the army. His own conception of the best
defensive system for America was the building of a large number of small
but well-appointed frigates to guard her coasts and her commerce. It is
fair to him to say that when war came these frigates of his gave a good
account of themselves. Yet his own position was a highly embarrassing
one, anxious from every motive to avoid war and yet placed between an
enemy, or rather two enemies, who would yield nothing to his
expostulations, and the rising clamour, especially in the West, for the
vindication of American rights by an appeal to arms.

Jefferson attempted to meet the difficulty by a weapon which proved
altogether inadequate for the purpose intended, while it was bound to
react almost as seriously as a war could have done on the prosperity of
America. He proposed to interdict all commerce with either of the
belligerents so long as both persisted in disregarding American rights,
while promising to raise the interdict in favour of the one which first
showed a disposition to treat the United States fairly. Such a policy
steadily pursued by such an America as we see to-day would probably have
succeeded. But at that time neither combatant was dependent upon
American products for the essentials of vitality. The suppression of the
American trade might cause widespread inconvenience, and even bring
individual merchants to ruin, but it could not hit the warring nations
hard enough to compel governments struggling on either side for their
very lives in a contest which seemed to hang on a hair to surrender
anything that might look like a military advantage. On the other hand,
the Embargo, as it was called, hit the Americans themselves very hard
indeed. So great was the outcry of the commercial classes, that the
President was compelled to retrace his steps and remove the interdict.
The problem he handed over unsolved to his successor.

That successor was James Madison, another Virginian, Jefferson's
lieutenant ever since the great struggle with the Federalists and his
intimate friend from a still earlier period. His talents as a writer
were great; he did not lack practical sagacity, and his opinions were
Jefferson's almost without a single point of divergence. But he lacked
Jefferson's personal prestige, and consequently the policy followed
during his Presidency was less markedly his own than that of his great
predecessor had been.

Another turn of the war-wheel in Europe had left America