235 



r ought to be made by our government, and perhaps was not 

 necessary to the conclusion of the peace. The perhaps it was not, 

 of course implies that perhaps it was necessary to the conclu 

 sion of the peace, and in candid reasoning is of itself sufficient to 

 justify the majority in the determination to make the proposal, 

 which they did believe to be necessary. 



In transferring the blame, whatever it might be, of making the 

 proposition, from the majority of the mission, who only executed, 

 to the government which issued the instructions, under which Mr. 

 Clay did not refuse his signature, a new field of argument is opened, 

 not very reconcilcable with any portion of Mr. Russell s papers 

 on this subject. Mr. Russell s duplicate alleges that the proposi 

 tion was in positive and wilful violation of instructions, explicit and 

 implicit. Mr. Russell in the Boston Statesman of 27th June last, 

 affirms that the instructions of 19th October, 1814, had no effect 

 whatever on the proposition to the British. plenipotentiaries of 1st 

 December ; that no vote in the mission was taken after the in 

 structions of 19th October were received and he appeals to Mr, 

 Clay to confirm this statement. 



It is, to be sure, a matter of opinion, whether the government 

 ought to have given the instructions of 19th October, 1814, or not, 

 upon which every member of the Ghent mission, individually, 

 had the right of entertaining his own opinion. There may be ex 

 treme cases in which a public minister would be justified in refus 

 ing his signature to a proposition warranted or even required by 

 die instructions of his government: a member of a commission may 

 indulge himself in this regpect with a much greater latitude than a 

 single plenipotentiary, for the obvious reason that the instructions 

 may be executed without his assent. Mr. Clay, therefore, might 

 have withheld his signature from the proposition which was made 

 on the 1st of December, 1814, as he had said he should withhold it 

 from that which had been voted on the 5th of November. The 

 reason assigned in the editorial article of the Argus, for his having 

 taken a different course, namely, the receipt in the interval be 

 tween the two periods of the new instructions from the government, 

 is amply sufficient to justify him for yielding his assent at last, but 

 in candid reasoning, if it justified him in pledging his signature to 

 a measure which he disapproved, it surely more than justified th^ 

 majority, in determining to offer a proposition, which they approv 

 ed, and for which they had been prepared even before those in 

 structions had been received. 



The editorial article in the Argus, admits, in amplest form, that 

 at the commencement of the war, the British had the right to na 

 vigate the Mississippi, and that the commissioners were instructed 

 to consent to the continuance of this right, if no better tern^ 

 could be procured. But it intimates the belief of Mr. Clay, that 

 the government ought never to have issued such instructions. Yet 

 the reason stated in the editorial article itself, as the inducing mo 

 live of the government to thi? measure, is weighty, and whoever 



