“I am therefore not to direct you to propose to the American government any formal agreement to be substituted for that which his Majesty has been under the necessity of disavowing. You are, however, at liberty to receive for reference home any proposal which the American government may tender to you; but it is only in the case of that proposal comprehending all the three conditions which Mr. Erskine was instructed to require.” The fourth instruction prescribed the forms in which such an arrangement, if made, must be framed. The fifth dealt with another branch of the subject,--the Rule of 1756. Canning declined to accept a mere understanding in regard to this rule. Great Britain would insist on her right to prohibit neutral trade with enemies’ colonies, “of which she has permitted the exercise only by indulgence; ... but the indulgence which was granted for peculiar and temporary reasons being now withdrawn, the question is merely whether the rule from which such an indulgence was a deviation shall be established by the admission of America or enforced as heretofore by the naval power of Great Britain.” As a matter of courtesy the British government had no objection to allowing the United States to sanction by treaty the British right, so that legal condemnations should be made under the authority of the treaty instead of an Order in Council; “but either authority is sufficient. No offence is taken at the refusal of the United States to make this matter subject of compact. The result is that it must be the subject of an Order in Council.” The result was that it became the subject of a much higher tribunal than his Majesty’s Council, and that the British people, and Canning himself, took great offence at the refusal of the United States to make it a subject of one-sided compact; but with this concluding touch Canning’s official irony toward America ended, and he laid down his pen. About the middle of June, Jackson with three well-defined _casus belli_ in his portfolio, and another--that of impressments--awaiting his arrival, set sail for America on the errand which he strangely hoped might not be desperate. With his departure Canning’s control of American relations ceased. At the moment when he challenged for the last time an instant declaration of war from a people who had no warmer wish than to be permitted to remain his friends, the career of the Administration to which he belonged came to an end in scandalous disaster.