er communication with
Jackson was declined and his recall asked for.

It was plain enough in the latter months of Jefferson's administration,
to himself as well as to everybody else, that the embargo had not only
failed to bring the belligerents to terms abroad, but that it had added
greatly to the distress at home. That the measure was a failure, Madison
himself acknowledged in one of his retrospective letters written in the
retirement of Montpellier, sixteen years afterward. It was meant, he
said in that letter, as an experimental measure, preferable to naked
submission or to war at a time when war was inexpedient. It failed, he
added, "because the government did not sufficiently distrust those in a
certain quarter whose successful violation of the law led to the general
discontent, which called for its repeal." That is to say, the government
relied too confidently upon the submission of New England; was too ready
to believe that her merchants would not let their ships slip quietly out
to sea whenever they could evade the officers of the customs, nor slip
in to land a cargo at some unfrequented place where there was no
custom-house. "The patriotic fishermen of Marblehead," he says, "at one
time offered their services;" and he regrets they were not sent out as
privateers to seize these contraband ships as prizes, and to "carry them
into ports where the tribunals would enforce the law." Apparently there
was not a reasonable doubt in his mind whether such tribunals could be
found in any port along the coast of New England. It is also rather more
than doubtful--even assuming that there was much of the kind of
patriotism which he says existed in Marblehead--how long, had the
government offered commissions to private citizens to prey upon their
neighbors, the embargo would have been respected at all east of Long
Island Sound. But this was the afterthought of 1826. Madison's policy in
1809-10 was rather to conciliate than provoke "those in a certain
quarter." He could not command entire unanimity even in his own party.
Congress passed the winter in vain efforts to find some common ground,
not merely for Democrats and Federalists, but for the Democrats alone.
Various measures were proposed to meet the critical condition of the
country. Some were too radical; some not radical enough; and none were
so acceptable that it was not easy to form combinations for their
defeat. All were agreed that the non-importation act must be got r