subjects, I led the way to the business on which I came, by observing that I had once more been authorised to present the olive branch, and hoped it would not be again rejected.

His lordship observed, that he had desired the interview to ascertain, before he submitted my communication of the 16th instant to the prince regent, the form and nature of the powers under which I acted. To satisfy him at once on both these points, I put into his hands your letter of the 27th July. I the more willingly adopted this mode of procedure, as, besides the confidence which its frankness was calculated to produce, the letter itself would best define my authority, and prove the moderation and conciliatory temper of my government.

His lordship read it attentively. He then commented at some length both on the shape and substance of my powers. With regard to the former he observed, that all my authority was contained in a letter from the secretary of state, which, as my diplomatic functions had ceased, appeared but a scanty foundation on which to place the important arrangement I had

*The notes referred to will be found at pages 76-78.

been instructed to propose. With regard to the extent of my powers, he could not perceive that they essentially differed from those under which I had brought forward the propositions contained in my note of the 24th of August. He considered that to enter with me into the understanding, required as a preliminary to a convention for an armistice, he would be compelled to act on unequal ground, as, from his situation, he must necessarily pledge his government, when, from the nature of my authority, I could give no similar pledge for mine. He could not therefore think of committing the British faith and leaving the American government free to disregard its engagements. Besides it did not appear to him, that, at the date of my last instructions, the revocation of the orders in council, on the 23d of June, had been received at Washington, and that great hopes were entertained of the favourable effect such intelligence would produce there. The question of impressment, he went on to observe, was attended with difficulties, of which neither I nor my government appeared to be aware. "Indeed," he continued, there has evidently been much misapprehension on this subject, and an erroneous belief entertained that an arrangement, in regard to it, has been nearer an accomplishment than the facts will warrant. Even our friends in congress, I mean (observing perhaps some alteration in my countenance) those who were opposed to going to war with us, have been so confident in this mistake, that they have ascribed the failure of such an arrangement solely to the misconduct of the American government. This error probably originated with Mr. King, for, being much esteemed here, and always well received by the persons then in power, he seems to have misconstrued their readiness to listen to his representations and their warm professions of a disposition to remove the complaints of America, in relation to impressment, into a supposed conviction on their part of the propriety of adopting the plan which he had proposed. But lord St. Vincent, whom he might have thought he had brought over to his opinions, appears never for a moment to have ceased to regard all arrangement on the subject to be attended with formidable, if not insurmountable obstacles. This is obvious from a letter which his lordship addressed to sir William Scott at the time." Here lord Castlereagh read a letter, contained in the records before him, in which lord St. Vincent states to sir William Scott, the zeal with which Mr. King had assailed him on the subject of impressment, confesses his own perplexity and total incompetency to discover any practical project for the safe discontinuance of that practice, and asks for council and advice. "Thus you see," proceeded lord

Castlereagh, "that the confidence of Mr. King on this point was entirely unfounded."

The extreme difficulty, if not total impracticability of any satisfactory arrangement for the discontinuance of impressment, is most clearly manifested by the result of the negotiation carried on between Messrs. Monroe and Pinkney and lords Auckland and Holland. The doctrines of which these noblemen had been the advocates, when in opposition, bound them by all the force of consistency to do every thing under their commission for the satisfaction of America, relative to impressment, which the nature of the subject would possibly admit. There were many circumstances, on that occasion, peculiarly propitious to an amicable arrangement on this point, had such an arrangement been, at all, attainable. Both parties accordingly appear to have exhausted their ingenuity in attempting to devise expedients satisfactorily to perform the office of impressment; and nothing can more conclusively demonstrate the inherent difficulty of the matter, and the utter impossibility of finding the expedient which they sought, than that all their labours, pursued on that occasion with unexampled diligence, cordiality, and good faith, should have been in vain.

His lordship now turned to a letter in a volume before him, addressed at the close of the negotiation by these commissioners to the American ministers, conceived in the kindest spirit of conciliation, in which they profess the most earnest desire to remove all cause of complaint on the part of America, concerning impressment; regret that their endeavours had hitherto been ineffectual; lament the necessity of continuing the practice, and promise to provide as far as possible against the abuse of it.

"If," resumed his lordship, "such was the result of a negotiation entertained under circumstances so highly favourable, where the powers and the disposition of the parties were limited only by the difficulties of the subject, what reasonable expectation can be encouraged that, in the actual state of things, with your circumscribed and imperfect authority, we can come to a more successful issue? I shall have to proceed in so weighty a concern with the utmost deliberation and circumspection; and it will be necessary for me to consult the great law officers of the crown. You are not aware of the great sensibility and jealousy of the people of England on this subject; and no administration could expect to remain in power that should consent to renounce the right of impressment, or to suspend the practice, without the certainty of an arrangement which should obviously be calculated most unequivocally to secure its object.

Whether such an arrangement can be devised is extremely doubtful, but it is very certain that you have no sufficient powers for its accomplishment.

Such was the substance, and, in many parts, the language of his lordship's discourse. To which I replied, that the main object of my powers being to effect a suspension of hostilities, their form could not be material-it was sufficient that they emanated from competent authority, and were distinctly and clearly conferred. That in requiring as a condition to an armistice a clear understanding relative to impressment and other points of controversy between the two countries, it was intended merely to lay the basis of an amicable adjustment, and thereby to diminish the probability of a renewal of hostilities. To come to such an understanding, to be in itself informal, and which expressly left the details of the points which it embraced to be discussed and adjusted by commissioners to be hereafter appointed was certainly within the instructions which I had received, and I could of course thus far pledge my government for its observance. I did not acknowledge the force of his objection, predicated on the inequality of our respective powers, nor perceive how the British faith would be particularly committed. The faith of both governments would be equally committed for whatever was done under their respective authority; and although his lordship might have power to go beyond the armistice and understanding for which I was instructed, yet there was no necessity for doing so; and while we acted within those limits we stood on equal ground. And were it otherwise, yet, as the promise of the one party would be the sole consideration for the promise of the other, should either fail in the performance of its engagements, the other would necessarily be discharged, and the imputation of bad faith could alone attach to the first delinquent. Nor was I dismayed at the very formidable difficulties with which he had thought proper to array the subject of impressment; and, although willing to acknowledge my inferiority to the American negotiators who had preceded me in the matter, yet I was not disposed on account of their failure to shrink from the discharge of a duty imposed on me by my government. To me indeed the whole question appeared much less alarming than his lordship had described it to be--and that if Mr. King had really been mistaken with regard to the near completion of an adjustment, his lordship must, on an attention to the whole correspondence at the time, acquit him from the imputation of any excessive want of penetration.

As to the supposed ignorance in America of the revocation of the orders in council, at the time my instructions were dated,

I observed, that if this ignorance did in fact exist, yet, from certain expressions in those instructions, an expectation of such a measure seems to have been confidently entertained, and the orders in council appeared no longer to form an obstacle to a reconciliation. However this might be, it ought not to be supposed that the American government would be ready to abandon one main point for which it contended, merely because it had obtained another which was generally considered to be of minor importance, and to submit to the continuance of impressment on account of the discontinuance of the orders in council. At any rate, having authorised me to propose terms of accommodation here, it would probably wait for information concerning the manner in which they had been received, before it would consent to more unfavourable conditions. In the mean time the war would be prosecuted, and might produce new obstacles to a pacific arrangement. I was happy to learn that the failure of a former negociation concerning impressment could not be ascribed to a want of sincerity and moderation in the American government, and I hoped the mode now suggested for securing to Great Britain her own seamen might remove the difficulties which had hitherto embarrassed this question. If the people of England were so jealous and sensitive with regard to the exercise of this harsh practice, what ought to be the feelings of the people of America, who were the victims of it? In the United States this practice of impressment was considered as bearing a strong resemblance to the slave trade; aggravated indeed, in some of its features, as the negro was purchased, already bereft of his liberty, and his slavery and exile were at least mitigated by his exemption from danger, by the interested forbearance of his task master, and the consciousness that, if he could no longer associate with those who were dear to him, he was not compelled to do them injury; while the American citizen is torn without price, at once, from all the blessings of freedom, and all the charities of social life, subjected to military law, exposed to incessant perils, and forced, at times, to hazard his life in despoiling or destroying his kindred and countrymen. It was matter of astonishment, that while Great Britain discovered such zeal for the abolition of the traffic in the barbarous and unbelieving natives of Africa, as to endeavour to force it on her reluctant allies, that she should so obstinately adhere to the practice of impressing American citizens, whose civilization, religion, and blood, so obviously demanded a more favourable distinction.

I next pointed out to his lordship, the difference between the propositions, which I now submitted, and those contained in my note of the 24th of August. That although the object of both