our part to
arrive at a friendly accommodation, but Jefferson demanded, as a
preliminary, the revocation of the British orders in council, and the
entire exemption of American ships from any search, or from any question
as to their crews or cargoes. The British government pledged itself to
repeal the orders in council as soon as the French decrees should cease
to exist. In 1809, Jefferson was succeeded as president by Madison, who
was compelled to yield somewhat to the popular outcry, and to repeal the
universal embargo substituting a non-intercourse act with England and
France, both which nations, it must be confessed, having by restraints
on their commerce given the Americans just grounds for dissatisfaction.
On the 23d June, 1812, the prince regent in council revoked the orders
in council as far as regarded America, with a proviso that the
revocation should be of no effect unless the United States rescinded
their non-intercourse act with England. It has been thought that the
revocation came too late, and that if it had been conceded a few weeks
earlier, there would have been no war with America; but Madison had
been treating with Bonaparte's government since the end of the year
1810, and the whole course of his conduct, with his evident desire to
illustrate his presidency by the conquest of Canada, proved his
determination to brave a war with England. He and his party nicely
calculated on which side the greater profit was to be obtained--whether
the United States would gain more by going to war with England than by
hostility against Bonaparte and his edicts. "Every thing in the United
States," says James in his naval history, "was to be settled by a
calculation of profit and loss. France had numerous allies--England
scarcely any. France had no contiguous territory; England had the
Canadas ready to be marched into at a moment's notice. France had no
commerce; England had richly-laden merchantmen traversing every sea.
England, therefore, it was against whom the death-blows of America were
to be levelled." The struggles of England against Napoleon enabled the
American government to choose its own time. On the 14th April, congress
laid an embargo on all ships and vessels of the United States during the
space of ninety days, with the view of lessening the number that would
be at the mercy of England when war was finally declared, and also of
manning efficiently their ships of war and privateers. By the end of May
their fa