“It is not improbable, indeed, that some alterations may be made in the Orders of Council as they are at present framed,--alterations calculated, not to abate their spirit or impair their principle, but to adapt them more exactly to the different state of things which has fortunately grown up in Europe, and to combine all practicable relief to neutrals with a more severe pressure upon the enemy. But of alterations to be made with this view only it would be uncandid to take any advantage in the present discussion, however it might be hoped that in their practical effect they might prove beneficial to America, provided the operation of the embargo were not to prevent her from reaping that benefit.” This intended change in the orders depended on the political change which converted Spain from an enemy into an ally. Spencer Perceval did not care to press the cause of British commerce so far as to tax American wheat and salt-fish on their way to Spain and Portugal, where he must himself provide money to pay for them after they were bought by the army commissaries. Accordingly, in December, 1808, a new Order in Council appeared, doing away with the export duties lately imposed by Parliament on foreign articles passing through England. Thenceforward American wheat might be shipped at Liverpool for the Spanish peninsula without paying ten shillings a quarter to the British Treasury,[34] if only the embargo did not prevent American wheat from entering Liverpool at all. In a short note, dated December 24, Canning enclosed to Pinkney a copy of the new order; and while taking care to explain that this measure conceded nothing in principle, he offered it as a step toward removing the most offensive, if not the most oppressive, restraint imposed on American commerce by the Orders of 1807:-- “As I have more than once understood from you that the part of the Orders in Council which this order goes to mitigate is that which was felt most sorely by the United States, I have great pleasure in being authorized to communicate it to you.” Pinkney was in no humor to bear more of what he considered Canning’s bad taste, and he could have but one opinion of the measure which Canning announced. “This order is a shadow,” he wrote to Madison,[35] “and if meant to conciliate us, ridiculous.” His reply to Canning verged for the first time on abruptness, as though the moment were near when he meant to speak another language.