al
fulminations. In the following year, however, he was
nearly forced to draw the sword by one of those incidents
that will happen during strained relations. In June 1807
two French men-of-war were lying off Annapolis, a hundred
miles up Chesapeake Bay. Far down the bay, in Hampton
Roads, the American frigate _Chesapeake_ was fitting out
for sea. Twelve miles below her anchorage a small British
squadron lay just within Cape Henry, waiting to follow
the Frenchmen out beyond the three-mile limit. As Jefferson
quite justly said, this squadron was 'enjoying the
hospitality of the United States.' Presently the
_Chesapeake_ got under way; whereupon the British frigate
_Leopard_ made sail and cleared the land ahead of her.
Ten miles out the _Leopard_ hailed her, and sent an
officer aboard to show the American commodore the orders
from Admiral Berkeley at Halifax. These orders named
certain British deserters as being among the _Chesapeake's_
crew. The American commodore refused to allow a search;
but submitted after a fight, during which he lost twenty-one
men killed and wounded. Four men were then seized. One
was hanged; another died; and the other two were
subsequently returned with the apologies of the British
government.

James Monroe, of Monroe Doctrine fame, was then American
minister in London. Canning, the British foreign minister,
who heard the news first, wrote an apology on the spot,
and promised to make 'prompt and effectual reparation'
if Berkeley had been wrong. Berkeley was wrong. The Right
of Search did not include the right to search a foreign
man-of-war, though, unlike the modern 'right of search,'
which is confined to cargoes, it did include the right
to search a neutral merchantman on the high seas for any
'national' who was 'wanted.' Canning, however, distinctly
stated that the men's nationality would affect the
consideration of restoring them or not. Monroe now had
a good case. But he made the fatal mistake of writing
officially to Canning before he knew the details, and,
worse still, of diluting his argument with other complaints
which had nothing to do with the affair itself. The result
was a long and involved correspondence, a tardy and
ungracious reparation, and much justifiable resentment
on the American side.

Unfriendliness soon became Hostility after the _Chesapeake_
affair had sharpened the sting of the Orders-in-Council,
which had been issued at the beginning of the same year,
1807. Th