PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF GHENT. 241 



resources she may be able to employ exclusively against the United 

 States; and the uncertainty of the precise course which Russia may 

 pursue in relation to the war between the United States and Great 

 Britain, naturally claim attention, and raise the important question 

 in reference to the subject of impressment, on which it is presumed 

 your negotiations will essentially turn, whether your powers ought 

 not to be enlarged so as to enable you to give to those circumstances 

 all the weight to which they may be entitled. On full consideration, 

 it has been decided, that, in case no stipulation can be obtained from 

 the British Government at this moment, when its pretensions may 

 have been much heightened by recent events, and the state of Europe 

 be most favorable to them, either relinquishing the claim to impress 

 from American vessels, or discontinuing the practice, even in con- 

 sideration of the proposed exclusion from them of British seamen, 

 you may concur in an article stipulating that the subject of impress- 

 ment, together with that of commerce between the two countries, be 

 referred to a separate negotiation, to be undertaken, without delay, at 

 such place as you may be able to agree on, preferring this city if to be 

 obtained. I annex at^the close of this letter a project of an article ex- 

 pressing more distinctly the idea which it is intended to communicate, 

 not meaning thereby to restrain you in airy respect as to the form. 

 Commerce and seamen, the objects of impressment, may, with great 

 propriety, be arranged in the same instrument. By stipulating that 

 commissioners shall forthwith be appointed for the purpose, and that 

 all rights on this subject, shall, in the mean time, be reserved, the 

 faith of the British Government will be pledged to a fair experiment 

 in an amicable mode, and the honor and rights of the United States 

 secured. The United States having resisted by war the practice of 

 impressment, and continued the war until that practice had ceased by 

 a peace in Europe, their object has been essentially obtained for the 

 present. It may reasonably be expected that the arrangement con- 

 templated and provided for, will take effect before a new war in 



trope shall furnish an occasion for reviving the practice. Should 

 this arrangement, however, fail, and the practice be again revived, 

 the United States will be again at liberty to repel it Iry war. and that 

 they will do so <-;mnot be doubted; for after the proof which they 

 have already given of a firm resistance in that mode, persevered in 

 until the practice had ceased, under circumstances the most unfavor- 

 able, it cannot he presumed that the practice will ever he tolerated 

 :iL r :iin. Certain it is, thai every day will render it more ineligible in 

 Great Britain to make the attempt. 



In contemplating the appointment of commissioners, to be made 

 after the ratification of the present treaty, t<> negotiate and conclude 

 a treaty to regulate commerce, and provide against impressment, 



it i- meant only to '-how the extent to which yon may go, in a spirit 



of accommodation, if necessary. Should the British Government he 

 willing to take the subject up immediately with yon. it would he much 

 preferred, in which case the proposed article would, of course, he 

 ada pted to t he purpo <•. 



Information aa been received, from a quarter deserving attention, 

 thai tin- lute even! in France have produced such an enect on the 

 British Government a to make it probable thai a demand will he 

 made at Gottenburg to surrender our right to the fisheries; to abandon 



