. It was not,
however, an era in which the pen was mightier than the sword; and in
the smooth gliding of the current Niagara was forgotten. Like
Jefferson, he was wholly oblivious of the relevancy of Pompey's retort
to a contention between two nations, each convinced of its own right:
"Will you never have done with citing laws and privileges to men who
wear swords?"

To neither President nor Secretary does it seem to have occurred that
the provision of force might lend weight to argument; a consideration
to which Monroe, intellectually much their inferior, was duly
sensible. "Nothing will be obtained without some kind of pressure,
such a one as excites an apprehension that it will be increased in
case of necessity; and to produce that effect it will be proper to put
our country in a better state of defence, by invigorating the militia
system and increasing the naval force." "Victorious at sea, Great
Britain finds herself compelled to concentrate her force so much in
this quarter, that she would not only be unable to annoy us
essentially in case of war, but even to protect her commerce and
possessions elsewhere, which would be exposed to our attacks."[124]
Most true when written, in 1805; the time had passed in 1813.
"Harassed as they are already with war, and the menaces of a powerful
adversary, a state of hostility with us would probably go far to throw
this country into confusion. It is an event which the ministry would
find it difficult to resist, and therefore cannot, I presume, be
willing to encounter."[1] But he added, "There is here an opinion,
which many do not hesitate to avow, that the United States are, by the
nature of their Government, incapable of any great, vigorous, or
persevering exertion."[125] This impression, for which it must
sorrowfully be confessed there was much seeming ground in contemporary
events, and the idiosyncrasies of Jefferson and Madison, in their full
dependence upon commercial coercion to reduce Great Britain to concede
their most extreme demands, contributed largely to maintain the
successive British ministries in that unconciliatory and disdainful
attitude towards the United States, which made inevitable a war that a
higher bearing might have averted.

Monroe had been instructed that, if driven to it, he might waive the
practical right to sail direct from a belligerent colony to the mother
country, being careful to use no expression that would imply yielding
of the abstract princ