tish representatives, and doubtless in measure by the
evident seriousness of the difficulty experienced by the British
Government, they wrote home advising that the date for the
Non-Importation Act going into operation, now close at hand, should be
postponed; and, in accordance with a recommendation from the
President, the measure was suspended by Congress, with a provision for
further prolongation in the discretion of the Executive. On September
13 Fox died, an event which introduced further delays, esteemed not
unreasonable by Monroe and Pinkney. Their next letter home, however,
November 11,[161] while reporting the resumption of the negotiation,
announced also its failure by a deadlock on this principal subject of
impressment: "We have said everything that we could in support of our
claim, that the flag should protect the crew, which we have contended
was founded in unquestionable right.... This right was denied by the
British commissioners, who asserted that of their Government to seize
its subjects on board neutral vessels on the high seas, and also urged
that the relinquishment of it at this time would go far to the
overthrow of their naval power, on which the safety of the state
essentially depended." In support of the abstract right was quoted the
report from a law officer of the Crown, which "justified the
pretension by stating that the King had a right, by his prerogative,
to require the services of all his seafaring subjects against the
enemy, and to seize them by force wherever found, not being within the
territorial limits of another Power; that as the high seas were
extra-territorial, the merchant vessels of other Powers navigating on
them were not admitted to possess such a jurisdiction as to protect
British subjects from the exercise of the King's prerogative over
them."

This was a final and absolute rejection of Madison's doctrine, that
merchant vessels on the high seas were under the jurisdiction only of
their own country. Asserted right was arrayed directly and
unequivocally against asserted right. Negotiation on that subject was
closed, and to diplomacy was left no further resort, save arms, or
submission to continued injury and insult. The British commissioners
did indeed submit a project,[162] in place of that of the United
States, rejected by their Government. By this it was provided that
thereafter the captain of a cruiser who should impress an American
citizen should be liable to heavy penalti