Evidently the British government wished to settle the “Chesapeake” affair. Had Canning in like manner swept away his old conditions precedent to withdrawal of the Orders in Council, his good faith would have been above suspicion; but he approached that subject in a different spirit, and imposed one condition after another while he adopted the unusual course of putting each new condition into the mouth of some American official. He drew from Erskine’s despatches the inference that Madison, Smith, and Gallatin were willing to recognize in express terms the validity of the British “Rule of 1756.”[48] For this misunderstanding Erskine was to blame,[49] but Canning was alone responsible for the next remark, that “Mr. Pinkney has recently, but for the first time, expressed to me his opinion that there will be no indisposition on the part of his Government to the enforcement, by the naval power of Great Britain,” of the Act of Congress declaring non-intercourse with France. On the strength of these supposed expressions of William Pinkney, Madison, Smith, and Gallatin, none of which was official or in writing, Canning concluded:-- “I flatter myself that there will be no difficulty in obtaining a distinct and official recognition of these conditions from the American government. For this purpose you are at liberty to communicate this despatch _in extenso_ to the American government.” The chief interest of these instructions lay in the question whether Canning meant in good faith to offer on any conditions a withdrawal of the Orders in Council. The course of his own acts and of Perceval’s measures, suggested that he did not intend to offer any terms which the United States could accept. His remark to Perceval three weeks before, that they were quite at liberty to take new steps without “any hazard of seeing them too well received,” pointed in the same direction. Yet motives were enigmas too obscure for search, and the motives of Canning in this instance were more perplexing than usual. If he was serious in hoping an agreement, how could he insist on requiring official recognition of the right of Great Britain to enforce the municipal laws of the United States when he afterward admitted that such a claim “could not well find its way into a stipulation; that he had nevertheless believed it proper to propose the condition to the United States; that he should have been satisfied with the rejection of it; and that the consequence would have been that they should have intercepted the commerce to which it referred, if any such commerce should be attempted”?[50] In the instructions to Erskine he imposed the condition as essential to the agreement,--the same condition which he thought “could not well find its way into a stipulation,” and which “he should have been satisfied” to see rejected.