Had the President chosen to go to war at this moment, he would have had a united people behind him. But Thomas Jefferson was not a martial character. His proclamation ordering all armed British vessels out of American waters and suspending intercourse with them if they remained, was so moderate in tone as to seem almost pusillanimous. John Randolph called it an apology. Instead of demanding unconditional reparation for this outrage, Madison instructed Monroe to insist upon an entire abolition of impressments as "an indispensable part of the satisfaction." The astute Canning, who had become Foreign Secretary in the new Portland Ministry, took advantage of this confusion of issues to evade the demand for reparation until popular passion in the United States had subsided. It was not until November that Canning took active measures. He then sent a special commissioner to the United States in the person of George Rose.
The instructions which Rose carried with him to Washington, in January, 1808, were anything but conciliatory. As a preliminary to any negotiations, he was to demand the recall of the President's proclamation of July 2, and an explicit disavowal of Commodore Barron's conduct in encouraging desertion from His Majesty's navy. The United States was also to give assurances that it would prevent the recurrence of such causes as had provoked the display of force by Admiral Berkeley. That the Administration should have continued negotiations after the full purport of these instructions was disclosed, seems incredible; but it was not until the middle of February that Madison awoke to the fact that the United States was being invited to "make as it were an expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress." Yet another month passed before Rose was given to understand that his mission was futile. By this time public attention was engrossed in the contest for neutral rights.
Before the close of the year 1806, Napoleon was master of central Europe and in a position to deal his premeditated blow at the commercial ascendency of England. A fortnight after the terrible overthrow of Prussia at Jena, he made a triumphal entry into Berlin. From this city he issued, on November 21, the famous decree which was his answer to the British blockade of the continent. Since the British had determined to ruin neutral commerce by an illegal blockade, so the preamble read, "whoever deals on the continent in English merchandise favors that design and becomes an accomplice." All English goods henceforth were to be lawful prize in any territory held by the troops of France or her allies. The British Isles were declared to be in a state of blockade. Every American or other neutral vessel going to or coming from the British Isles, therefore, was subject to capture.
The British Ministry took up the gauntlet. An order in council of January 7, 1807, forbade neutral trade between ports under the control of France or her allies; a second order, November 11, closed to neutrals those European ports under French control "as if the same were actually blockaded," but permitted vessels which first entered a British port and paid port duties to sail to any continental port. Only one more blow seemed needed to complete the ruin of American commerce. It fell a month later, December 17, 1807, when Napoleon issued his Milan Decree. Henceforth any vessel which submitted to be searched by an English cruiser or which paid any tonnage duty to the British Government or which set sail for any British port was subject to capture and condemnation as lawful prize. Such was to be the maritime code "until England returned to the principles of international law which are also those of justice and honor."
American commerce was now, indeed, between the hammer and the anvil. The Nicholson Non-Importation Act, which had been twice suspended and which had only just gone into effect (December 14), seemed wholly inadequate to meet this situation. It had been designed as a coercive measure, to be sure, but no one knew precisely to what extent it would affect English trade. The time had come for the blow which Jefferson and his advisers had held in reserve. On December 18, the President sent to Congress a message recommending "an immediate inhibition of the departure of our vessels from the ports of the United States." The Senate responded by passing a bill (which Jefferson probably drafted) through its three stages in a single day; the House passed the measure after only two days of debate; and on December 22, the Embargo Act received the President's signature.
The temper of those who supported the embargo was reflected by Senator Adams, of Massachusetts, who was reported to have said: "The President has recommended the measure on his high responsibility. I would not consider, I would not deliberate; I would act." Yet there were members of Congress who were not prepared to accept the high authority of the President. The vote in the House of Representatives indicates that opinion was divided in Adams's own State. Boston with its environs and the interior counties were opposed to the embargo. New York was also divided, though here the commercial areas favored the measure. Maryland showed a like division of opinion. Connecticut was a unit in opposing the President's policy.
What was the measure which was accepted almost without discussion on "the high responsibility" of the President? So far as it was defended at all, it was presented as a measure for the protection of American ships, merchandise, and seamen. It forbade the departure of all ships and vessels in the ports of the United States for any foreign port, except vessels under the immediate direction of the President. Foreign armed vessels were exempted as a matter of course from the operation of this act; so also were all vessels in ballast or already loaded with goods at the time when the act was passed. Coasting vessels were to give bonds double the value of vessel and cargo to re-land their goods, wares, or merchandise in some port of the United States.
American shippers were so little appreciative of the protection offered by a benevolent Government that they evaded the embargo from the very first. Foreign trade was lucrative in just the proportion that it was hazardous. If some skippers obeyed, the profits were so much the greater for the less conscientious. Under guise of engaging in the coasting trade, many a ship's captain with the connivance of the owner landed his cargo in a foreign port. A brisk traffic also sprang up by land across the Canadian border.
