To James Madison from James Monroe, 28 February 1806
From James Monroe
London February 28. 1806.
Sir
Presuming that it may be satisfactory to the President and useful, to be made acquainted without delay with every incident that occurs, I have the pleasure to send you a copy of a late note to Mr. Fox1 on our concerns in his hands. In our first interview he promised to examine the papers and give me another at an early day, but as I did not hear from him within the time I had expected I called again when he informed me, that he had not yet been able to take up the American papers, but should soon do it. He asked in what shape the most interesting topick presented itself, alluding as I understood to the late seizures? I replied by a complaint on the part of the U. States of a violation by G. Britain of the relations subsisting between the countries, and I illustrated the remark by a sketch of the conduct of his government in the most material circumstances. To the merits of the case he said but little. What he did say however was conciliating, and he repeated what he had said in the former interview of his earnest desire to see the affairs of the two countries placed on the most friendly footing. He assured me that I should hear from him as soon as he had read the papers which he would do without delay. I intimated that by giving him a summary of the whole I might perhaps facilitate his research, to which he assented. It was on that ground that I addressed him the enclosed note.
I have since received your letter of Jany. 13th.2 in which you promise to send me an examination of the British principle lately published, the memorials of the merchants of our principal towns and other documents illustrative of the subject. I shall be happy to receive these and shall certainly endeavour to draw from them all the aid which they can furnish. The letter referr’d to in the commencement of that of the 13th. has not come to hand, nor has any of a later date than Decr. 4th. I shall be attentive to the injunction contained in the last paragraph of that of the 13th.
As the subject is now fairly before the new Ministry who seem to be well disposed in the business, permit me to submit it to consideration whether it may not be better that no measure should be definitively adopted, or if already adopted be executed, ’till a fair experiment be made of what may be expected of it. By suspending what might have been contemplated in another view, and even necessary, it may tend to conciliate those now in power and be productive of good. I have the honor to be with great respect and consideration your obedient servant.
Jas. Monroe
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 233, President’s Messages, 10A–D1); RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 46, President’s Messages, 10B–B1); letterbook copy of second RC (DLC: Monroe Papers); letterpress copy of enclosure with first RC (DNA: RG 59, DD, Great Britain, vol. 12). First RC docketed by Wagner. Second RC marked “(Duplicate.)”; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Monroe; docketed by Wagner. For enclosure, see n. 1.
1. The enclosure (5 pp.; docketed by Wagner; printed in , Foreign Relations, 3:113–14) is a copy of Monroe to Charles James Fox, 25 Feb. 1806, covering material papers from Monroe’s correspondence with Lord Hawkesbury dealing with three topics still unsettled between the two countries: the trade rights of neutrals, the impressment of American and the desertion of British seamen, and the boundary between the United States and British possessions in North America. Monroe stated that, his government being anxious to prevent a repetition of certain abuses practiced against neutrals and American seamen in the previous war, he had presented Hawkesbury with a projet of a convention designed solely to end abuses and not to acquire any advantage to the United States. He added that conditions to which Great Britain had agreed in its 1801 Anglo-Russian treaty and in later conventions with Denmark and Sweden had been suggested in the belief that Britain would not object to them. The same motivation guided the proposition regarding seamen, whose impressment was the more resented because British officers often ignored American documents. Monroe had also proposed a modification in the boundary convention agreed to between Rufus King and Hawkesbury, and he stated that the United States agreed as well to remedy the problem of British deserters but that Hawkesbury had neither accepted nor rejected his proposals, which were later transferred to Lord Harrowby, who also delayed answering them.