The Proclamation of August 9 was sharply criticised, and with reason; for Congress had given the President no express authority to revive the Non-intercourse Act, and he had clearly exceeded his powers, if not in the Proclamation which revived the Act, then certainly in the original Proclamation of April 19, which set it aside. Even this stretch of authority hardly equalled Gallatin’s assumption of the power to admit what vessels he pleased without regard to the Non-intercourse Act. Yet right or wrong the President had no choice but to use all the powers he needed. Evidently his original mistake in opening intercourse was a greater stretch of authority than any subsequent act could be, except that of leaving it open after the mistake was admitted. Sullenly and awkwardly the Government restored some degree of order to its system, and then President and Cabinet scattered once more, leaving the village of Washington to the solitude of August and September. A month passed without further change, until September 5 Jackson landed at Annapolis, whence he reached Washington September 8. He came with his wife--a fashionable Prussian baroness with a toilette--and young children, for whose health a Washington September was ill suited; he came too with a carriage and liveries, coachmen and servants, and the outfit of a long residence, as though neither he nor Canning doubted his welcome. Francis James Jackson had many good qualities, and was on the whole the only English minister of his time so severely treated by the American government as to warrant almost a feeling of sympathy. He was probably suffering from some organic disease which made his temper irritable, while his instructions were such as to leave him no room to show his best capacities in his profession. In ordinary times a man of his experience, intelligence, and marked character might have succeeded in winning at Washington a name for ability and straightforwardness; but he was ill fitted for the special task he had undertaken, and had no clear idea of the dangers to which he was exposed. Gallatin expressed the feeling of the Administration when he advised coming at once to the point with Jackson, and bringing his negotiation to an immediate close. Madison could not have wished to repeat his experience with Rose, or to allow a British minister to reside at Washington for the sole purpose of dividing American counsels and intriguing with Senator Pickering. Had Jackson been quick in his perceptions, he would have seen early that nothing but mortification could be in store for him; but he had the dogged courage and self-confidence of his time, and undertook to deal single-handed with a government and people he did not trouble himself to understand.