Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/443

424 of 1794." The offer of considering the treaty as in force "must be regarded as a boon to America; and it was made merely under the persuasion that if accepted it would be accepted with a view to maintain a friendly relation between the two countries, and to avoid in the interval everything which could lead to interrupt it. If this system is followed in America, it will be followed here in every respect with an anxious desire for the continuance of harmony and cordiality."

The same conditional and semi-threatening disposition toward good-will ran through the rest of these instructions. In regard to the boundary convention, his Majesty's government would at all times be ready to reopen the whole subject; "but they can never acquiesce in the precedent which in this as well as in a former instance the American government has endeavored to establish, of agreeing to ratify such parts of a convention as they may select, and of rejecting other stipulations of it, formally agreed upon by a minister invested with full powers for the purpose."

Finally, Merry was to "avoid, as far as possible, any language which might be conceived to be of a menacing or hostile tendency, or which might be construed into an indication of a desire on the part of his Majesty's government to decline any discussion of the several points now pending between the two countries." Lord Harrowby clearly wished to encourage discussion to the utmost. He left the "