future conjunction of circumstances would stave off that last resort;
and, meanwhile, would accept no terms which might at least mitigate the
injuries visited upon the sea-faring people of the United States, and
possibly relieve the nation from an insolent exercise of power which it
was not strong enough to resent?

As England's need of seamen increased, the captains of her cruisers,
encouraged by the failure of negotiation, grew bolder in overhauling
American ships and taking out as many men as they believed, or pretended
to believe, were deserters. In the summer of 1807 an outrage was
perpetrated on the frigate Chesapeake, as if to emphasize the contempt
with which a nation must be looked upon which only screamed like a woman
at wrongs which it wanted the courage and strength to resent, or the
wisdom to compound for. The Chesapeake was followed out of the harbor
of Norfolk by the British man-of-war Leopard, and when a few miles at
sea, the Chesapeake being brought to under the pretense that the English
captain wished to put some dispatches on board for Europe, a demand was
made for certain deserters supposed to be on the American frigate.
Commodore Barron replied that he knew of no deserters on his ship, and
that he could permit no search to be made, even if there were. After
some further altercation the Englishman fired a broadside, killing and
wounding a number of the Chesapeake's crew. Commodore Barron could do
nothing else but surrender, for he had only a single gun in readiness
for use, and that was fired only once and then with a coal from the
cook's galley. The ship was then boarded, the crew mustered, and four
men arrested as deserters. Three of them were negroes,--two natives of
the United States, the other of South America. The fourth man, probably,
was an Englishman. They were all deserters from English men-of-war lying
off Norfolk; but the three negroes declared that they had been kidnaped,
and their right to escape could not be justly questioned; indeed, the
English afterward took this view of it apparently, for the men were
released on the arrival of the Leopard at Halifax. But the fourth man
was hanged.

For this direct national insult, explanation, apology, and reparation
were demanded, and at the same time the President put forth a
proclamation forbidding all British ships of war to remain in American
waters. Of how much use the latter was we learn from a letter of Madison
to Monroe: "They continue