LETTER XL.—­TO JAMES MONROE, March 21, 1807

TO JAMES MONROE.

Washington, March 21, 1807.

Dear Sir,

A copy of the treaty with Great Britain came to Mr. Erskine’s hands on the last day of the session of Congress, which he immediately communicated to us; and since that, Mr. Purviance has arrived with an original.  On the subject of it you will receive a letter from the Secretary of State, of about this date, and one more in detail hereafter.  I should not have written, but that I perceive uncommon efforts, and with uncommon wickedness, are making by the federal papers to produce mischief between myself, personally, and our negotiators; and also to irritate the British government, by putting a thousand speeches into my mouth, not one word of which I ever uttered.  I have, therefore, thought it safe to guard you, by stating the view which we have given out on the subject of the treaty, in conversation and otherwise; for ours, as you know, is a government which will not tolerate the being kept entirely in the dark, and especially on a subject so interesting as this treaty.  We immediately stated in conversation, to the members of the legislature and others, that having, by a letter received in January, perceived that our ministers might sign a treaty not providing satisfactorily against the impressment of our seamen, we had, on the 3rd of February, informed you, that should such an one have been forwarded, it could not be ratified, and recommending, therefore, that you should resume negotiations for inserting an article to that effect; that we should hold the treaty in suspense until we could learn from you the result of our instructions, which probably would not be till summer, and then decide on the question of calling the Senate.  We observed, too, that a written declaration of the British commissioners, given in at the time of signature, would of itself, unless withdrawn, prevent the acceptance of any treaty, because its effect was to leave us bound by the treaty, and themselves totally unbound.  This is the statement we have given out, and nothing more of the contents of the treaty has been made known.  But depend on it, my dear Sir, that it will be considered as a hard treaty when it is known.  The British commissioners appear to have screwed every article as far as it would bear, to have taken every thing, and yielded nothing.  Take out the eleventh article, and the evil of all the others so much overweighs the good, that we should be glad to expunge the whole.  And even the eleventh article admits only that we may enjoy our right to the indirect colonial trade, during the present hostilities.  If peace is made this year, and war resumed the next, the benefit of this stipulation is gone, and yet we are bound for ten years, to pass no non-importation or non-intercourse laws, nor take any other measures to restrain the unjust pretensions and practices of the British.