235 



MveY ought to he made by our government, and p(-rhaps 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 sutlicient to 

 justify the majority in the determination to make the proposal, 

 which they did believe to be necessary. 



In transferring the bhime, whatever it might be, of making (he 

 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 reconciieable 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 eflect 

 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 })roposition warranted or even required by 

 the instructions of his government : a meuiher of a commission may 

 indulge himself in this respect 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 ilia 5ih 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 the 

 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 ii-ere instructed 

 to consent to the continuance of this right, if no better terms 

 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- 

 tive of the government to thi= mea'^uro, i= wei^^hty, ;md whoever 



