In support of Madison’s views Erskine reported December 4[335] a long conversation with Gallatin, which connected the action of Congress with the action of diplomacy. Gallatin and Robert Smith, according to the British minister, had not approved the embargo as a measure of defence, “and had thought that it had been better to have resorted to measures of a more decided nature at first; but that now they had no other means left but to continue it for a short time longer, and then in the event of no change taking place in the conduct of the belligerents toward the United States, to endeavor to assert their rights against both Powers.” Gallatin--acting as Madison’s Secretary of State--sketched an ingenious and plausible project which Erskine was to suggest for Canning’s use. His leading idea was simple. The total non-intercourse with both belligerents--the measure recommended by Campbell’s Report, and about to become law--must remove two causes of dispute with England; for this non-intercourse superseded the President’s “Chesapeake” proclamation and the Non-importation Act of April, 1806, against British manufactures. Henceforward England could not complain of American partiality to France, seeing that America impartially prohibited every kind of intercourse with both countries. This mode of conciliation was but a fair return for Canning’s conciliatory prohibition of American cotton, and if carried one step further must end on both sides in a declaration of war in order to prove their wish for peace; but Canning could hardly object to his own style of reasoning. After thus evading two English grievances, Gallatin arrived at his third point,--that Congress meant to interdict the employment of foreign seamen on American vessels, and thus put an end to all occasion for impressment. Finally, Erskine represented Gallatin as saying that the United States were ready to concede the Rule of 1756, and not to claim in time of war a trade prohibited in time of peace. In the ease of private and friendly conversation the most cautious of men, even more than the most reckless, stood at the mercy of reporters. Gallatin was by temperament excessively cautious, and was evidently on his guard in talking with Erskine; but he could not prevent Erskine from misunderstanding his words, and still less from misconstruing his reserve. The British minister afterward officially explained that the Secretary of the Treasury had offered no such concession as was implied by the Rule of 1756; he proposed only to yield the American claim, never yet seriously pressed, to the direct trade between the colonies of France and their mother country;[336] but although Erskine’s mistake on this point proved troublesome, it was not so embarrassing to Gallatin as the inference which the British minister drew from his reserve on a point of merely personal interest.