Mr. Morrisrose and spoke to the following effect:—Sir, I was very anxious to have offered myself to your notice on the night of the last debate, after an allusion which had been made towards the close of it, to the provisional agreement which had been entered into by an honourable relation of mine (Mr. Erskine) as his Majesty's minister to the United States, but I am not sorry that I did not catch your eye, as I may perhaps hope to experience from the indulgence of the House, from the peculiar personal interest I feel in the question, as well as from its public importance, a more patient attention than could have been afforded at that late hour in its then exhausted state.—It is perfectly correct, as stated by my right hon. friend (Mr. Perceval), that the dispatch communicated to parliament, of the 23rd of January last, was the only dispatch by which conditions were prescribed to Mr. Erskine, for the concluding a provisional agreement; but I can by no means admit, that when he found that the conditions were impracticable according to the letter, he might not have found it expedient to refer to his other instructions for the purpose of ascertaining, whether he would be acting in conformity to the wishes of his Majesty's government, if he was to comply with the sense and spirit of his instructions, though he could not with the letter. I can, therefore, in no shape admit that the other dispatches might not have materially contributed to the judgment he formed, when he considered this substantial compliance with the instructions as within the scope of his duty. That he did so consider them, we have his own authority in a letter which he wrote to Mr. Smith, and which has been since published, in which letter he speaks of his several letters of instruction, as having led him to think that he should consult the views of his majesty's government, by following the spirit of his instructions when he could not have them complied with according to the letter. It is quite clear, therefore, that in his judgment, the other letters of instruction are material to the forming an opinion of his case—that opinion may be erroneous. We, the House, can be in no condition to call it so, unless the instructions are produced. Ministers may, if they please, withhold them; with 111 them rests the responsibility. I know no reason why they should. I am not aware of any objection which can be made to their being made public; but if they are not, the public is not in possession of the whole of his case, that must be before them in a disadvantageous light; and they are bound to say, that on grounds of public expediency, it is so left: but whatever may be said on the subject of instructions, though these instructions may be withheld, I am satisfied, that no objection can be raised to the production of the answer returned by him to the dispatch communicated to the House. I am wholly at a loss to conjecture why that was withheld. I cannot understand on what principle the dispatch was communicated, and not his answer—his answer, which contained the terms he had obtained, which would have proved, that in what he had obtained those very conditions were substantially recognized—recognized, in the only way in which they could have been recognized, consistent with the forms of the American government. There can be no note in writing from the American executive—they have no power, no authority to give it. This official recognition is as binding, therefore, as any note in writing could be. I am the more astonished that this communication was not produced, because I find that Mr. Jackson adverts to it, and says, that it appears from thence, that the conditions were sent over to Mr. Smith; that Mr. Erskine had repeated in that communication, verbatim et seriatim, what had passed in his conferences with Mr. Smith, on the subject of these conditions; so that not only the existence of the document is thus publicly admitted, but its contents; and that they are obviously most important to the decision of the question there can be no doubt, when it is the statement of what passed between him and Mr. Smith, at the time of entering into the agreement, and contains the pledge of the American government, the official recognition by the American executive, of those very conditions in substance, though not in the form required. It is the having withheld this dispatch that I cannot but consider as a great injury to the reputation of my relation, who was held up to the country as having given up every thing and gained nothing? when, if this communication had been laid before parliament, they would have been able to judge, whether he was right in considering that he had 112 thus obtained the substance of the conditions prescribed, though not the letter, and thereby accomplished the object of his majesty's ministers, in the only practical way they could be accomplished. Let it not be supposed for a moment, that he was vain or silly enough to substitute views of policy of his own for those of his government—it was their policy, their system; it is on the supposed adoption of their policy, and their system in its sense and spirit, that he puts his justification. I shall not trespass any farther on the House on this part of the subject, as a notice just given by my hon. friend (Mr. Whitbread) will afford an early opportunity for that purpose; but there is another point, of at least equal importance to the character of my honourable relation, which I am most anxious to set right—I do not mean to say, that Mr. Jackson has directly asserted that Mr. Erskine was ordered to give an explanation to the American government of the reasons which had influenced his Majesty's minister to disavow the arrangement he had made; but if he is not to be considered as asserting, at least he insinuates it so strongly, that I am bound on the part of my hon. relation to say, that he was not ordered to give that explanation—that he was not authorized to give it either directly or indirectly: and I am the more anxious to state this, because reasons were assigned for his having withheld it, of a private and personal nature; he is supposed to have withheld it from some delicacy attaching to the peculiar situation in which he found himself from the disavowal; nay, more, he is supposed to have relied on the goodness of the President, as affording him an excuse in that respect. What is this, in other words, but saying, that he was guilty of a dereliction of his public duty from some considerations which were purely personal to himself; and how is this charge aggravated when that explanation having been withheld, is one of the principal complaints made by the American government; so that from some supposed personal motive he has abstained from the discharge of his public duty, and by so doing, has increased the irritation already excited in that country? What is the House to think, when I state that he was not ordered or authorized to make the communication, and that under the circumstances in which he was placed, to have made that communication 113 without order or authority, would have been to the last degree indecorous or unjustifiable? From Mr Jackson's mode of describing that explanation, too, it does not seem as if the communication of it was likely to have conciliated the American government. The forcible terms in which it was said to have been conveyed, do not sound as if they were likely to have allayed the resentment, or soothed the feelings of the American government; but whether they were or not, he had no discretion given to him upon the subject; and to make a charge upon him for having kept back this explanation, from motives of a private nature, is to inflict a wound upon his reputation. I do not mean to lay any imputation upon Mr. Jackson. I must presume he acted according to the best of his judgment in the discharge of his public duty; but, Sir, I deny that any motives for embarrassment existed, or any cause from which it could have arisen—that Mr. Erskine had hoped to have considered himself the instrument of his Majesty's government, for allaying the animosity which had unhappily prevailed between Great Britain and America, is most true; that he had hoped to bring about, with due attention to his instructions, a re-union between two countries connected by ties of blood, by identity of interests, by congenial sentiments of liberty, at a time when the very name of it is banished from the rest of the civilized world; that he had hoped to have accomplished this, not a tame, passive re-union, but one which would lead to cordial, active co-operation against France; that this was a proud object of ambition, and that he was humbled, mortified, and grieved when he found that he had failed, I am free to admit; that his being thus mistaken in his view of what were the wishes of his Majesty's government, and that this mistake was painful to him in the extreme, I believe; but that there were any other sentiments, or any ideas of delicacy or embarrassment, which induced him to swerve from any part of his duty, or that he could have suppressed explanation from the influence of any such feelings as those ascribed to him. I utterly deny. I have addressed the House somewhat more at length than I originally intended, and I thank them for the attention with which they have listened to me; and the great interest which I cannot but take in the subject must be my apology.