Canning next turned to Pinkney to ascertain how much concession would be safe. The interview took place January 22; but Pinkney’s powers had been withdrawn, and he neither could nor would furnish Canning with any assurance on which a concession could be offered with the certainty either that it would be accepted, or that it would be refused. Canning seemed particularly anxious to know how the embargo could be effectually enforced against commerce with France, after being removed in regard to England.[44] He “presumed that the government of the United States would not complain if the naval force of this country should assist in preventing such a commerce.”[45] Pinkney felt many doubts of Canning’s good faith,[46] and had every reason for avoiding committal of himself or of his Government. According to his own account, he declined to enter into the discussion of details, and confined himself to general encouragement of Canning’s good disposition.[47] After experimenting upon Pinkney, much as he had sounded Parliament, Canning lost not an hour in composing the new instructions to Erskine. Four in number, all bearing the same date of January 23, they dealt successively with each of the disputed points; but in order to understand the embroilment they caused, readers must carry in mind, even at some effort of memory, precisely what Canning ordered Erskine to do, and precisely what Erskine did. The first instruction dealt with the “Chesapeake” affair, and the Proclamation occasioned by it. Accepting Gallatin’s idea that the Proclamation being merged in the general non-intercourse would cease to exist as a special and separate provision of law, Canning instructed Erskine that if French ships of war should be excluded from American ports, and if the Proclamation should be tacitly withdrawn, he need no longer insist upon the formal recall. Further, Gallatin had suggested that Congress was about to exclude foreign seamen by law from national ships; and Canning admitted also this evasion of his demand that the United States should engage not to countenance desertions. Finally, he withdrew the demand for disavowals which had wrecked Rose’s mission.