The Statesman.
London, England, 1810-01-13 00:00:00

AMERICA.

TO FR ANC IS J.%MP.S JACKSON, ESQ.
1111L-ANBAsslDoit Irßir!O NI BRITANNIC M &MT?, TO

lIIL FILD 51 A I E.% OF ♦MLRICV.

St the first moments of that perturbation,
from which the most accomplished diplomatist can.
nut at all times be exempt, and into which oven a
person of your experience may be excused fur
falling, on the sudden occurrence of a crisis so un-
expected and embarrassing as your late discoinfi.
turn, )ou were indiscreet enough to allege the
constitutional liberty of the press in this country,
as a charge against the Executive Government,
which your complaint implies that department
might correct. Yon should have recollected, that
whcu an Ambass.idur is most disconcerted, he
ought to appear the kart disturbed; that, by the
law of the land, the Executive cannot interfere
with the press, and that, when the First Consul of
France, with whose annals you have such special
reason for being familiar, laid a.similar grievance
before the British Ministry, lie was told that the
courts of justice were the only means knowt to
the law for punishing such (silences ; that Peltier
was convicted by a jou, and sentenced by my
Lord Ellenburough, not by Mr. Addington or the
King.—These things you should have known ; fur
they would have saved you the mortifieation,which
every man, particularly the Envoy Extraordinary
and Plenipotentiary from a mighty kingdom,
ought to feel, %hen heso far forgets himself and
his station, as to be betrayed into undignified and
unavailing querulousness.

It is too true that the press 'in this country is
deplorably licentious ; and though you were ogre.
giously incorrect when you made this circum.
stance a ground of official complaint to the Exe-
cutive, yet all temperate Americans must depre-
cate the scandalous calumnies that are daily pour.
eil forth upon your nation, mission, and person.
But it is not the freedoms the press has taken with
your name that have made it odious in America.—
That you may not return impressed with a belief,
iu o hick it is to be lamented you came among us,
that party is the only index, to opinion in the
United States, or that certain violent newspapers
are the organs of the sentiments of the great body
of sober and reflecting people, I take the liberty
of addressing you in the language that is almost
universally held, relative to this controversy, by
• those native and genuine Americans, who, with
natural and decided preference for
nun, aro at the same time alive to the rights of
their own, and always and alike indignant at all
foreign aggressions whatever. It may, perhaps,
notwithstanding your patriotic zeal, somewhat
assuage your disappointment, to know, that, by
this respectable class, your instructions are more
blamed than your conduct ;• and it is highly pro-
per that you should bo apprised of the Mcleod'.
dent and honuurable motives which govern them in
this juncture.
Your nomination created some suselicion and
much clamour. Peremptorily refusing to ratify
the terms proposed by one Minister, after they
had been accepted and effectuated on our part,
recalling and disgracing that Minister, and ap.
pointing another, who had been accustomed to
treat with fleets at his heels, were nut indicative of
a very friendly disposition on the part of Eng-
land. Notwithstanding these omens, the mass of
the American nation prepared to accredit you as
one of the most distinguished members of that
corps, which, in the States of Europe, is as re-
gularly trained, formed, and distributed, as ar-
mies and navies—aware that you were yet reeking
from the discharge of a must detestable duty at
Copenhagen, but hoping that your employ.
silent, on several such exigencies, was rather
in the course' of your vocation than optional,
and that the fame of such achievinents pre-
ceding you here, would have the effect rather
to soften than aggravate your tone, and, with an
bonest trusting that you were selected
fur your superior talents and veteran skill, and
coming to tiegoclate, if not to conclude, an accum.
niodation. The Americans are a simple, peace.
loving people, little versed in diplomatic suphis.
try. Peace and plain dealing are emphatically
their policy, inasmuch as one is the source, the
other the only safeguard of their prosperity ;
whatever, therefore, was declared by a few unim-
portant individuals, of the insolence and bad faith j
upon which your embassy was grounded, the Go.
vernment, with a large majonty of the country,
were disposed to receive you with hospitality, and
anxiously desirous that your terms might be tole.;
rably amicable, and your tune tolerably decent.
IVith such terms and such a tune there was a tern-
' per to be satisfied ; and it is notorious that the be-
lief was very general of your having entered ippon
discussions which promised an arrangement. Af.
ter indulging a few weeks iu these flattering ex-
pectations, it was uniteraTOod• With• amasement,
regret, and indignation, that you came three thou.
sand miles, with a magnificent appointment, with-
out authority to adjust any point in dispute, and
• with orders to couch your communications in the
most imperious • and otieusive style of the new
phraseology of diplomatic correspondence. You
came, as you have yourself declared to eur Go.
vernment, expressly to du nothing ; and in doing
that nothing, you assumed a tone of contempt and
defiance. Under such circumstances, you should
not be surprised that it is the sense of nine-tenths
• of the American people, that as your mission was
meant to be futile, and your language unbecom-
ing, the Government consulted their dignity, and
the dignity of a 'whin, too lung patient of out-
- rage, when it deranged you from your functions,
Jend discarded you its presence.
_e
But while such is the sense, and the decidedand
enthusiastic sense, of nearly all the people of this
country, it is 'natter of the must painful regret
with many of them, that the Representative of a
great and glorious empire, himself a man of ta.•
tents and a tine gentleman, should have been obliged
to incur the predicament, into w hicit you have
rather marched than fallen; which, not withstand.
jug' the challenge of • your letters, and the fair
warning you received of its imminence; seems to
have been as unexpected by you, as it certainly
*omit be iueuspicious to the future reladeus of the