ommissioners would not accede.

Monroe and Pinkney were enjoined, in the instructions written by the
secretary of state, to make the abandonment of impressment the first
condition of a treaty. A treaty, nevertheless, was agreed upon, without
this provision. But when it was sent to the President, the ministers
explained:--

"That, although this government [the British] did not feel at
liberty to relinquish, formally, by treaty, its claim to search our
merchant vessels for British seamen, its practice would
nevertheless be essentially, if not completely, abandoned. That
opinion has since been confirmed by frequent conferences on the
subject with the British commissioners, who have repeatedly assured
us that, in their judgment, we were made as sure against the
exercise of their pretension by the policy which their government
had adopted in regard to that very delicate and important question,
as we could have been made by treaty."

These assurances did not satisfy the President. Without consulting the
Senate, though Congress was in session when the treaty was received, and
although the Senate had been previously informed that one had been
agreed upon, the President rejected it. On several other points it was
not acceptable; but, as Mr. Madison wrote to a friend, "the case of
impressments particularly having been brought to a formal issue, and
having been the primary object of an extraordinary mission, a treaty
could not be closed which was silent on that subject." The
commissioners, therefore, were ordered to renew negotiations. This they
faithfully tried to do for a year, but were finally told by the British
minister that a treaty once concluded and signed, but afterward rejected
in part by one of the contracting powers, could not again be taken up
for consideration. The opponents of the administration made the most of
this action of Mr. Jefferson. The country was not permitted to forget,
even were forgetfulness possible, that thousands of seamen had been
taken from American vessels, and that the larger proportion of these
were native-born citizens of the United States. Not that these opponents
wanted war; that, they believed, would be ruinous without a navy, and
therefore some reasonable compromise was all that could be hoped for.
But what was to be thought of an administration that would not go to war
because it was not prepared; would not prepare in the hope that some