As in the “Chesapeake” affair, so in regard to the orders,--Canning’s objection to Erskine’s arrangement was stated as one of form. That the “Chesapeake” proclamation was no longer in force; that Congress had effectually prohibited trade with France; and that the President had engaged as far as he could to continue that prohibition till the French Decrees were repealed,--these were matters of notoriety. England took the ground that the United States were liable to the operation of the British retaliatory orders against France, even though Congress should have declared war upon France, unless the declaration of war was regularly made known to the British minister at Washington, and unless “the United States should have taken upon themselves,” by treaty with England, to continue the war till France repealed her decrees. Canning was happy in the phrase he employed in Parliament, March 6, to justify the course of ministers toward America. “Extension of the law of nations” described well the Orders in Council themselves; but the instruction to Jackson was remarkable as a prodigious extension of the extended orders. The last legal plea was abandoned by these instructions, and the subject would have been the clearer for that abandonment were it not that owing to the rapidity of events the new extravagance was never known; with Canning himself the subject slipped from public view, and only the mystery remained of Canning’s objects and expectations. Another man would have temporized, and would have offered some suggestion toward breaking the force of such a blow at a friendly people. Not only did Canning make no new suggestion, but he even withdrew that which he had made in February. He told Jackson to propose nothing whatever:-- “You are to inform the American Secretary of State that in the event of the government of the United States being desirous now to adopt this proposal, you are authorized to renew the negotiation and to conclude it on the terms of my instructions to Mr. Erskine; but that you are not instructed to press upon the acceptance of the American government an arrangement which they have so recently declined, especially as the arrangement itself is become less important, and the terms of it less applicable to the state of things now existing.” The remainder of this despatch was devoted to proving that, the late order of April 26 had so modified that of November, 1807, as to remove the most serious American objections; and although the blockade was more restrictive than the old orders as concerned French and Dutch colonies, yet the recent surrender of Martinique had reduced the practical hardship of this restriction so considerably that it was fairly offset by the opening of the Baltic. America had the less inducement to a further arrangement which could little increase the extent of her commerce, while England was indifferent provided she obtained her indispensable objects:--