e notice it probably was not allowed to go. Canning, in his third
rejected condition, had written:

Great Britain, for the purpose of securing _the operation of_
the embargo, and _of_ the bona fide intention of America to
prevent her citizens from trading with France, and the Powers
adopting and acting under the French decrees, is to be
considered as being at liberty to capture all such American
vessels as shall be found attempting to trade with the ports of
such Powers;[299]

and he explained that, unless such permission was granted, "the
raising of the embargo nominally as to Great Britain, would raise it,
in fact, with respect to all the world," owing to the evident
inability of the United States to enforce its orders beyond its own
ports.

In the passage quoted, both the explanatory comment and the syntax
show that the object of this proposed concession was to secure _the
operation_, the effectual working, of the _bona fide_ intention
expressly conceded to the American Government. The repetition of the
preposition "of," before _bona fide_, secures this meaning beyond
peradventure. Nevertheless Smith, in labored arraignment of the whole
British course, wrote to Pinkney as follows:

In urging this concession, Mr. Canning has taken a ground
forbidden by those principles of decorum which regulate and mark
the proceedings of Governments towards each other. In his
despatch the condition is stated to be for the purpose of
_securing the bona fide intention_ of America, to prevent her
citizens from trading with France and certain other Powers; in
other words to secure a pledge to that effect against the _mala
fide_ intention of the United States. And this despatch too was
authorized to be communicated _in extenso_ to the Government, of
which such language was used.[300]

Being addressed only to Pinkney, a man altogether too careful and
shrewd not to detect the mistake, no occasion arose for this grave
misstatement doing harm, or receiving correction. But, conjoined with
the failure to note that Jackson in his second letter had attributed
to his own communication the American Government's knowledge that
Erskine had no alternative instructions, the conclusion is
irresistible that the President acted, perhaps unconsciously, under
impulses foreign to the deliberate care which should precede and
accompany so momentous an act as the refusal to communicate w