I have no doubt that this was the occasion from which General Smith had drawn the erroneous conclusion that I had at one period justified in Senate the British practices of impressment on board of our vessels. I never at any time. admitted their right to take even a British subject from an American vessel at sea, or anywhere out of the British Dominions themselves. My argument was not in support or defence of the British practice, but against a particular proposed measure of resistance to it. The bill reported by General Smith did not pass, and although the practice of impressment from our vessels was afterwards continued and aggravated a hundred fold, and finally contributed largely to produce war between the two countries, yet that bill was never again brought forward.

I have been informed that since the receipt of your letter General Smith had done me the justice to acknowledge the mistake of the impression under which he had before imputed to me the assertion of opinions which I never did hold. It is very true that I always dreaded the consequences of that collision of principle between us and Great Britain in which her rights to the service of her seamen, and ours to the freedom of ours and to the security of our flag upon the seas, were involved. I feared it would terminate in war and wished that if possible it might be adjusted by negotiation. Neither war nor negotiation have yet been able to settle it, Las and it still hangs over us a sword, now indeed in the scabbard, but which the first maritime war in Europe will again unsheathe, and to meet or avert which will require all the prudence and all the energy of our descendants and successors. "Peace in our time" is the prayer which more earnestly than ever I offer at the throne of grace, hoping and trusting that there never will be wanting to our country or to our councils the spirit which the emergency may re

quire thus to modify the petition as to say "the peace of freedom and independence, or none."

I pray you, Dear Sir, to accept my thanks for the explicit candor and frankness with which you answered the inquiries of General Smith, and for your kindness in communicating to me the copy of your answer. And I am happy that this incident affords me the opportunity of renewing the remembrance of our old associated public service and of assuring you of the respect with which I am Your faithful servant.

DEAR SIR:

TO RUFUS KING

WASHINGTON, 7 April, 1823.

I received your letter of the 1st instant1 on the 4th. The President received one from you this day, but the definitive answer and letter to which you refer have not yet been given. I concur in opinion with you, and have spoken accordingly. If the ground was not positively preoccupied, which I believe it was not, the recommendation from the quarter you anticipate will be decisive. Faithfully yours.

DEAR SIR:

TO RUFUS KING

WASHINGTON, 21 April, 1823.

I have received your letters of the 10th and 18th, I wrote you advisedly on the 7th, but it appears I was mistaken. in the impression that no definitive answer had been then

1 Printed in King, Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, VI. 512. An appointment to the Supreme Court had been offered to Smith Thompson, who was expected to decline. The office would then be offered to Van Buren. The story of the indecision of Thompson is told in the King volume.

received from the Secretary of the Navy. As I had reason to believe his recommendation would have great weight, I perhaps inferred from inconclusive premises that it had not then been given. The uncertainty after it was given would lead me now to the belief that the ground was preoccupied, which when I wrote you last I thought it was not. My own opinion agreeing with yours remains unchanged.

I am, etc.

DEAR SIR:

TO DANIEL CONY 1

WASHINGTON, 28 April, 1823.

I received with much pleasure your letter of the 15th instant, and am highly gratified with your approbation of the exposures which have been drawn from me of certain transactions at the negotiation of Ghent and afterwards.

I suppose it to be a settled principle that all lands secured by the treaty with Great Britain of 1783 to this Union which were not within the chartered limits of any state belonged of course to the United States. What lands were and what lands were not beyond the chartered limits of the state I am not able to say. Some of the states heretofore have insisted upon exclusive right to territories which according to the above principle belonged to the Union. The question of the boundary between Maine and the British Provinces is yet open, nor is it in my power to say when it will be closed. The two commissioners under the 5th article of the treaty of Ghent having disagreed by about one hundred miles as to the location of the highlands dividing the waters of the Atlantic from those of the St. Lawrence, the question was 1 Of Augusta, Maine. The name may be Corry.

next to be referred to the arbitration of a friendly sovereign, but it has been thought best to make a previous attempt to arrange the matter by negotiation. Some delays have occurred in this, and some difficulties may be expected to arise in adjusting it. If it can be settled to the satisfaction of the people of Maine and Massachusetts, I am persuaded it will be so to the whole Union, which would be a great satisfaction to me. In one thing your opinion is certainly correct that when the settlement shall be made, it will be necessary to specify the line by something more definite than mere highlands.

What the confederacy of European sovereigns will be able to effect in Spain, it would require the spirit of prophecy to foretell. I wait, as Pope says, for the great teacher, fearing for Spain much and hoping, if possible, more.

The situation of Spain is full of terror, and will soon be covered with humiliation or with glory. It is tasking severely the patience of the human race to hear Louis the 18th of France proclaim in the face of the world, that he who had not legs to stand upon will send a hundred thousand Frenchmen into Spain to ravage the land with fire and sword, to teach them to receive their liberties from the grant of Ferdinand the 7th. This doctrine cannot be much longer maintained in Europe. It grows too absurd.

I learn with great satisfaction that your new state government in Maine is likely to prove a blessing to the people and to the state. Their separation from Massachusetts was an unwelcome event to me as a citizen of the commonwealth, but when desired by the people of Maine themselves, Massachusetts could only acquiesce in the result. You have been fortunate in the selection of a discreet and intelligent governor, who has sense enough to despise the puny arti

1 Albion Keith Parris (1788-1857).

fice of seeking consequence to himself by speeches and messages insulting to the government of the Union.

I have a perfect recollection of the party at Milton Hill where we met at dinner in August or September, 1817, and of much of the conversation in which Mr. Holley,1 now President of the Transylvan University, took so earnest a share.

It is my intention to pay a visit to my father in the course of the ensuing summer. I have hoped that I might have a longer vacation this year than I have had at any former season since my present residence here, but as the time approaches the prospect of leisure shortens. I think I shall scarcely have two months to spare.

Your nephew Dr. Sewall 2 bears a respectable character, and is I believe successful in his profession.

The period at which you enter upon the mission with which you are charged is of no common interest, and the relations of the United States with the country to which you are destined, at all times important, are now of the deepest moment. The situation of Spain herself, that of France, from whence she has been threatened with invasion, ere this probably commenced, that of the great continental European powers leagued against her, and that of Great

1 Horace Holley (1781-1827). See Dexter, Yale Biographies, V. 586.