Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/60

50 proper to propose alterations in the body of the treaty:—


 * "The undersigned is commanded distinctly to protest against a practice altogether unusual in the political transactions of States, by which the American government assumes to itself the privilege of revising and altering agreements concluded and signed on its behalf by its agents duly authorized for that purpose, of retaining so much of those agreements as may be favorable to its own views, and of rejecting such stipulations, or such parts of stipulations, as are conceived to be not sufficiently beneficial to America."

Without discussing the correctness of Canning's assertion that the practice was "altogether unusual in the political transactions of States," Monroe and Pinkney might have replied that every European treaty was negotiated, step by step, under the eye of the respective governments, and that probably no extant treaty had been signed by a British agent in Europe without first receiving at every stage the approval of the King. No American agent could consult his government. Canning was officially aware that Monroe and Pinkney, in signing their treaty, had done so at their own risk, in violation of the President's orders. The requirement that the President of the United States should follow European rules was unreasonable; but in the actual instance Canning's tone was something more than unreasonable. His own note assumed for the British government "the privilege of revising and altering" whatever