which cheerfully assumes all its responsibility.  It stands upon it as its own mode of fulfilling its duties and accomplishing its objects.  Nor have the United States departed in the slightest degree from their former principles of avoiding European combinations upon subjects not American; because the abolition of the African slave-trade is an American subject as emphatically as it is a European subject, and, indeed, more so, inasmuch as the government of the United States took the first great step in declaring that trade unlawful, and in attempting its extinction.  The abolition of this traffic is an object of the highest interest to the American people and the American government; and you seem strangely to have overlooked altogether the important fact, that nearly thirty years ago, by the treaty of Ghent, the United States bound themselves, by solemn compact with England, to continue their efforts to promote its entire abolition; both parties pledging themselves by that treaty to use their best endeavors to accomplish so desirable an object.”

Now, in answer to this, you observe in your last letter:  “That the particular mode in which the governments should act in concert, as finally arranged in the treaty, was suggested by yourself, I never doubted.  And if this is the construction I am to give to your denial of my correctness, there is no difficulty upon the subject.  The question between us is untouched.  All I said was, that England continued to prosecute the matter; that she presented it for negotiation, and that we thereupon consented to its introduction.  And if Lord Ashburton did not come out with instructions from his government to endeavor to effect some arrangement upon this subject, the world has strangely misunderstood one of the great objects of his mission, and I have misunderstood that paragraph in your first note, where you say that Lord Ashburton comes with full powers to negotiate and settle all matters in discussion between England and the United States.  But the very fact of his coming here, and of his acceding to any stipulations respecting the slave-trade, is conclusive proof that his government were desirous to obtain the co-operation of the United States.  I had supposed that our government would scarcely take the initiative in this matter, and urge it upon that of Great Britain, either in Washington or in London.  If it did so, I can only express my regret, and confess that I have been led inadvertently into an error.”

It would appear from all this, that that which, in your first letter, appeared as a direct statement of facts, of which you would naturally be presumed to have had knowledge, sinks at last into inferences and conjectures.  But, in attempting to escape from some of the mistakes of this tissue, you have fallen into others.  “All I said was,” you observe, “that England continued to prosecute the matter; that she presented it for negotiation, and that we thereupon consented to its introduction.”