Beschreibung:

ADAMS, JOHN QUINCY President . Autograph letter signed in full as U.S. Minister to Russia, to George Joy in London; St. Petersburg, 4 August 1812. 3 1/2 pages, 4to, minor browning, a small hole at one fold intersection. A REVEALING LETTER ON THE "CHESAPEAKE" INCIDENT AND THE PROSPECT OF ANOTHER WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN A fine, detailed letter on the deteriorating state of British-American relations in which Adams sets out American grievances over the Chesapeake-Leopard incident. He has received from Joy two pamphlets and a manuscript copy of another "letter to the noble Lord." These he has read, and, "...I consider their reasoning as quite unanswerable, and it is presented in lights suitable to carry conviction, where it was to be produced." He notes a passage "alluding to a publication of mine, written at a very early period of these controversies... I gave much at large my reasons for that opinion, nor have I seen cause since, to apprehend that I had entertained it unjustly. I did not know...until now, that either the King or the Regent, had felt or manifested personally so strong and clear an inclination that reparation should be made for the outrage upon the Chesapeake...." He observes a "concession" contained in one passage, and asks Joy to "remember that in the very instrument offering this atonement, the British Government falsely pretended that it included the punishment of the offending Officer, while in reality they inflexibly refused to punish him at all. By accepting an atonement, relinquishing that most important part of the Satisfaction which America had so great a right to demand, was it not incumbent upon the President to shew, that he did not recognize the pretence of Berkley's punishment to have been really such - and would it not really have been more honourable to the King of England, to have punished the offender in fact, than to have pretended he had punished him, when he really had not, but had peremptorily refused to punish him?" In light of the facts, "I do most heartily approve of that expression of dissatisfaction, which Mr, Smith inserted by Mr. Madison's express command....After all the bluster of [Prime Minister] Canning...the British Government ha[s] finally agreed to make the very same atonement...." "Since the publication of these two pamphlets, what a change in the relations between the United States and Great Britain has already taken place! How many questions to settle besides anti-neutral orders in Council and Non-Importations, or Impressment of Seamen and exclusion of Ships of War. Even yet however I would not despair that Peace may be restored, if not preserved....When England has yielded the substance , I am willing to hope she will persist in obtaining the object for which it was conceded. Upon herself alone I am persuaded it depends...." The U.S. frigate Chesapeake had been stopped upon the high seas by the British ship Leopard , severely damaged by cannonfire and boarded. Several seamen, whom the British claimed as deserters, were forcibly removed. Negotiations over the affair, reparations and the punishment of the British captain dragged on until 1811, and the controversy, as reflected in the present letter, continued even after Congress declared war (on June 18, 1812) and hostilities broke out.