assures your Majesty that he fully
participates in the surprise which your Majesty so naturally expresses
at the extraordinary intimation conveyed to Mr Fox[146] by the
President of the United States.[147]

Immediately after reading Mr Fox's despatch upon that subject, Sir
Robert Peel sought an interview with Lord Aberdeen. The measure
contemplated by the President is a perfectly novel one, a measure of a
hostile and unjustifiable character adopted with pacific intentions.

Sir Robert Peel does not comprehend the object of the President,
and giving him credit for the desire to prevent the interruption of
amicable relations with this country, Sir Robert Peel fears that
the forcible detention of the British Minister, after the demand of
passports, will produce a different impression on the public mind,
both here and in the United States, from that which the President must
(if he be sincere) have anticipated. It appears to Sir Robert Peel
that the object which the President professes to have in view would be
better answered by the immediate compliance with Mr Fox's demand for
passports, and the simultaneous despatch of a special mission to this
country conveying whatever explanations or offers of reparation the
President may have in contemplation.

Sir Robert Peel humbly assures your Majesty that he has advised
such measures of preparation to be taken in respect to the amount of
disposable naval force, and the position of it, as without bearing
the character of menace or causing needless disquietude and alarm, may
provide for an unfavourable issue of our present differences with the
United States.

Sir Robert Peel fears that when the President ventured to make to Mr
Fox the communication which he did make, he must have laboured under
apprehension that M'Leod might be executed in spite of the efforts of
the general Government of the United States to save his life.

[Footnote 146: British Minister at Washington.]

[Footnote 147: One Alexander M'Leod was tried at Utica on
the charge of being implicated in the destruction of the
_Caroline_ (an American vessel engaged in carrying arms to the
Canadian rebels), in 1837, and in the death of Mr Durfee, an
American. The vessel had been boarded by Canadian loyalists
when lying in American waters, set on fire and sent over
Niagara Falls, and in the affray Durfee was killed. M'Leod
was apprehended on American territory, and hence arose the