e of the French statesmen occasionally say what is
not true; here (in London) they conceal the truth.' But while in
diplomacy he found strength and the opinion of that strength to be the
only weapons, he felt satisfaction that the country could support its
rights and pretensions by assuming a different attitude. In the course
of the negotiations Mr. Gallatin learned that one of the king's
ministers had complained of the tone of United States diplomacy towards
England, and had added, that it was time to show that it was felt and
resented. No such fault could attach to the correspondence of Mr. Rush
and Mr. King, or to that of Mr. Clay, which Mr. Addington had found
quite acceptable; but it was ascribed to Mr. Adams's instructions to Mr.
Rush, printed by order of the Senate. Mr. Gallatin later discovered that
the offensive remarks were in Baylies's report on the territory west of
the Stony Mountains. Mr. Gallatin explained the independence of the
House committees in the United States, but as a diplomatist he felt the
need of a concert between the executive and the committees of Congress
in all that concerns foreign relations. Government, after all, is a
complex science.

The simple directness with which Mr. Gallatin dealt with Lord Liverpool
could not serve with a man of Canning's disposition. Mr. Gallatin did
not fail to bring to bear the pressure of a possible change in the
relations of the United States and Great Britain, which might arise from
the war which seemed imminent between that power and Spain. The new
questions of Cuba, and the old habit of impressment, might at once bring
the United States into collision with England. But the war did not take
place, and the close of the year found the negotiations not far
advanced. Only the convention of 1815 would no doubt be renewed. He
asked for further instructions on that subject, the joint occupancy of
western territory, and impressments, all of which he hoped to arrange
in the spring and summer, and return home. Mr. Lawrence he found to be a
secretary more capable in the current business of the legation than any
of his predecessors. Mr. Gallatin could safely leave him there as
_charge d'affaires_.

In December, Chateaubriand used in the House of Peers the words which
Mr. Gallatin had said to him, 'that England could not take Cuba without
making war on the United States, and that she knew it.' Mr. Gallatin so
informed Adams, and added, that France would no doubt agree