Alluding to the negotiations which had been commenced in London, this gentleman endeavoured to assign a satisfactory cause for the delays which had intervened.

It was not improbable, he said, that these delays, and some other circumstances, might have impressed Mr.Morris with an idea of backwardness on the part of the British ministry.

His lordship, however, had directed him to say, that an inference of this sort would not, in his opinion, be well founded, as he had reason to believe that the British cabinet was inclined not only towards a friendly intercourse, but towards an alliance with the United States.
Major Beckwith represented the particular ground of quarrel as one which ought to interest all commercial nations in favour of the views of Great Britain; and, from that circumstance, he presumed that, should a war ensue, the United States would find their interest in taking part with Britain, rather than with Spain.
After expressing the concern with which Lord Dorchester had heard of the depredations of the savages on the western frontier of the United States, he declared that his lordship, so far from countenancing these depredations, had taken every proper opportunity to impress upon the Indians a pacific disposition; and that, on his first hearing of the outrages lately committed, he had sent a messenger to endeavour to prevent them.

Major Beckwith further intimated, that the perpetrators of the late murders were banditti, composed chiefly of Creeks and Cherokees, in the Spanish interest, over whom the governor of Canada possessed no influence.
These communications were laid before the President, and appeared to him to afford an explanation of the delays experienced by Mr.Morris.
He was persuaded that a disposition existed in the cabinet of London to retain things in their actual situation, until the intentions of the American government should be ascertained with respect to the war supposed to be approaching.

If the United States would enter into an alliance with Great Britain, and would make a common cause with her against Spain, the way would be smoothed to the attainment of all their objects: but if America should be disinclined to such a connexion, and especially, if she should manifest any partiality towards Spain, no progress would be made in the attempt to adjust the point of difference between the two nations.