te, for deserters.

_If_, therefore, _the statement in your note should prove to be
correct_, and to contain all the circumstances of the case, upon
which the complaint is intended to be made, and it shall appear
that the action of his Majesty's officers rested on no other
grounds than the simple and unqualified assertion of the
pretension above referred to, his Majesty has no difficulty in
disavowing the act, and will have no difficulty in manifesting
his displeasure at the conduct of his officers.

With respect to the other causes of complaint, (whatever they
may be,) which are hinted at in your note, I perfectly agree
with you, in the sentiment which you express, as to the
propriety of not involving them in a question, which of itself
is of sufficient importance to claim a separate and most serious
consideration.

_I have only to lament that the same sentiment did not induce
you to abstain from alluding to these subjects_, on an occasion
which you were yourself of opinion was not favorable for
pursuing the discussion of them.[190]

I have the honor to be, with great consideration, your most
obedient, humble servant

GEORGE CANNING.

JAMES MONROE, ESQ. &C.

While the right of the occasion was wholly with the American nation,
the honors of the discussion, the weight of the first broadside,
rested so far with the British Secretary; the more so that Monroe, by
his manner of adducing his "other causes of complaint," admitted their
irrelevancy and yet characterized them irritatingly to his
correspondent. "I might state other examples of great indignity and
outrage, many of which are of recent date, to which the United States
have been exposed off their own coast, and even within several of
their harbors, from the British squadron; but it is improper to mingle
them with the present more serious causes of complaint." This invited
Canning's retort,--You do mingle them, in the same sentence in which
you admit the impropriety. And why, he shrewdly insinuated,
precipitate action ahead of knowledge, when the facts must soon be
known? The unspoken reason is evident. Because a government, which by
its own fault is weak, will try with big words to atone to the public
opinion of its people for that which it cannot, or will not, effect in
deeds. Bluster, whether measured or intemperate in terms, is blus