DUPLICATE.

No.

London, September 16, 1807.

SIR,-I had the honour to receive your letter of July 6th, by Dr. Bullus, on the 31st ultimo, and did not lose a moment in entering on the business communicated to me by it, in the manner which seemed most likely to obtain success. The details shall be communicated to you in my next despatch. All that I can state at present is, that the whole subject has been placed fully before this government, in as strong an appeal to its interest and judgment as I could make, and that as a week has elapsed since my official note was presented, I am in daily expectation of receiving its decision on it. The moment is in many views very favourable to a satisfactory result, but still it is not in my power, from any thing that has occurred, to speak with confidence of it. The joint negotiation, committed to Mr. Pinkney and myself, was suspended by the intelligence of the affair with our frigate, and has never been revived since. That intelligence reached this about a week after Mr. Purviance, so that we had only been able, with the utmost diligence, to take the preliminary step of presenting to Mr. Canning, in conformity to our instructions, a project, and of explaining to him, in the most minute and comprehensive manner that we could, every. circumstance appertaining to it. No answer was given to our communication; the suspension therefore of the negotiation was imputable to Mr. Canning: had he answered our communication, and proposed to proceed in the negotiation, it would have become a question for the commission to have decided, how far it would have been proper under existing circumstances to comply with the invitation; his silence however relieved us from that dilemmá.

Permit me to present to you Mr. Jos. A. Smith, of South Carolina, and to refer you to him for much information, of a general nature, on the subject of our affairs with this country. Having been long in Europe, and visited almost every part, he possesses great information of the political state of its several powers, especially of

Russia, from whose sovereign he received very distinguished marks of attention. In much communication which I have had with Mr. Smith for a year past, I have found him to be animated with strong sentiments of patriotism towards his country, and as he has expressed a desire of being personally known to the President and yourself, I have been happy to promote his object by giv ing him this introduction.

I am with great respect, &c.

JAMES MONROE.

P. S. A copy of my note to Mr. Canning is enclosed. James Madison, Secretary of State.

No. 16.

From Mr. Canning. Foreign Office, Sept. 23, 1807.

SIR,-I have laid before the king my master the letter, which I had the honour to receive from you on the 8th of this month.

Before I proceed to observe upon that part of it, which relates more immediately to the question now at issue between our two governments, I am commanded, in the first instance, to express the surprise which is felt at the total omission of a subject, upon which I had already been commanded to apply to you for information, the proclamation purported to have been issued by the President of the United States. Of this paper, when last I addressed you upon it, you professed not to have any knowledge, beyond what the ordinary channels of publick information afforded, nor any authority to declare it to be authentick.

I feel it an indispensable duty to renew my inquiry on this subject. The answer which I may receive from you is by no means unimportant to the settlement of the discussion, which has arisen from the encounter between the Leopard and the Chesapeake.

The whole of the question arising out of that transaction, is in fact no other than a question as to the amount of reparation due by his majesty for the unauthorized act of his officer: and you will, therefore, readily perceive that, in

so far as the government of the United States have thought proper to take that reparation into their own hands, and to resort to measures of retaliation, previously to any direct application to the British government, or to the British minister in America, for redress, in so far the British government is entitled to take such measures into account, and to consider them in the estimate of reparation which is acknowledged to have been originally due.

The total exclusion of all ships of war belonging to one of the two belligerent parties, while the ships of war of the other were protected by the harbours of the neutral power, would furnish no light ground of complaint against that neutral, if considered in any other point of view, than as a measure of retaliation for a previous injury: and, so considered, it cannot but be necessary to take it into account in the adjustment of the original dispute.

I am therefore distinctly to repeat the inquiry, whether you are now enabled to declare, sir, that the proclamation is to be considered as the authentick act of your government? And, if so, I am further to inquire, whether you are authorized to notify the intention of your government to withdraw that proclamation, on the knowledge of his majesty's disavowal of the act which occasioned its pub.

lication?

The light in which you are directed to represent admiral Berkeley's conduct, and the description which you give of the character of the measure imputed to him,-that "he acted as if he had the power to make war, and to decide the causes of war," sufficiently evince the necessity of comprehending in this discussion all the circumstances which have led to, or have followed the action with the Chesapeake.

Undoubtedly the attack upon a national ship of war is an act of hostility, and the very essence of the charge against admiral Berkeley, as you represent it, is the having taken upon himself to commit an act of hostility without the previous authority of his government.

The provocation, which may have led to such an act, without such previous authority, if it cannot justify, may possibly extenuate it; as the steps which have been taken in reprisal, though they cannot alter the character of the original act, may and do materially affect every question concerning the reparation claimed for it.

On this ground it is, that, while I am commanded to repeat to you (what you consider as so satisfactory) that the general and unqualified pretension to search ships of war for deserters, is not asserted by this country, "I am precluded from concurring in the inference, that therefore the national character of the men, who were violently taken from on board the Chesapeake, makes no part of the present question."

If the right to search ships of war for deserters is not insisted upon by this country, it is not because the employment and the detention of British mariners on board the national ship of any state are considered as less injurious towards Great Britain than their employment onboard of merchant vessels (a proposition which would be manifestly absurd :) it is not intended to allow that the sailors of Great Britain may be justly employed, against her consent, in foreign ships of war; but merely that redress is, in that case, to be sought for by government from government, and not to be summarily enforced by the unauthorized officer of any of his majesty's ships of war.

It follows from this reasoning, that not only the "national character" of the men taken out of the Chesapeake is matter for consideration; but that the reparation to be made by the British government to that of the United States would depend, among other circumstances, on the question, whether an act, which the British government would be justified in considering as an act of hostility, had been committed by the government of the United States, (in refusing to discharge the British seamen in their national service) previously to commission of an act of hostility of an officer of his majesty.

The act of the British officer would still be an unauthorized act, and as such liable to complaint and disapprobation; but the case, as between government and government, would be materially varied.

At the same time that I offer to you this explanation of the principles, upon which his majesty has authorized me to discuss with you the subject of your representation, and that I renew to you the assurances of the disposition to conduct that discussion in the most amicable form, and to bring it to a conclusion satisfactory to the honour and to the feelings of both countries, it is matter of regret, that you should have been instructed to annex to the demand

of reparation, for the attack of the Leopard upon the Chesapeake, any proposition whatever respecting the search for British seamen in merchant vessels; a subject, which is wholly unconnected with the case of the Leopard and the Chesapeake, and which can only tend to complicate and embarrass a discussion, in itself of sufficient delicacy and importance.

In stating the grounds, upon which your government expect with confidence that "the whole subject of impressment shall be taken up at this time," and that in making the reparation, which is claimed for the particular injury alleged to have been sustained by the United States in the late unfortunate transaction off the capes of Virginia, "a remedy shall be provided for the whole evil," you appear to have been directed to assume that this act of violence (such as you describe it) is the natural and almost necessary result of the practice of impressment of British seamen from the merchant vessels of other states, and to represent the particular transaction and the general question of impressment, as "identified in the feelings and sympathies of your nation, as well as in the sentiment of your government."

With every attention due to the feelings of the people of the United States, I am sure you will readily allow that those feelings cannot properly be considered as affecting the merits of the case.

The first ebullitions of national sensibility may very naturally have communicated an impulse to the proceedings of the American government, but it cannot be expected, that they should guide the deliberate opinions and conduct of the government with which you have to treat. I would farther observe to you, that your government cannot reasonably claim any advantage in argument from the expressed sense of its own people, unless it be prepared at the same time to take upon itself a responsibility (which there is no desire of attributing to it) for the outrage and indecency, with which, upon the late occasion, that expression has in too many instances been accompanied. It is better for temperate reasoning, and assuredly it is more advantageous for the government of the United States, that the consideration of popular feeling should be wholly omitted in this discusion.