commercial agents of such a country as ours ought. This subject ought to be again and again pressed upon Congress, until the whole system be changed. I have the honor to be, etc., To the Hon. LOUIS MCLANE, Legation of the United States, Secretary of State of the United States,— Sir,-In my last despatch I sent you copies of two official notes which I had addressed to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in relation to the power and the instructions I had received from the President to negotiate a separate article for prolonging the term allowed for the ratification of the treaty on the part of this government, up to the 1st of July. No answer had been given me up to the 1st of March, when a casual allusion to the subject, in conversation with Count Felix de Mérode, led to my calling on him immediately for the purpose of having a day appointed for a full and unreserved conference between him and his Secretary General (the M. Nothomb of whom I say so much in my despatch No. 21) and myself. Agreeably to the appointment then made, I went to the Foreign Office the next day about noon, and, after waiting a few moments for the appearance of the minister and his diplomatic adviser, found myself engaged with them both, but especially the latter, (who, I soon found out, was, in truth, the head of the department quoad hoc,) in a very animated discussion about the rights of neutrals and belligerents. Prepared as I was, from my former conversation with M. Nothomb, for any thing but a satisfactory result, it was still impossible that I should not be astonished at the inconceivable extravagancies which he now ventured to advance as settled doctrines of public law. He went far beyond any thing that was ever heard in a British Prize Court, and, instead of justifying the paper blockades of England by the alleged necessity of the case, as Sir Wm. Scott, though half ashamed of the plea, confessed himself reduced to the necessity of doing, this young publicist rested them on what he called the European law of nations, and repeatedly contradistinguished from the supposed projects of innovation which he affected to characterise as the American system. You will hardly wonder to be informed that I almost lost my patience at such a display of profound ignorance, coupled with so much confidence and positiveness; and that I told him, until he could produce a single dictum, however loose and casual, of any jurist or publicist of the least respectability, on the Continent, giving the shadow of countenance to such extraordinary positions, I must be permitted to decline, in the name of my country, the invidious honor he ascribed to her, and request him during the rest of the conversation to borrow an epithet for his own notions from the nation that, without venturing to shock the common sense of mankind by professing them formally herself, in the abstract, seemed disposed to make her weaker neighbors reduce them to practice for her benefit, and so might call them, if he pleased, the "English doctrine." By the request of the Count de Mérode, I had brought with me in my carriage Elliott's collection of American Treaties, for the purpose of shewing him how very usual the stipulations, that seemed so startling here, are in our diplomatic history. Beginning at the beginning, I opened the treaty with France in the course of the revolutionary war, and was proceeding to those with Holland and Prussia, etc., when M. Nothomb, asking the dates and learning them, manifested the greatest impatience, and put in a sweeping objection to all that had been done at the period of the Armed Neutrality, of which he had obviously made the acquaintance with a view to this very discussion, and which, in the hurry of a first introduction, he had mistaken for a league to change the law of nations by force, and to defeat or destroy the maritime ascendant of England by curtailing her hitherto admitted belligerent rights. To shew this he read me an extract from Schoell, which imported any thing else, as I observed to him; and, to convince him that the powers which made that memorable declaration regarded it then, and still adhere to it, as an exposition of the law of nations as it stood and now stands, I opened Marten's Guide Diplomatique, and begged him to read the admirable reply addressed, in December, 1800, by Count Bernstoff to Sir W. Drummond, the English Chargé d'Affaires at Copenhagen, who had been instructed by his Court to demand of that of Denmark some explanation as to the nature of its negotiations with Sweden and Russia. The opportunity was too tempting for me not to remark significantly to M. de Mérode that the letter of the Danish minister was, in more respects than one, applicable to the present case, and perfect not only as a model of diplomatic composition, but as an example of statesman-like wisdom and courage. In the course of this discussion, M. Nothomb let it out that he stood, himself, committed to the doctrine of constructive blockade, in a speech he had made about the time of the coercive measures adopted by England and France against Holland, and he went farther and insisted, as he had done on a former occasion, that Belgium, by profiting, as he alleges that she did, in that instance by that doctrine, was estopped from disputing it. I replied that I considered this government as in no wise responsible for the character of the measures (even admitting them to have been such as he represented them) which were adopted by two powers whose interference was their own act, warranted (if at all) by a law which the conference they represented had dictated to two weaker powers for the benefit of all Europe, that all that Belgium had done towards it was to call upon those powers to enforce the treaty they had imposed on her, or suffer her to right herself by the sword,--that by undertaking, for great political objects, the former part of this alternative, they had ipso facto declared her no party to the proceedings, etc. Pressed in the argument, though apparently as far as ever from being persuaded by it, M. Nothomb at length took the ground that M. Behr had exceeded his powers, and would, therefore, be disavowed, and, if the President demanded it, sacrificed by his government. I told him that was quite a different matter, and that (of course) if he could maintain his assertion, (which I had good reason to doubt,) H. M's. government would be free to do as it pleased. He replied that he should have no difficulty in doing so, and promised, if I would permit him, to call upon me at my house in a few days, and satisfy me, by shewing me the original powers and instructions given to M. Behr, that he was wholly unauthorised to treat with you about those high political questions which he had been in so much haste to settle. The conversation after this took a more free and familiar turn, and I endeavored to press upon them two points, as to which they seemed to me to entertain very erroneous ideas. The first was that the treaty was no declaration of principles, as that, for instance, between Prussia and the United States, but a mere arrangement between two friendly nations, as to their own conduct towards each other, in case either of them should become belligerent, whatever might be their rights and liabilities under the common law of nations. For this reason, all mankind would be revolted at the arrogance and selfishness of England if she ventured to express her disapprobation of so innocent an act, much less to do any thing revengeful towards Belgium in consequence of it. This, however, did not seem to tranquillize the apprehensions of these gentlemen, who appeared to have good reason for anticipating that their great maritime protector would not scruple to leave them in the lurch in any future emergency, unless she saw her interest in delivering them manifested by something less equivocal than treaties of amity, not censuring precisely, but then not sanctioning either, some of her practices in cases of pressing exigency. The other point was the immense difference between the prudence which avoids the possibility of giving offence, even by an innocent act, to a jealous superior, by abstaining from doing such an act, where no paramount mo tive required it to be done, and the timidity which, after it has been done in good faith, shrinks back at the frown of a third power, and, by retracting or disavowing what it had a clear right to do, confesses, before all mankind, that it has no right to do any thing but what shall be agreeable to an officious and domineering neighbor. M. de Mérode dropped something about the difficulties of their situation, (which I am not disposed to underrate,) and that if all were over and peace and confidence established, it might be different, etc. The conference took place on the 3d inst. The next evening I happened to meet with M. de Mérode at a party at the Count de Latour Maubourg's, (the French ambassador's,) and was rallying him about M. Nothomb's discoveries in the law of nations, when M. de Latour Maubourg himself coming up, and hearing what was the subject of our conversation, took part in it and joined me heartily in ridiculing the paper blockades of England as a system, for which he cited the recent case of her resistance to Don Miguel's attempt to shut up the Tagus, to shew how little respect she herself in reality entertained for it. He added, however, pleasantly, that he could not wonder at Belgium being inclined to favor the right of instituting the only sort of blockades that it would, in all probability, ever be in her power to impose. I was glad to hear him speak thus. Not having received, within a reasonable time, the promised visit of M. Nothomb, and, at the same time, wishing to shew them at once the whole strength of the position they had undertaken to assail, I sent in the following note, with an extract from your despatch No. 5 accompanying it : Mr. Legaré to Count F. de Mérode. Legation of the United States of America,& Sir,-Having waited, not without some solicitude, during a period of nearly three weeks, for the visit with which, in the conversation I had the honor of holding with you and M. Nothomb at the hotel of your department, you promised I should be speedily favored by the Secretary General, for the purpose, among other things, of shewing me wherein M. Behr had transcended his powers in his negotiation with Mr. Livingston, and not having hitherto been fortunate enough to hear from M. Nothomb on the subject, I am led to suppose that you have altogether abandoned that intention, and the rather because I have good reason to think that the fulfilment of it would have been found, upon experiment, more difficult than you seemed to anticipate. Under this impression, I take the liberty of again calling your attention, in a formal manner, to the overture made to you in my letter of the 13th January, and requesting that you will, as soon as possible, consistently with your perfect convenience, do me the honor of communicating to me the purposes of His Majesty's government in regard to it. You will, I am very sure, sir, pardon whatever of impatience may seem to be betrayed by me in thus pressing for a distinct and definitive answer, when I remind you that it is now more than two months since I received the instructions, in compliance with which I immediately made that overture, that the Secretary of State of the United States appears to have been led, both by the correspondence of Gen. Goblet with me, and by that of M. Behr with him, to anticipate an unhesitating acceptance of it,-and, since it would be mere affectation, after what I must be permitted to call the extraordinary positions taken by M. Nothomb, without any expression of dissent on your part, in the conversation alluded to, to dissemble that I feel some apprehension lest that anticipation, reasonable as it unquestionably is, should be disappointed, that it is become more than ever my imperative duty to lose no time in obtaining and communicating to my government the probable result of the negotiation, and in giving it (should that result, unfortunately, be what has been more than hinted to me) a full account of the motives which will have led H. M's. government to disavow the solemn act of its plenipotentiary. Meanwhile, as I think it due, not less to H. M's. government than to my own, to shew to the former, as distinctly as possible, the light in which this unexpected conclusion of a negotiation, so pressingly invited by itself, and of which, in communicating that invitation, its plenipotentiary proposed substantially the very terms and conditions now considered as so objectionable, will be regarded by the latter, I annex to this note an extract from a letter addressed to me, upon this subject, by the Secretary of State. Nothing I could say would add any thing to the effect of this simple statement of facts. I have the honor to be, etc., etc., H. S. LEGARE. This note brought the following answer from M. Nothomb : Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Monsieur le Chargé d'Affaires,-En vous transmettant la note ci jointe en date de ce jour et où j'ai du me borner à rappeler les faits propres à fixer la position du gouvernement du Roi, j'éprouve le besoin de vous entretenir, en peu de mots, de la position particulière du plénipotentiaire Belge. J'ignore encore quels sont les motifs personnels qui ont porté le ministre résident a Washington à donner une extension à ses pouvoirs; j'attends des explications de sa part. Vous concevrez, toutefois, que dans une négotiation de ce genre, ou tout était nouveau, il a pu, surtout à cette distance des lieux, perdre de vue les raisons qu'avaient motivé le sens restrictif donné à ses instructions. Agréez, etc. Le ministre d'état chargé par interim, etc., According to this appointment, M. Nothomb called upon me this morning with the ministerial portfolio, and put into my hands what, he assured me, were the originals of the powers and instructions given to M. Behr when he was about to set out for America. I frankly confess I read these papers with astonishment, as I have no doubt you will, and not dissembling to him that the determination to which he announced that H. M's. government was come was more plausible, at least, than I had |