The National Intelligencer And Washington Advertiser

Documents accompanying the Message
of the President of the 22d March,
relative to the Chesapeake.
(Continued.)

No. III.
Correspondence between Mr. Madison
and Mr. Rose.

Washington, Jan. 26, 1808.

SIR—Having had the honor to state
to you, that I am expressly precluded
by my instructions from entering
upon any negotiation for the adjustment
of the differences arising from
the encounter of his majesty's ship
Leopard and the frigate of the United
States, the Chesapeake, as long as
the proclamation of the President of
the U. States, of the 2d of July, 1807,
shall be in force, I beg leave to offer
you such further explanation of the
nature of that condition, as appears
to me calculated to place the motives,
under which it has been enjoined to me
thus to bring it forward in their true
light.

In whatever spirit that instrument
was issued, it is sufficiently obvious,
that it has been productive of considerable
prejudice to his majesty's
interests, as confided to his ministerial
and other servants in the U.
States, to the honor of his flag, and
to the privileges of his ministers accredited
to the American government.
From the operation of this proclamation
have unavoidably resulted effects
of retaliation, & self-assumed redress.
which might be held to affect materially
the question of the reparation due
to the U. S. especially inasmuch as
its execution has been persevered in
after the knowledge of his majesty's
early, unequivocal, and unsolicited
disavowal of the unauthorised act of
admiral Berkeley—his disclaimer of
the pretension exhibited by that officer
to search the national ships of a
friendly power for deserters, and the
assurances of prompt and effectual
reparation, all communicated without
loss of time, to the minister of the
United States in London, so as not
to leave a doubt as to his majesty's
just and amicable intentions. But
his majesty, making every allowance
for the irritation which was excited.
and the misapprehensions which existed,
has authorised me to proceed in
the negotiation upon the sole discontinuance
of measures of so inimical a
tendency.

You are aware, sir, that any delay,
which may have arisen in the adjustment
of the present differences, is
not imputable to an intention of procrastination
on the part of his majesty's
government; on the contrary, its
anxiety to terminate as expeditiously
as possible the discussion of a matter
so interesting to both nations, has been
evinced by the communication made
by Mr. Secretary Canning to Mr.
Monroe, before that minister of
the United States was even informed
of the encounter, and now, by the
promptitude with which it has dispatched
a special mission to this country,
for that express purpose.

I can have no difficulty in stating
anew to you, with respect to the provisions
of my instructions, calculated
as they are to insure an honourable adjustment
of the important point in
question, and to remove the impressions
which the late cause of difference
may have excited in the minds
of this nation, that I am authorised to
express my conviction, that they are
such as will enable me to terminate
the negotiation amicably and satisfactorily.

Having learnt from you, sir, that it
is solely as a measure of precaution,
the provisions of the proclamation are
now enforced, I must persuade myself
that a due consideration of his
majesty's conduct in this transaction,
will remove as well any misapprehensions
which may have been entertained
respecting his majesty's dispositions
towards the U. States, as the grounds
upon which that enforcement rests,
and the more so, as it has long been
a matter of notoriety, that the orders
issued to the officers of his majesty's
navy, in his proclamation of the 16th
October, 1807, afford ample security,
that no attempt can again be
made to assert a pretension, which
his majesty from the first disavowed.

I may add, that if his majesty has
not commanded me to enter into the
discussion of the other causes of
complaint, stated to arise from the
conduct of his naval commanders in
these seas, prior to the encounter of
the Leopard and the Chesapeake, it
was because it has been deemed improper
to mingle them, whatever
may be their merits, with the present
matter, so much more interesting
and important in its nature ; an opinion
originally and distinctly expressed
by Mr. Monroe, and assented to by
Mr. Secretary Canning. But if,
upon this more recent and more
weighty matter of discussion, upon
which the proclamation mainly and
materially rests, his majesty's amicable
intentions are unequivocally evinced,
it is sufficiently clear, that no
hostile disposition can be supposed
to exist on his part, nor can any
views be attributed to his government.
such, as requiring to be counteracted
by measures of precaution,
could be deduced from transactions
which preceded that encounter.

In offering these elucidations, I
should observe, that the view in
which I have brought forward the
preliminary, which I have specified,
is neither as to demand concession
or redress, as for a wrong. committed
: into such the claim to a discontinuance
of hostile provisions cannot
be construed; but it is simply to require
a cessation of enactments injurious
in their effects, and which, if
persisted in, especially after these
explanations, must evince a spirit of
hostility, under which his majesty
could not authorise the prosecution
of the present negotiation, either
consistently with his own honor, or
with any well founded expectation of
the renewal or duration of that good
understanding between the two countries,
which it is equally the interest
of both to foster and to ameliorate.

I have the honor to be, with the
highest consideration, Sir, your obedient
and most humble servant,

(Signed,)
G. H. ROSE.

(Copy.)

Department of State March 6, 1808.

Sir—I have had the honor to receive
and lay before the President,
your letter of the 26th January, in
which you state, that you are " expressly
precluded by your instructions
from entering upon any negotiation
for the adjustment of the differences
arising from the encounter of his
Britannic majesty's ship the Leopard,
and the frigate of the U. States, the
Chesapeake, as long as the proclamation
of the President of the 2d of
July, 1807, shall be in force."

This demand, sir, might justly
suggest the simple answer, that before
the proclamation of the President
could become a subject of consideration,
satisfaction should be
made for the acknowledged aggression
which preceded it. This is evidently
agreeable to the order of time,
to the order of reason, and, it may
be added, to the order of usage, as
maintained by G. Britain, whenever
in analogous cases, she has been the
complaining party.

But as you have subjoined to the
preliminary demand, certain explanations,
with a view, doubtless to obviate
such an answer, it will best accord
with the candor of the President, to
meet them with such a review of the
whole subject, as will present the
solid grounds on which he regards
such a demand, as inadmissible.

I begin with the occurrences from
which the proclamation of July 2d,
resulted. These are in general terms
referred to, by the instrument itself.
A more particular notice of the most
important of them, will here be in
place.

Passing over then, the habitual but
minor irregularities of his Britannic
majesty's ships of war, in making the
hospitalities of our ports, subservient
to the annoyance of our trade, both
outward and inward, a practice not
only contrary to the principles of public
law, but expressly contrary to British
ordinances enforced during maritime
wars, to which she bore a neutral
relation, I am constrained, unwelcome
as the task is, to call your attention
to the following more prominent
instances.

In the summer of the year 1804,
the British frigate the Cambrian, with
other cruisers in company, entered
the harbor of N. York. The commander,
captain Bradley, in violation of
the port laws, relating both to health
and revenue, caused a merchant vessel,
just arrived, and confessedly
within the limits and under the authority
of the U. States, to be boarded
by persons under his command, who,
after resisting the officers of the port,
in the legal exercise of their functions,
actually impressed and carried
off a number of seamen and passengers
into the service of the ships of
war. On an appeal to his voluntary
respect for the laws, he first failed
to give up the offender to justice, and
finally repelled the officer charged
with the regular process for the purpose.

This procedure was not only a flagrant
insult to the sovereignty of the
nation, but an infraction of its neutrality
also, which did not permit a belligerent
ship thus to augment its force
within the neutral territory.

To finish the scene, this commander
went so far as to declare, in an official
letter, to the minister plenipotentiary
of his Britannic majesty, and
by him communicated to this government,
that he considered his ship,
whilst lying in the harbor of New
York, as having dominion around her,
within the distance of her buoys.

All these circumstances were duly
made known to the British government
in just expectation of honorable
reparation. None has ever been offered.
Captain Bradley was advanced
from his frigate to the command of a
ship of the line.

At a subsequent period, several
British frigates under the command
of captain Whitby, of the Leander,
pursuing the practice of vexing the
inward and outward trade of our ports,
and hovering for that purpose about
the entrance of that of New York,
closed a series of irregularities, with
an attempt to arrest a coasting vessel.
on board of which an American citizen
was killed by a cannon ball which
entered the vessel, whilst within less
than a mile from the shore.

The blood of a citizen thus murdered,,
in a trade from one to another
port of his own country, and within
the sanctuary of its territorial jurisdiction,
could not fail to arouse the
sensibility of the public, and to make
a solemn appeal to the justice of the
British government. The case was
presented moreover to that government
by this, in the accent which it
required; and with due confidence
that the offender would receive the
exemplary punishment which he deserved.That
there might be no
failure of legal proof of a fact sufficiently
notorious of itself, unexceptionable
witnesses to establish it were
sent to Great Britain at the expence
of the United States.

Captain Whitby was notwithstanding
honorably acquitted ; no animadversion
took place on any other officer
belonging to the squadron; nor
has any apology or explanation been
made since the trial was over, as a
conciliatory offering to the disappointment
of this country at such a result.

A case of another character occurred
in the month of September,
1806. The Impetueux, a French
ship of 74 guns, when aground within
a few hundred yards of the shore of
North Carolina, and therefore visibly
within the territorial jurisdiction and
hospitable protection of the United
States, was fired upon, boarded and
burnt, from three British ships of
war, under the command of captain
Douglass. Having completed this
outrage on the sovereignty and neutrality
of the United States, the British
commander felt no scruple in
proceeding thence into the waters near
Norfolk, nor in the midst of the hospitalities
enjoyed by him, to add to
what had passed a refusal to discharge
from his ships, impressed citizens of
the United States not denied to be
such, on the plea that the government
of the United States had refused to
surrender to the demand of admiral
Berkeley, certain seamen alleged to
be British deserters; a demand which
it is well understood your government
disclaims any right to make.

It would be very superfluous to
dwell on the features which mark this
aggravated insult. But I must be
permitted to remind you, that in so
serious a light was a similar violation
of neutral territory, by the destruction
of certain French ships on the
coast of Portugal, by a British squadron
under the command of admiral
Boscawen, regarded by the court of
Great Britain, that a minister extraordinary
was dispatched for the express
purpose of expiating the aggression
on the sovereignty of a
friendly power.
Lastly presents itself, the attack by
the British ship of war Leopard, on
the American frigate Chesapeake : a
case too familiar in all its circumstances
to need a recital of any part of
them. It is sufficient to remark that
the conclusive evidence which this
event added to that which had preceded,
of the uncontrolled excesses of
the British naval commanders, in insulting
our sovereignty, and abusing
our hospitality, determined the President
to extend to all British armed
ships, the precaution heretofore applied
to a few by name, of interdicting
to them the use and privileges of
our harbors and waters.

This was done by his proclamation
of July 2, 1807, referring to the series
of occurrences, ending with the
aggression on the frigate Chesapeake,
as the considerations requiring it.
And if the apprehension from the licentious
spirit of the British naval
commanders, thus developed and uncontrolled,
which led to this measure
of precaution, could need other justification
than was afforded by what had
passed, it would be amply found in
the subsequent conduct of the ships
under the command of the same captain
Douglass.

This officer, neither admonished
by reflections on the crisis produced
by the attack on the Chesapeake, nor
controlled by respect for the law of
nations, or the laws of the land, did
not cease within our waters to bring to,
by firing at vessels pursuing their regular
course of trade ; and in the
same spirit which had displayed itself
in the recent outrage committed
on the American frigate, he not only
indulged himself in hostile threats,
and indications of a hostile approach
to Norfolk, but actually obstructed
our citizens in the ordinary communication
between that and neighboring
places. His proceedings constituted
in fact, a blockade of the port, and as
real an invasion of the country, according
to the extent of his force, as
if troops had been debarked, and the
town besieged on the land side.

Was it possible for the chief magistrate
of a nation, who felt for its
rights and its honor, to do less than
interpose some measure of precaution
at least against the repetition of enormities
which had been so long uncontrolled
by the government whose officers
had committed them, and which
had at last taken the exorbitant shape
of hostility and of insult seen in the
attack on the frigate Chesapeake?

Candor will pronounce that less could
not be done ; and it will as readily
admit that the proclamation comprising
that measure, could not have
breathed a more temperate spirit, nor
spoken in a more becoming tone.

How far it has received from those
whose intrusions it prohibited, the
respect due to the national authority,
or been made the occasion of new indignities,
needs no explanation.

The President having interposed
this precautionary interdict, lost no
time in instructing the minister plenipotentiary
of the United States to
represent to the British government
the signal aggression which had been
committed on their sovereignty and
their flag, and to require the satisfaction
due for it ; indulging the expectation,
that his Britannic majesty
would at once perceive it to be the
truest magnanimity, as well as the
strictest justice, to offer that prompt
and full expiation of an acknowledged
wrong, which would re-establish and
improve both in fact and in feeling the
state of things which it had violated.

This expectation was considered as
not only honorable to the sentiments
of his majesty, but was supported by
known examples, in which, being the
complaining party, he had required
and obtained, as a preliminary to any
counter complaints whatever, a precise
replacement of things, in every
practicable circumstance, in their
pre-existing situation.

Thus in the year 1764, Bermudians
and other British subjects, who
had according to annual custom, taken
possession of Turk's island for the
season of making salt; having been
forcibly removed with their vessels
and effects by a French detachment
from the island of St. Domingo, to
which Turk's island was alleged to be
an appurtenance, the British ambassador
at Paris, in pursuance of instructions
from his government, demanded,
as a satisfaction for the violence
committed, that the proceedings
should be disavowed, the intention of
acquiring Turk's island disclaimed,
orders given for the immediate
abandonment of it on the part of
the French, every thing restored to
the condition in which it was at the
time of the aggression, and reparation
made of the damages which any British
subjects should be found to have
sustained, according to an estimation
to be settled between the governors
of St. Domingo and Jamaica. A
compliance with the whole of this
demand was the result.

Again: in the year 1789, certain
English merchants having opened a
trade at Nootka sound, on the north
west coast of America, and attempted
a settlement at that place, the Spaniards,
who had long claimed that part
of the world as their exclusive property,
dispatched a frigate from Mexico,
which captured the two English vessels
engaged in the trade, and broke up
the settlement on the coast. The Spanish
government was the first to complain,
in this case, of the intrusions
committed by the British merchants.
The British government, however, demanded
that the vessels taken by the
Spanish frigate should be restored, and
adequate satisfaction granted, previous
to any other discussion.

This demand prevailed; the Spanish
government agreeing to make full restoration
of the captured vessels, and to
indemnify the parties interested in
them for the losses sustained. they
restored also the buildings and tracts of
land, of which the British subjects had
been dispossessed. The British, however,
soon gave a proof of the little
value they set on the possession, by a
voluntary dereliction, under which it
has since remained.

The case which will be noted last,
though of a date prior to the case of
Nootka Sound, is that of Falkland's
Islands. These islands lie about one
hundred leagues eastward of the
straights of Magellan. The title to
them had been a subject of controversy
among several of the maritime nations
of Europe. From the position of the
islands and other circumstances, the
pretension of Spain bore an advantageous
comparison with those of her competitors.
In the year 1770. the British
took possession of Port Egmont in one
of the islands, the Spaniards being at
the time in possession of another part,
and protesting against a settlement by
the British, The protest being without
effect, ships and troops were sent from
Buenos Ayres by the governor of that
place, which forcibly dispossessed and
drove off the british settlers.

The British government looking entirely
to the dispossession by force, demanded
as a specific condition of preserving
harmony between the two
courts, not only the disavowal of the
Spanish proceedings, but that the affairs
of that settlement should be immediately
restored to the precise situation
in which they were previous to the act
of dispossession The Spanish government
made some difficulties; requiring
particularly disavowal, on the
part of G Britain, of the conduct of
her officer at Falkland's islands, which,
it was alleged, gave occasion to the
steps taken by the Spanish governor;
and proposing an adjustment by mutual
stipulation in the ordinary form.

The reply was, that the moderation
of his Britannic majesty having limited
his demand to the smallest reparation
he could accept for the injury done,
nothing was fit for discussion but the
mode of carrying the disavowal and
restitution into execution; reparation
losing its value if it be conditional.
and to be obtained by any stipulations
whatever from the party injured.

The Spanish government yielded.
The violent proceedings of its officers
were disavowed. The fort, the port,
and every thing else were agreed to be
immediately restored to the precise
situation which had been disturbed;
and duplicates of orders issued for the
purpose to the Spanish officers, were
delivered into the hands of one of the
British principal secretaries of state.

Here again it is to be remarked, that
satisfaction having been made for the
forcible dispossession, the islands lost
their importance in the eyes of the
British government, were in a short
time evacuated, and port Egmont remains
with every other part of them in
the hands of Spain

Could stronger pledges have been
given than are here found, that an honorable
and instant reparation would
be made in a case, differing no otherwise
from those recited, than as it
furnished to the same monarch of a
great nation, an opportunity to prove,
that adhering always to the same immutable
principle, he was as ready to
do right to others, as to require it for
himself?

Returning to the instructions given to
the minister plenipotentiary of the U.
states at London, I am to observe that
the President thought it just and expedient
to insert as a necessary ingredient
in the adjustment of the outrage committed
on the American frigate, a security
against the future practice of this
British naval commander, in impress-
(Continued on last page.)

(Continued from last page.)

Towards a state in amity with their sovereign, and had they not carefully repressed the feelings its tone and language had a direct tendency to provoke in them, would have rather excited, than have averted the evils it was stated to be intended to prevent; were they regardful of these duties it was unnecessary. Had they felt themselves obliged completely to evacuate the waters of the U. States, especially whilst an enemy's squadron was harbored in them, they could have done it; but under the admission of hostile compulsion, and under such compulsion, carried into full effect, his majesty could not have dissembled the extent of the injury received.

In the several cases adduced, in which G. Britain required certain preliminaries, previously to entering into negotiation, she regulated her conduct by the same principles to which she now adheres, and refused, whilst no hostility was exhibited on her part, to treat with powers, whose proceedings denoted it towards her; and who maintained their right in what they had assumed.

From the considerations thus forced, I trust that neither the order of reason or that of usage are in contradiction to the demand I have urged, nor am I aware how the order of time opposes the revocation in the first instance of that act, which affects injuriously one of the parties and is still avowed by the other.

The subject is thus presented to you, sir, in the light which it was natural that it should offer itself to his majesty's government. It certainly conceived the President's proclamation to rest chiefly, and most materially upon the attack made upon the frigate of the U. States, the Chesapeake, by his majesty's ship, the Leopard, although other topics were adduced as accessories. In this apprehension it may be held to have been sufficiently warranted, by the precise time at which, and the circumstances under which it was issued, and by its whole context, and the more so, as the impulse under which it was drawn up, appears to have been so sudden as to have precluded a due examination of all the grounds of allegation contained in it. And here I beg leave to assure you, that with respect to the spirit and tone of that instrument; it would be highly satisfactory to me, if I could feel myself justified in expressing on the part of his majesty any degree of coincidence with the opinions you have announced, or when thus appealed to, and making every allowance for the irritation of the moment, I could dissemble the extreme surprise experienced by G. Britain, that the government of a friendly nation, even before an amicable demand of reparation was made, and yet meaning to make that demand, should have issued an edict directing measures of injury very disproportionate to what it knew was an unauthorized offence, & both in its terms and its purport so injurious to the government to which that demand was to be addressed, and tending to call forth in both nations, the feelings under which a friendly adjustment would be the most difficult. But if, as I learn from you, sir, the proclamation rests substantially on other causes, it is then, peculiarly to be regretted, that, together with the demand for redress made in September last, the government of the U. States did not think fit to offer a negotiation, or an explanation of so momentous a measure, or to declare that its recall must be more or less connected with the adjustment of other alleged wrongs. Neither did it think it necessary to return any answer to the remonstrance given in by his majesty's envoy at Washington, on the 13th July, 1807, in which he represented "that he considered that interdiction to be so unfriendly in its object, and so injurious in its consequences to his majesty's interests, that he could not refrain from expressing the most sincere regret that it ever should have been issued, and most earnestly deprecating its being enforced."

It could not be supposed that a circumstance of so great weight could be overlooked by his majesty's government, in determining the line of conduct to be held in the negotiation: and as little could it be expected to pass it over, when on the failure of the discussion with Mr. Monroe, it directed a special mission to be sent to the United States. It had the less reason to imagine that any other grievances could be connected with that or the adjustment of which I am empowered to negotiate, as Mr. Monroe, in his letter to Mr. Canning of the 29th of July last, had stated with respect to other subjects of remonstrance, that it was improper to mingle them with the present more serious cause of complaint; an opinion to which Mr. Canning declared his perfect assent in his letter to that minister of the 2d of the subsequent month;

so that this act was left as single and distinctly considered. His majesty's government, therefore, could not consistently with any view of the subject then before it, or indeed with the just object of my mission, direct or empower me to enter upon matters not connected with that of the Chesapeake: and they could with the less propriety do it, as in order to render the adjustment of differences of such a nature, the more easy and the more conspicuous, the ministers charged especially with such offices have been with few if any exceptions, restricted to the precise affair to be negotiated. With respect therefore to those other causes of complaint, upon which you inform me that the President's proclamation rests, I cannot be furnished with documents enabling me either to admit or to controvert those statements of grievances, foreign to the attack upon that ship, contained in your letter, or authorized to discuss the matters themselves. I shall therefore not allow myself to offer such comments as my personal knowledge of some of those transactions suggest to me, although their tendency would materially affect both the marked manner in which those transactions are pourtrayed, and the disadvantageous lights in which his majesty's government is represented to have acted respecting them. I am moreover led to the persuasion that my government will be the more easily able to rescue itself from inculpation, by the inference arising from passages in Mr. Monroe's letter to Mr. Secretary Canning, of the 29th of September last, that the differences unhappily existing between the two nations were in a train of adjustment.

If his majesty has not permitted me to enter into the discussion of the search of neutral merchant ships for British seamen, together with the adjustment of the amount of reparation for the attack upon the Chesapeake; it was no-wise with a view of precluding the further agitation of that question at a suitable time; but it was that the negotiation might be relieved from the embarrassment arising from the connection of the present matter with the one so foreign to it, and, as it was but too well known, so difficult to be adjusted, of a right distinctly disclaimed, with one which Great Britain has at all times asserted of enforcing her claim, to the services of her natural born subjects, when found on board merchant vessels of other nations; a claim which she founds in that principle of universal law, which gives to the state the right of requiring the aid & assistance of her native citizens. The recurrence, therefore, to that course of negotiation, which had been originally settled between Mr. Secretary Canning and Mr. Monroe, & which had been alone broken in upon by the orders subsequently received by that minister, can only be considered as a resumption of that course of things which Great Britain strenuously contended there was no ground to depart from. I may observe, that this purpose might have been effected without the intervention of a special minister.

It will be in your recollection, sir, that in our first interview, I stated the condition, which makes the subject of the present letter, before I was informed by you, that the president of the United States would consent to the separation of the two subjects. I had trusted that the exposition, which I added in my letter of the 26th of January to the verbal explanation I had before offered, of the grounds of his majesty's demand, was both in its purport, and in the terms in which it was couched, such as to prevent a suspicion that they were in their intention derogatory to the honor, or calculated to wound the just sensibility of this nation. I may add that such a supposition could not be reconciled with the various ostensible and unequivocal demonstrations of his majesty's good faith and anxiety, that this transaction should be brought to an amicable termination, which were exhibited even prior to any remonstrances on the part, or by order of this government. The other topics which I felt myself authorized to advance in that letter, in illustration of that amicable disposition on the part of the king, were brought forward from the conviction I entertained that they must be of a nature to be satisfactory to this government, and therefore, such as it was particularly my duty to enforce; but not with a view to rest upon them the right to advance the claim which I have stated.

I may here remark, it is obvious that far from requiring that the first steps towards an arrangement of reparation should be taken by the United States Great Britain has already made them openly and distinctly:

they are indubitable testimonies to the respect borne and decidedly marked by Great Britain, to the ties of amity subsisting between the two nations, and of her cordial desire to maintain them unimpaired; and as such alone they were urged.

As his majesty would have derived sincere satisfaction from the evidence of corresponding feelings on the part of the United States, so it would be the more painful to me to dwell upon a series of insults and menaces which, without any provocation of warlike preparation on the part of Great Britain, have been for months accumulated upon her through the U. States, and but too frequently from quarters whose authority necessarily and powerfully commanded attention.

I ought, perhaps, to apologize for adverting to an incidental expression in your letter, if I did not think it right to remove any ambiguity respecting the nature of the claim which G. Britain maintained to her seamen, native citizens of the realm, who have deserted from her service to that of other powers: it is, that on demand they shall be discharged forthwith and consequently they shall instantly be freed from their newly contracted obligations.

Before I close this letter, allow me to state to you, sir, that I have felt it my duty to transmit to his majesty's government, the exposition contained in your letter of the 5th instant, of the various demands on the honor and good faith of Great Britain, on which the complaint is made, that satisfaction has not been afforded to the United States, and on which conjointly with the affair of the Chesapeake, you inform me that the proclamation of the president of the United States of the second of July, 1807, is founded.

It will be for his majesty's government to determine, on the part of Great Britain, whether any and what obligations remain to be fulfilled by her. Whether any denial, or such protraction of redress have occurred on her part, as to render necessary or justifiable the perseverance in an edict, which, when not necessary or justifiable, assumes a character of aggression; and whether on the result of these considerations, the present negotiation can be resumed on the part of his majesty, with a due regard for his own honor, or with a prospect of a more successful termination.

I have the honor to be, with the highest consideration, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

(Signed) G.H. ROSE.

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Coming from men in our vessels of the U. S. on the high seas such of their crews as they might undertake to denominate British subjects.

To this association of the two subjects, the President was determined. 1st, by his regarding both as resting on kindred principles; the immunity of private ships, with the known exceptions made by the laws of nations, being as well established as that of public ships; and there being no pretext for including in these exceptions the impressment (if it could be freed from its enormous and notorious abuses) of the subjects of a belligerent by the officers of that belligerent. The rights of a belligerent against the ships of a neutral nation, accrue merely from the relation of the neutral to the other belligerent, as in conveying to him contraband of war, or in supplying a blockaded port.

The claim of a belligerent to search for, and seize on board neutral vessels on the high seas, persons under his allegiance, does not therefore rest on any belligerent right under the law of nations, but on a prerogative derived from municipal law; and involves the extravagant supposition, that one nation has a right to execute at all times and in all cases, its municipal laws and regulations, on board the ships of another nation not being within its territorial limits.

The President was led to the same determination, 2dly, by his desire of converting a particular incident into an occasion for removing another and more extensive source of danger to the harmony of the two countries: and 3dly, by his persuasion, that the liberality of the propositions authorised with this view, would not fail to induce the ready concurrence of his Britannic majesty; and that the more extensive source of irritation and perplexity being removed, a satisfactory adjustment of the particular incident would be the less difficult. The President still thinks that such would have been the tendency of the mode for which he had provided; and he cannot, therefore, but regret that the door was shut against the experiment, by the peremptory refusal of Mr. Canning to admit it into discussion, even in the most informal manner, as was suggested by Mr. Monroe.

The President felt the greater regret, as the step he had taken towards a more enlarged and lasting accommodation, became thus a bar to the adjustment of the particular and recent aggression which had been committed against the U. S. He found, however, an alleviation in the signified purpose of his Britannic majesty, to charge with this negotiation a special mission to the U. S. which, restricted as it was, seemed to indicate a disposition from which a liberal and conciliatory arrangement of one great object at least might be confidently expected.

In this confidence, your arrival was awaited with every friendly solicitude; and our first interview having opened the way by an acquiescence in the separation of the two cases insisted on by his Britannic majesty, notwithstanding the strong ground on which they had been united by the President, it was not to be doubted that a tender of the satisfaction claimed by the U. States for a distinguished and an acknowledged insult by one of his officers, would immediately follow.

It was not, therefore, without a very painful surprise, that the error of this expectation was discovered. Instead of the satisfaction due from the original aggressor, it was announced that the first step towards the adjustment must proceed from the party injured: and your letter now before me, formally repeats, that as long as the proclamation of the President, which is dated on the 2d July, 1807, shall be in force, it will be an insuperable obstacle to a negotiation, even on the subject of the aggression which preceded it; in other words, that the proclamation must be put out of force, before an adjustment of the aggression can be taken into discussion.

In explaining the grounds of this extraordinary demand, it is alleged to be supported by the consideration that the proceeding and pretension of the offending officer has been disavowed: that general assurances are given of a disposition and intention in his Britannic majesty to make satisfaction; that a special minister was dispatched with promptitude for the purpose of carrying into effect this disposition; and that you have a personal conviction that the particular terms, which you are not at liberty previously to disclose, will be deemed by the United States satisfactory.

With respect to the disavowal it would be unjust not to regard it as a proof of candor and amity towards the U. S. and as some presage of the voluntary reparation which it implied to be due. But the disavowal can be the less confounded with the reparation itself: since it was sufficiently required by the respect which G. Britain owed to her own honor; it being impossible that an enlightened government, had hostility been meditated, would have commenced it in such a manner, and in the midst of existing professions of peace and friendship. She owed it also to consistency with the disavowal on a former occasion in which the pretension had been enforced by a British squadron against the sloop of war Baltimore, belonging to the U. S.; and finally to the interest which G. Britain has, more than any other nation, in disclaiming a principle which would expose her superior number of ships of war, to so many indignities from inferior navies.

As little can the general assurances that reparation would be made, claim a return which could properly follow the actual reparation only. They cannot amount to more than a disposition, or at most a promise to do what the aggressor may deem a fulfillment of his obligation. They do not prove even a disposition to do what may be satisfactory to the injured party, who cannot have less than an equal right to decide on the sufficiency of the redress.

In dispatching a special minister for the purpose of adjusting the difference, the U. States ought cheerfully to acknowledge all the proof it affords on the part of his Britannic majesty of his pacific views towards them, and of his respect for their friendship. But whilst they could not, under any circumstances, allow to the measure more than a certain participation in an honorable reparation, it is to be recollected that the avowed and primary object of the mission was to substitute for the more extended adjustment proposed by the U. S. at London, a separation of the subjects as preferred by his Britannic majesty, and you well know, sir, how fully this object was accomplished.

With respect to the personal conviction which you have expressed, that the terms which you decline to disclose would be satisfactory to the U. States, it is incumbent on me to observe that with the highest respect for your judgment and the most perfect confidence in your sincerity, an insuperable objection manifestly lies, to the acceptance of a personal and unexplained opinion, in place of a disclosure which would enable this government to exercise its own judgment in a case affecting so essentially its honor and its rights. Such a course of proceeding would be without example; and there can be no hazard in saying that one will never be afforded by a government which respects itself as much as yours justly does; and therefore can never be reasonably expected from one which respects itself as much as this has a right to do.

I forbear, sir, to enlarge on the intrinsic incongruity of the expedient proposed. But I must be allowed to remark, as an additional admonition of the singular and mortifying perplexity in which a compliance might involve the President, that there are in the letter of Mr. Canning, communicating to Mr. Monroe the special mission to the U. S. pregnant indications that other questions and conditions may have been contemplated which would be found utterly irreconcilable with the sentiments of this nation.

If neither any nor all of these considerations can sustain the preliminary demand made in your communication, it remains to be seen whether such a demand rests with greater advantage on the most precise ground on which you finally seem to place it.

The proclamation is considered as a hostile measure, and a discontinuance of it as due to the discontinuance of the aggression which led to it.

It has been sufficiently shown that the proclamation, as appears on the face of it, was produced by a train of occurrences terminating in the attack on the American frigate, and not by this last alone. To a demand therefore that the proclamation be revoked, it would be perfectly fair to oppose a demand that redress be first given for the numerous irregularities which preceded the aggression on the American frigate, as well as for this particular aggression, and that effectual control be interposed against repetitions of them.

And as no such redress has been given for the past, notwithstanding the lapse of time which has taken place, nor any such security for the future, notwithstanding the undiminished reasonableness of it, it follows, that a continuance of the proclamation would be consistent with an entire discontinuance of one only of the occurrences from which it proceeded.

But it is not necessary to avail the argument of this view of the case, although of itself entirely conclusive. Had the proclamation been founded on the single aggression committed on the Chesapeake, and were it admitted that the discontinuance of that aggression merely, gave a claim to the discontinuance of the proclamation, the claim would be defeated by the incontestable fact, that that aggression has not been discontinued. It has never ceased to exist; and is in existence at this moment. Need I remind you, sir, that the seizure and asportation of the seamen belonging to the crew of the Chesapeake, entered into the very essence of that aggression, that with an exception of the victim to a trial forbidden by the most solemn considerations, and greatly aggravating the guilt of its author, the seamen in question are still retained, and consequently that the aggression, if in no other respect, is by that act alone continued and in force?

If the views which have been taken of the subject have the justness which they claim, they will have shown that on no ground whatever can an annulment of the proclamation of July 2d, be reasonably required, as a preliminary to the negotiation with which you are charged. On the contrary, it clearly results, from a recurrence to the causes and object of the proclamation, that, as was at first intimated, the strongest sanctions of G. Britain herself, would support the demand, that previous to a discussion of the proclamation, due satisfaction should be made to the U. States: that this satisfaction ought to extend to all the wrongs which preceded and produced that act; and that even limiting the merits of the question to the single relation of the proclamation to the wrong committed in the attack on the American frigate, and deciding the question on the principle that a discontinuance of the latter required of right a discontinuance of the former, nothing appears that does not leave such a preliminary destitute of every foundation which could be assumed for it.

With a right to draw this conclusion, the President might have instructed me to close this communication, with the reply stated in the beginning of it; and perhaps in taking this course, he would only have consulted a sensibility, to which most governments would, in such a case, have yielded. But adhering to the moderation by which he has been invariably guided, and anxious to rescue the two nations from the circumstances under which an abortive issue to your mission, necessarily places them, he has authorized me, in the event of your disclosing the terms of reparation which you believe will be satisfactory, and on its appearing that they are so, to consider this evidence of the justice of his Britannic majesty as a pledge for an effectual interposition with respect to all the abuses against a recurrence of which the proclamation was meant to provide, and to proceed to concert with you, a revocation of that act, bearing the same date with the act of reparation to which the U. States are entitled.

I am not unaware, sir, that according to the view which you appear to have taken of your instructions, such a course of proceeding has not been contemplated by them. It is possible nevertheless, that a re-examination, in the spirit in which I am well persuaded it will be made, may discover them to be not inflexible to a proposition, in so high a degree, liberal and conciliatory. In every event the President will have manifested his willingness to meet your government on a ground of accommodation, which spares to its feelings, however misapplied he may deem them, every concession not essentially due to these which must be equally respected: and consequently will have demonstrated that the very ineligible posture given to so important a subject in the relations of the two countries, by the unsuccessful termination, of your mission, can be referred to no other source, than the rigorous restrictions under which it was to be executed.

I make no apology, sir, for the long interval between the date of your letter and that under which I write. It is rendered unnecessary by your knowledge of the circumstances to which the delay is to be ascribed.

With high consideration and respect, I have the honor to be, sir, your most obt. servt.

(Signed) JAMES MADISON.

George H. Rose, Esq.

His Britannic majesty's minister, &c.

Washington, March, 17, 1808.
SIR—Being deeply impressed with the sense of his majesty's anxiety, that full effect should be given to those views of justice and moderation, by which his conduct has been regulated through the whole of the unfortunate transaction whence the present differences have arisen; & of the disappointment with which he would learn the frustration of his just & equitable purposes; I have felt it incumbent upon me, on the receipt of the letter which you did me the honor to address to me on the 5th instant, to apply anew to this matter the most ample and serious consideration. It is with the most painful sensations of regret that I find myself on the result of it, under the necessity of declining to enter into the terms of negotiation, which by direction of the President of the United States you therein offer. I do not feel myself competent, in the present instance, to depart from those instructions, which I stated in my letter of the 26th of January last, and which preclude me from acceding to the condition thus proposed. I should add, that I am absolutely prohibited from entering upon matters unconnected with the specific object I am authorized to discuss, much less can I thus give any pledge concerning them. The condition suggested, moreover, leads to the direct inference, that the proclamation of the President of the United States of the 2d of July 1807, is maintained either as an equivalent for reparation for the time being, or as a compulsion to make it.

It is with the more profound regret that I feel myself under the necessity of declaring, that I am unable to act upon the terms thus proposed, as it becomes my duty to inform you, in conformity to my instructions, that on the rejection of the demand stated in my former letter, on the part of his majesty, my mission is terminated. And as his majesty's government in providing me with those instructions, did not conceive that after the declaration of his sentiments respecting the affair of the Chesapeake was made known to this government, the state of any transactions pending or unterminated between the two nations could justify the perseverance in the enforcement of the President's proclamation, I can exercise no discretion on this point.

As on a former occasion I detailed, though minutely, the motives for that demand on the part of his majesty, which I with so much concern learn to be deemed inadmissible by the government of the United States, I should here abstain from an exposition of them, which visibly can have no further effect upon the negotiation, if I did not deem it essential that they should not be left under any misapprehension which I might be able to remove. I shall, therefore, take a short review of the transaction, which has given rise to these discussions, in order the more correctly to determine the soundness of the principle on which that demand is made.

Certain deserters from his majesty's navy, many of them his natural born subjects, having entered into the service of the United States, were repeatedly and fruitlessly demanded by the British officers, of the recruiting officers of the U. States, but were retained in their new service. As it was a matter of notoriety that several of these deserters were on board the frigate of the United States the Chesapeake, they were demanded of that frigate on the high seas by his majesty's ship Leopard, and all knowledge of their presence on board being denied, she was attacked and four of them, one avowedly a native Englishman, were taken out of her. Without being deterred by the consideration of how far circumstances hostile in their nature had provoked, though they undoubtedly by no means justified this act of the British officer, his majesty's government directed, that a positive disavowal of the right of search, asserted in this case, and of the act of the British officer as being unauthorized, and a promise of reparation, should be conveyed to the American minister in London, before he had made any representation by order of the United States.

This disavowal made on the 2d of August last, was transmitted by him to his government, before the 5th of that month. But before Mr. Monroe had received his orders to demand reparation, his majesty learnt with what surprise it is needless to dwell upon, that, the President of the United States had interdicted by proclamation bearing date the 2d July, 1807, the entry of all their ports to the whole of his navy. This surprise was certainly increased, when in the letter delivered by that minister to require redress for the wrong, although it went into details unconnected with it, not only no concern was expressed on the part of the U. States, at having felt themselves compelled to enact measures of so much injury and indignity towards a friendly power, but no mention was made of the causes of such measures being resorted to, or even of the fact, of their having been adopted. In addition to the embarrassment arising from these circumstances, and the insufficiency of the explanations subsequently given to Mr. Canning, the introduction of a subject foreign to that of the complaint became the main impediment to the success of the discussions which took place in London. When I had the honor to open the negotiation with you, sir, as I had learnt that the president's proclamation was still in force, it became my duty, conformably to my instructions, to require its recall as a preliminary to further discussion: had it not been in force, I was not ordered to have taken it into consideration in the adjustment of reparation, and it was considered as hardly possible that it should not have been recalled immediately upon the knowledge of his majesty's disavowal of the attack upon the Chesapeake, as an unauthorized act. But his majesty could not suffer the negotiation to be carried on, on his behalf, under an interdict, which even if justifiable in the first moment of irritation, cannot be continued after the declaration of his majesty's sentiments upon the transaction, except in a spirit of hostility.

It might have been fairly contended that in the first instance, the exercise of such an act of power, before reparation was refused or unduly protracted, was incompatible with the purposes and essence of pacific negotiation, and with a demand of redress through that channel; but such have been his majesty's conciliatory views, that this argument has not been insisted on, although it might now be the more forcibly urged, as it appears that the government of the U. S. was from the first sensible, that, even had the hostility been meditated by the British government, it would not have commenced it in such manner. But the exception taken, is to the enforcement continued up to the present time, of measures highly unfriendly in their tendency, persisted in, not only after he disavowal in question; the promise of the proffer of suitable reparation; and the renewed assurances of his majesty's amicable disposition, but after security has been given in a public instrument bearing date the 16th of October, 1807. that the claim to the seizure of deserters from the national ships of other powers, cannot again be brought forward by his majesty's naval officers; it is unnecessary to dwell upon the injury and indignity to which his majesty's service is exposed, both as touching the freedom and security of correspondents of his agents and accredited ministers in the United States, or as resulting from a measure which in time of war, precludes the whole of his navy from all their ports, which ports are completely open to the fleets of his enemies: it will be sufficient to observe that even where exemptions from it are granted, they are made subject to such conditions, that of the three last British ships of war, which have entered these ports upon public business, two of them, his majesty's ship Statira having on board a minister sent out for the adjustment of the present differences, and a schooner bearing dispatches, in consequence of their inability to procure pilots, were obliged to enter these waters without such assistance, and were exposed to considerable danger.

G. Britain, by the forms established, could repair the wrong committed, even to the satisfaction of the U. S no otherwise than by the channel of negotiation; yet she avowed distinctly, that a wrong was committed, and that she was ready to make reparation for it; it cannot therefore be contended that the unavoidable delay of actual reparation subjected her to the imputation of persisting in an aggression, which was disclaimed from the first; if this is true, however much she will regret any impediment in the adjustment of a difference, in which the feelings of a nation are so materially interested; can she consistently with a due care of her own honor and interest, allow it to be concluded on her part, under an adherence to a conduct, which has a decided character of enmity in the proceedings held towards her by the other party.

I know not in what view the perseverance in the President's proclamation up to this moment can be considered, but in that of a measure of retaliation: or of self-assumed reparation; or a measure intended to compel reparation: unless it be that which, if I rightly understand, you define it to be, a measure of precaution.

If, when a wrong is committed, retaliation is instantly resorted to by the injured party, the door to pacific adjustment is closed, and the means of conciliation are precluded. The right to demand reparation is incompatible with the assumption of it. When parties are in a state of mutual hostility, they are so far on a footing, and as such they may treat; but a party disclaiming every unfriendly intention, and giving unequivocal proofs of an amicable disposition, cannot be expected to treat with another whose conduct towards it has the direct effects of actual hostility. If then the enforcement of the president's proclamation, up to the present moment, is a measure of self-assumed reparation it is directly repugnant to the spirit and fact of amicable negotiation: if it is a measure to compel reparation it is equally so: and by the perseverance in it Great Britain is dispensed with the duty of proffering redress. But, if it is a measure of precaution, in order to secure reparation, or in order to compel it. it falls under the objections I have just stated. If it is a precaution adopted as a guard against acts of violence apprehended on the part of his majesty's naval officers, it surely cannot be considered as being as effectual security as that arising from the renewed assurances of his majesty's friendly disposition, which imply a due observance of the rights of nations with which Great Britain is in amity, by all persons holding authority under his majesty's government; from the disavowal of the pretension of the search of national ship: and from the further assurance of that disavowal given in his majesty's proclamation of the 16th of October last: neither under these concurrent circumstances can the plea of necessity be maintained: and if such a proceeding has not the plea of necessity, it assumes the character of aggression. If these concurrent securities against such an apprehension have any value, the necessity no longer exists: if they are of no value, negotiation cannot be attempted, as the basis upon which it rests, the mutual confidence of the two parties, would be wholly wanting.

From the moment after the unfortunate affair of the Chesapeake, that his majesty's naval commanders in these waters had ascertained that they were safe from the effervescence of that popular fury, under which the most glaring outrages were committed, and by which they were very naturally led to the supposition that they were objects of particular hostility, and that a state of war against them, requiring precautions on their part, had commenced, no conduct has been imputed to them, which could vindicate the necessity of maintaining in force the president's proclamation. Since that time such of those officers have been necessitated by the circumstances of the war to remain in these waters, have held no communication with the shore, except in an instance too trifling to dwell upon, and instantly disavowed by the commanding officer; and they have acquiesced quietly in various privations, highly prejudicial to the service they were upon, and in consequence of an interdict, which had they been regardless of their duties to

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