n a good cause
made him over-zealous. He exceeded the letter of his instructions, while
keeping, as he thought, to their spirit. Probably he mistook their
spirit in assuming that his government cared more to secure a settlement
of existing difficulties than for the precise terms and minor details by
which it should be reached. At any rate, he agreed that Great Britain
would withdraw her orders in council provided the United States would
maintain the non-intercourse acts against France so long as the Berlin
and Milan decrees remained in force. This being secured, he did not
insist upon two other conditions--partly because it was represented to
him that they would need some action by Congress, and partly because he
believed that the essential point was gained by an agreement on the part
of the United States to enforce non-intercourse against France while her
decrees were unrepealed. These other conditions were, first, that the
United States should cease to insist upon the right to carry on in time
of war the colonial trade of a belligerent which had not been open in
time of peace to neutrals; and, second, the acknowledgment that British
men-of-war might rightfully seize American merchant vessels when
transgressing the non-intercourse laws against France. He also proposed
a settlement of the Chesapeake question, but omitted to say, as Canning
had instructed him to say, that some provision would be made, as an act
of generosity and not of right, for the wives and children of the men
who were killed on board that ship. But when that settlement was
accepted by the administration, he failed to resent some reflections
from Robert Smith, the secretary of state, on the conduct of Great
Britain in that affair, which Canning, when he heard of them, thought
should have been resented and their recall demanded, or the negotiation
stopped.

On the terms, however, as Erskine chose to present them, an agreement
was reached, and the President issued a proclamation repealing the acts
of embargo and non-intercourse as against Great Britain and her colonies
after June 10. On that day more than a thousand ships, loaded and
riding at anchor in all the principal ports in anxious readiness for
the signal for flight, spread their wings, like a flock of
long-imprisoned birds, and flew out to sea. There was an almost
universal shout of gratitude to the new President, who, in the first
three months of his administration, had banished the fear of war