He said there did not appear to be any analogy between the two cases. By the treaties the right of search given was entirely reciprocal. It was limited and restricted in the most cautious and precise manner. Portugal and the Netherlands had assented to it, and he thought the objections which we made might rather have been expected from them than from France, and rather from the Swiss Cantons than from the United States ; that nations justly conscious of their power had less reason than others to fear the abuse of any concession.

I told him that all concession of principle tended to encour age encroachment, and if naval officers were once habituated to search the vessels of other nations in time of peace for one thing, they would be still more encouraged to practise it for another thing in time of war ; that as to the concessions of Portugal and the Netherlands, they might be supposed to be actuated by a sense of dependence upon or of obligation to Great Britain.

He thought this was rather imaginary than real, and that neither Portugal nor the Netherlands were of a disposition at all accommodating to Great Britain. He said also that the European alliance could hardly be said to have for its object the regulation of European affairs ; at least it was only with reference to certain specific objects. He asked if our principle of rejecting the measures as concerted by the European allies was so general as to induce a refusal to co-operate with them in any measure.

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I said, No ; we had formed no such determination. There might be a concert of measures proposed to which our objec tions would not apply, and that a free and mutual communica tion of what might be done on either side would contribute much to the attainment of the common object. But I observed that, excepting the communications which we had received from Great Britain, there had been none to us from any member of the European alliance; and, as the objections made principally by France to the British project of reciprocal capture were much the same as those which we had urged against the thing itself, I thought it right to tell him that this coincidence was not the result of any consultation. There had been between the United States and France no communication whatever relating to the slave-trade.

He said that, though gratified to learn that we did not reject all concert of operation, he was apprehensive that the expedient which we did reject was the only one that could prove effectual. For so long as hoisting a flag was sufficient to shelter the slavetrader from search and capture, it was scarcely possible that any vigilance or care should avail. He added that as it was the earnest desire of the British Government to soften the asperities existing in the feeling of the two countries towards each other, and it was convinced that the same disposition existed here, there could be nothing done which would more strongly have that tendency than our accession to these arrangements.

I said that the disposition to conciliate was perfectly re ciprocal, and very earnest on our part ; that he must take all I had said to him in this conversation as expressing only my private opinions. As soon as the President should return to the city, I should report to him the substance of it, and should receive his instructions what further answer to give. He asked if I was willing that in the mean time he should report to his Government the purport of our conference this day; to which I answered, Certainly.

5th. General Parker called again at the office, to enquire again, for his friend Byers, if a public ship would be sent to protect the sealing speculations at the new discovery south of Cape Horn. I referred him to the Navy Department; at which

he seemed a little impatient. He showed me an extract from the London Morning Chronicle of I4th August, rcpublished in our newspapers, mentioning that this was no new discovery, but land first seen in 1 599 by Dirk Sherritz, a Dutchman. I had seen this extract before. I examined several collections of maps and charts. The English have no traces of such land, but the French maps have, under the denomination of " Port de Drake." I read the article " Drake" in Dobson's and Reese's Encyclopaedias, but found nothing there mentioned of Drake's Port. They both say he passed through the Straits of Magellan and returned by the Cape of Good Hope. I have not books at hand to pursue the enquiry. Mr. Frye called likewise at the office with Governor Clark's pamphlet against Mr. Crawford. It is bitter, and presents Crawford's character in a very odious light. In one respect it has the same fault that it charges upon Crawford. Clark declares his belief that Crawford is confederate with Mitchell in his slave smuggling speculations. This I do not believe, and Clark adduces no evidence to sup port the charge but Crawford's endeavors to screen Mitchell from punishment. But this I ascribe, as well as the more ex ceptionable screening of others, to ambition and not avarice. Crawford's intense passion is unbridled ambition, and he has great address in his conduct, though he has exposed to so many the nakedness of his heart that he cannot be called very profound. His ambition has been inflamed by success far be yond either his services or his talents — the former of which are very slight, and the latter much overrated. His principal merit is firmness.

1 4th. I began this morning the final draft of my report to the Senate upon weights and measures. I also extracted from the statute books of New Jersey containing the Acts passed before and during the American Revolution, their laws relating to the subject. The Governor of New Jersey, in answer to Rush's letter requesting the information required by the resolution of the Senate, wrote him that there was no statute of the State concerning it; but he was mistaken. There are several. I also called on the Attorney-General, Wirt, with papers relating to the case at Savannah. I found him engaged in the papers of

!86 MEMOIRS OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. [October,

the Indian Agent, who, he said, was the most impudent rascal that he had ever had any knowledge of; and if he was not guilty, there was no evidence in human testimony. But Mit chell had, nevertheless, got so complete an ascendency over Mr. Crawford that he believed him entirely innocent, and he had written so here ; and he (Crawford) had requested that at all events the decision, whatever it might be, should be made be fore his return to the city. Crawford's efforts to screen Mitchell from punishment are marked with desperation. It is impossible he should believe him innocent. But at heart he thinks slave smuggling no crime, and supposes his own political fortune depends upon Mitchell being cleared.

Wirt said he was embarrassed how to make up an opinion which would not implicate Crawford for neglect. He (Wirt) had given two years ago an opinion upon the same case, in which he recommended that a prosecution should, by direction of the Treasury Department, be commenced. Instead of which, Craw ford wrote directing that the documents should be all submitted to the Court before which it was supposed the prosecution had been commenced. This supposition was directly contrary both to the fact and to the recommendation of the Attorney-General ; but the consequence was that Mitchell escaped for the time. Rabun, the late Governor, suppressed the resolutions by which the Legislature of Georgia directed that the General Govern ment should be requested to commence prosecutions, and when Clark, after Rabun's death, did forward them, and the prose cutions were commenced, they were barred by the limitation of two years. The whole transaction is a succession of mal practices to screen Mitchell from punishment.

1 6th. Manuel Torres, the Charge d' Affaires from the new republic of Colombia, called this morning at my house, having arrived last evening from Philadelphia. He comes to renew his old propositions for a recognition of the republic of Colombia, and his request for a supply of muskets. He gave me, in his way, a long history of the campaign in Caraccas and New Granada, and requested to have another conversation with me, for which I appointed to-morrow at two o'clock. He told me that the Agents of South America who had been at Gibraltar

and organized the revolt of Quiroga were new members of the Cortes in Spain.

At one o'clock I presented Mr. Stratford Canning, as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from Great Britain, to the President, to whom he delivered a credential letter from the King of Great Britain, together with two others ; one being the letter announcing the recall of Sir Charles Bagot from the mission to the United States, and the other, the decease of the Duchess of York. Mr. Canning was accompanied by Mr. Antrobus, who took leave as Charge d'Affaires, and by Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Parish, whom he presented as persons at tached to the Legation. He addressed the President in a formal, though short, complimentary speech, which the Presi dent answered with simplicity and propriety. Canning's speech was high-charged both with compliments and with professions. These are formalities, of course, of which I have delivered and heard so many that they seem to me flat and unprofitable. Mr. Canning told me he wished to have another conversation with me on the slave-trade propositions. I appointed the day after to-morrow, at two o'clock, to receive him.

Mr. Calhoun was also at the office with a letter from General Flournoy, a Commissioner for negotiating a treaty of cession from the Creek Indians. There are two Commissioners of the United States, and two on the part of the State of Georgia. Flournoy writes that the Georgia Commissioners claim to join in holding the treaty, and desires the Secretary of War to write to him that it can be held only by the Commissioners of the United States. Mr. Calhoun came with direction from the President that I should write to the same effect to Governor Clark.

i /th. Mr. Manuel Torres came to the office and entertained me again nearly two hours with his demand for recognition of the republic of Colombia and a supply of muskets. Torres is a European Spaniard, and has all that patelinage that belongs to the Spanish character. He is withal not a little vain, and fancies himself very profound. The substance of his discourse was that the Colombians were before this time, or very shortly would be, in possession of Carthagena and of all Terra Firma ;

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that Bolivar was with Montilla, and that there was a perfect good understanding between them ; that Morillo, the Spanish General, must very shortly be compelled to evacuate the country ; but that the European sovereigns were hostile to the cause of the South Americans, and that Bolivar preferred a very intimate connection with the United States. He then went into a long argument to prove that there would be no rivalry of com merce between the United States and the republic of Colombia, the only production of export common to them both being tobacco, and that of Varinas being so different from any of ours that there could be no competition between them ; that between the coast of Terra Firma and Mexico, and other parts of South America, there must always be an immense coasting trade, and, as the Colombians themselves were not navigators, having neither shipping nor seamen, the carrying of this trade might be secured by treaty to the people of the United States.

This idea was, however, indistinctly and obscurely presented — apparently as a bait, and with qualifications affording means of withdrawing from it if a disposition should appear on our side to accept it. I listened to him with all the patience and attention that I could command, without entering into discus sion upon any of his proposals, but finally requesting him to address them to me in writing, which he promised he would.