John Quincy Adams Digital Diary

29. VI: Called at the Branch Bank, with three Bills of the Boston Branch which they declined taking; but Smith the Cashier took them, and said I should be credited for them to-morrow. Davidson the teller hinted to me that Smith would obtain a premium upon them of at least one per Cent, and pocket it himself. At the President’s—I had prepared an additional paragraph for my Letter to Mr Onis, but it did not yet altogether suit the President’s views— He told me that he now thought it of much less consequence than it was a year ago, whether we made any adjustment with Spain at all— And that he thought Onis’s instructions now were such that he would either sign no Treaty at all; or he would sign one upon our own terms. I left my draft with him. He has begun that of his Message, and read me two paragraphs, one respecting the commercial Negotiation, now on foot with England— The other concerning our relations with Spain. The latter was unfinished. He directed a Cabinet Meeting at one O’Clock, upon the Instructions to be given to Messrs: Gallatin and Rush, concerning Impressment and the Slave trade. At one we met accordingly, and discussed the question upon impressment till four without coming to any decision. Another Meeting was appointed for twelve O’Clock to-morrow. Rush according to his Instructions made two successive proposals to the British Government, upon impressment— One the 18th. of April, and the other the 30th. of June last. The first was to restrict reciprocally the naturalization of Sailors; the other was totally to exclude each other’s Seamen, from the respective Services whether in public or in merchant 426vessels—with a positive stipulation against the impressment of men in any case. The British Government in the first instance rejected both; but afterwards on the 13th of August Castlereagh intimated to Rush, as a suggestion of his own, upon which he had not consulted the other members of the Cabinet, that the second proposition might be accepted with two Modifications; one that either party may withdraw from the engagement of the stipulation after three or six Months notice, as in the agreement concerning armaments on the Lakes— The other, that if a British Officer after entering an American Vessel for purposes admitted to be lawful, should find a Seaman there whom he should suspect to be English, he should be authorized to make a record or procès verbal of that fact that it may be brought to the knowledge of the American Government, though not to take the man. The deliberation of this day was whether Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, should be instructed to agree to these modifications or not. Strong objections were urged against them both, particularly by Mr. Calhoun— Mr Crawford inclined to accede to them both; and the President inclined to the same. Mr Wirt without expressing himself very decidedly, thought like the President— My own greatest objections were against the proposal as made by ourselves; to which I have always been utterly averse—thinking it an illiberal engagement—contrary to the free, generous and humane character of our institutions, unjustly restrictive upon the rights both of our own and of British Seamen, and having a tendency to excite the most violent animosities in their minds against one another and especially among the British Seamen against us— I thought it would be now peculiarly offensive and injurious to our commercial interests—doubted whether any such stipulation would be ratified by the Senate; was confident it would give universal dissatisfaction to the merchants, and in the Event of War, would be found impracticable in execution—as however we have made the proposal, we must abide by it, if accepted; but its own character may justly make us scrupulous against accepting any modifications which render it still more unexceptionable— Mr Calhoun opposed the first of Lord Castlereagh’s suggested modifications as leaving it in the power of the British Government, to make the stipulation itself nugatory to us, at the very moment, when it would begin to operate in our favour; and because by consenting that the compact should thus be cancelled at pleasure, we should be understood to have given an indirect assent to the resumption of the British practice. I concurred in this opinion which was strenuously contested by Mr Crawford and Mr Wirt, the President leaning a little the same way. Mr Crawford contended that the only object of these modifications on the part of the British Ministers was to make the stipulation itself palatable to their own people. That no British Ministers would dare to contract such an engagement, without reserving to themselves some such apology to conciliate the public opinion of their own Country— But that if the agreement should once be made they would never use the privilege of giving notice that it should be cancelled. The practice being once abandoned they would never incur the risk of resuming it— Mr Calhoun was also against acceding to the second proposed modification, which would allow a British Officer to muster and pass under inspection the crew of every American vessel boarded by him— It would give rise to altercations, and expose the American Master to the insolence of the British Officer, scarcely less galling than the injury of impressment itself. Calhoun added that the result of the late War had been to raise the tone of feeling in this Nation— That the success of the menacing attitude assumed with Spain, in the case of R. W. Meade had raised it still higher. That any concession by the Administration, which should tend to lower that tone of feeling, would give great dissatisfaction to the Nation, and would be used as a weapon against the Administration— Crawford said he had mentioned the proposed modifications to Mr Clay last Saturday, and he thought well of them— Aye, said Calhoun; but what will the Kentucky, and western Country newspapers say of them?— This question occasioned a general laugh, in which Crawford, heartily 427joined. We all knew that Clay would think well of any thing, which might excite dissatisfaction with the Administration. It was past four O’Clock when the meeting was adjourned till to-morrow. Calhoun took me home in his Carriage; and I walked half an hour before dinner. Johnson Hellen came to spend some days with us. I wasted the Evening, by an invincible drowsiness and repugnance to writing. I got over it between nine and ten, and wrote about half an hour.