s on the basis of the treaty submitted,
endeavoring to effect the changes specified. The danger to Great
Britain from American commercial restriction was fully expounded, as
an argument to compel compliance with the demands; the whole
concluding with the characteristic remark that, "as long as
negotiation can be honorably protracted, it is a resource to be
preferred, under existing circumstances, to the peremptory alternative
of improper concessions or inevitable collisions." In other words, the
United States Government did not mean to fight, and that was all Great
Britain needed to know. That she would suffer from the closure of the
American market was indisputable; but, being assured of transatlantic
peace, there were other circumstances of high import, political as
well as commercial, which rendered yielding more inexpedient to her
than a commercial war.

At the end of March, 1807, within three months of the signature at
London, the British Ministry fell, and the disciples of Pitt returned
to power. Mr. Canning became Foreign Secretary. Circumstances were
then changing rapidly on the continent of Europe, and by the time
Madison's letter reached England a very serious event had modified
also the relations of the United States to Great Britain. This was the
attack upon the United States frigate "Chesapeake" by a British ship
of war, upon the high seas, and the removal of four of her crew,
claimed as deserters from the British Navy. Unofficial information of
this transaction reached England July 25, just one day after Monroe
and Pinkney had addressed to Canning a letter communicating their
instructions to reopen negotiations, and stating the changes deemed
desirable in the treaty submitted. The intervention of the
"Chesapeake" affair, to a contingent adjustment of which all other
matters had been postponed, delayed to October 22 the reply of the
British Minister.[166] In this, after a preamble of "distinct protest
against a practice, altogether unusual in the political transactions
of states, by which the American Government assumes to itself the
privilege of revising and altering agreements concluded and signed on
its behalf by its agents duly authorized for that purpose," Canning
thus announced the decision of the Cabinet: "The proposal of the
President of the United States for proceeding to negotiate anew, upon
the basis of a treaty already solemnly concluded and signed, is a
proposal wholly inadmissible. And his Ma