In this spirit Jackson was to meet any “preliminary discussion” which might arise before he could proceed to negotiation. Canning did not touch on the probability that if Jackson met preliminary discussion in such a spirit as this, he would run something more than a risk of never reaching negotiation at all; or if Canning considered this point, he treated it orally. The other written instructions given to Jackson dealt at once with negotiation. The “Chesapeake” affair came first in order, and was quickly dismissed. Jackson was to require from the President a written acknowledgment that the interdict on British ships was annulled before any settlement could be made. The Orders in Council came next, and were the subject of a long instruction, full of interest and marked by many of Canning’s peculiarities. Once more he explained that Erskine had inverted the relation of things by appearing to recall the orders as an inducement to the renewal of trade,--“as if in any arrangement, whether commercial or political, his Majesty could condescend to barter objects of national policy and dignity for permission to trade with another country. The character even more than the stipulations of such a compact must under any circumstances have put out of question the possibility of his Majesty’s consenting to confirm it.” He related the history of the orders, which he called “defensive retaliation,” and explained why Erskine’s arrangement failed to effect the object of that system:-- “In the arrangement agreed to by Mr. Erskine the incidental consequence is mistaken for the object of the negotiation. His Majesty is made by his minister to concede the whole point in dispute by the total and unconditional recall of the Orders in Council; and nothing is done by the United States in return except to permit their citizens to renew their commercial intercourse with Great Britain. Whereas, before his Majesty’s consent to withdraw or even to modify the Orders in Council was declared, the United States should have taken upon themselves to execute in substance the objects of the Orders in Council by effectually prohibiting all trade between their citizens and France, or the Powers acting under her decrees, and by engaging for the continuance of that prohibition so long as those decrees should continue unrepealed.”