nor would do, any thing whatever to prevent or retard, its ratification.

I here renewed the expression of my satisfaction; telling him also, that I had already reported to my government the assurance, transient and informal as it was, which he had given me at Carlton House.

He then recurred, of his own accord, to the affair of Arbuthnot and Ambrister. He remarked, that it had been a case of no common difficulty; the cabinet had found it so, and he hoped that the proper inferences would be drawn by the government of of the United States, respecting the conciliatory dispositions of England on that occasion.

I replied, that I believed my government would not fail to draw the proper inferences, and certainly I had not failed in making communications to it calculated to lead to them; for that here, on the spot, I had seen and fully appreciated the difficulties which encompassed His Majesty's ministers; whose wisdom and firmness, throughout that whole transaction, if I might presume to say so, I considered a blessing to both countries. He then added these words: That had the English cabinet felt and acted otherwise than it did, such was the temper of parliament and such the feeling of the country, he believed

WAR MIGHT HAVE BEEN PRODUCED BY HOLDING UP

A FINGER; and he even thought an address to the

crown might have been carried for one, BY NEARLY

AN UNANIMOUS VOTE.

These words made their impression upon me. I thought them memorable at the time. I think so still. They were calmly but deliberately spoken. Lord Castlereagh was not a man to speak hastily. Always self-possessed, always firm and fearless, his judgment was the guide of his opinions, and his opinions of his conduct, undaunted by opposition, in Parliament or out of it. Political foes conceded to him these qualities. What he said to me on this occasion I have reasons for knowing he said to others, in effect, if not in words; and I wrote his words to my government. The lapse of a quarter of a century ought not to diminish the feeling properly due to a British ministry which, by its single will, resisting the nearly universal feeling of the two great parties of the kingdom, in all probability prevented a war; a war into which passion might have rushed, but for the preponderating calmness and reason in those who wielded at that epoch the executive power of England.

CHAPTER X.

ORDER IN COUNCIL PROHIBITING THE EXPORTATION

OF ARMS TO SPAIN.

PARTY AT PRINCE LEOPOLD'S.

LETTERS TO MR. GALLATIN, AND COLONEL TRUMBULL. DINNER AT THE VICE CHANCELLOR'S. NOTICE OF CERTAIN MEASURES OF PARLIAMENT, AMONGST THEM, MR. PEEL'S REPORT ON THE CURRENCY.

July 20. By an order in council passed last week, the exportation of gunpowder, saltpetre, or of arms and amunition of any description from the ports of Great Britain, to any ports within the dominion of the king of Spain, is prohibited. This interdict comes opportunely after the Foreign Enlistment bill. It takes the ground as far as it goes, of neutrality in substance as well as name between Spain and the colonies; there having been an order in force for some time prohibiting the exportation of the same things to Spanish America.

July 23. Last night we were at Prince Leopold's, Marlborough House. The Prince Regent and

most of the Royal Family, were there; a great assemblage of nobility; the foreign ambassadors and ministers, with many others of the court circle.

This Prince, consort of the late heiress presumptive to the throne, long in retirement after her death, now returns to society, and Marlborough House, built for the great Duke of Marlborough, becomes his residence and scene of his hospitalities. Being there, for the first time, last night, I could not divest myself of the historical associations which belong to the house. The spacious hall is ornamented with paintings illustrative of the Duke's victories. Among them is the great battle of Hochstadt, (or Blenheim) where the French commander, Tallard, was taken; and where he, the Duke, and Prince Eugene, are all represented. In the principal drawing room, hangs a full-length portrait of the late Princess Charlotte, by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

One anecdote connected with this edifice, bearing the historical name of "Marlborough House," is, that, when first erected, it so overshadowed St. James's Palace, which it adjoins, as to excite the jealousy of Queen Anne. Others are told, pointing to the supposed avarice of the Duke whilst it was building, which need not be repeated; the less, as in a conversation I had the honor to hold with a distinguished lady at this party, we spoke of Coxe's life of Marlborough, lately published, where the Duke's

private correspondence, given with all apparent fidelity, does not, as we both agreed, seem to show any traces of the disposition to avarice so long and generally imputed to him. The same lady spoke of Evelyn's Memoirs, a recent attractive publication, which she had also been reading, and which she commended highly.

July 24. Yesterday, Mr. Bourke, the Danish minister, and Mrs. Bourke; Count Ludolf, Neapolitan minister, and Countess Ludolf; Baron Langsdorff, minister from Baden and Hesse; Baron Bulow, Prussian Chargé d'Affaires; General Cadwalader, Mr. David Parish, and Dr. Bollman, the three last of the United States, dine with us. Count Ludolf tells me that Sir Henry Wellesley, British Ambassador at Madrid, writes word to his government that the Florida treaty will be ratified. He also mentions a report that the Chevalier de Onis has been forbidden to enter Madrid; and informs me that affairs between Spain and Portugal remain unsettled, the former still refusing an adjustment of the difficulty about Montevideo, upon the basis proposed by the Allied Powers at Aix la Chapelle.

July 25. Write the following letter to Mr. Gallatin, which belongs to the topics of that of the 30th of June: