This letter, showing the certainty felt by all parties in American friendship, happened to be written on the day when the President signed the Act restoring commercial relations. After all that had occurred,--seizures, blockades, impressments, and Orders in Council; the “Chesapeake” affair, Rose’s mission, Canning’s letters, Erskine’s arrangement, and Jackson’s dismissal,--the British government counted its American policy as its chief success, and had the strongest reasons for doing so. American legislation was controlled by British influence, and Napoleon reasonably thought that neither robbery nor magnanimity would affect the result. The Marquess of Buckingham’s friend gave him exact information, as the news a few weeks later, of the Act of May 1, proved; but evidence much more convincing of the confidence felt by ministers in the attitude of America was given by George Canning, who claimed the credit for having brought about that settlement which gave a new lease of life to the Perceval Administration. June 15, a week before Parliament rose, Canning spoke.[224] “The recent proceedings of Congress,” he said, “have effected so much of what it was the anxious wish of the Government of which I was a member to attain, that I trust all our difficulties with America may be speedily adjusted. In truth I had never much doubt upon my mind that America, if left to her own policy and to the effect of those discussions which would take place in her own legislatures, general and provincial, would at no distant period arrive at that point at which, by the late Act of Congress, she appears to have arrived. No man is more anxious than I am for an amicable accommodation with that Power; but I trust at the same time that the change in the policy of the United States has not been effected by any improper concessions on our part,--a circumstance which I can fully disclaim during the period that I remained in office. I should rather hope that it has been the consequence of a determined adherence to that system which has been so often declaimed against in this House, but which has proved as clearly beneficial to the commercial interests as it has been consistent with the political dignity of this nation.” While it was possibly true, or soon became true, that the United States were, as Wellesley afterward alleged, infected by a deadly hostility to England, neither Wellesley nor Canning, nor any other English statesman in the year 1810, suspected the strength of that passion, or dreamed of shaping a policy to meet the hatred which ought to have been constantly in their minds. Wellesley’s personal wishes were not easy to fathom, but they probably leaned, under Pinkney’s influence, toward conciliation. His actual measures showed a want of decision, or a degree of feebleness, unsuspected in his character.