irs, and in this
case he harshly blamed the executive for not procuring evidence with a
celerity which, under the circumstances, was impossible. He also summoned
the President into court as a witness. The President, however, declined to
attend, and the matter was not pressed. Burr was acquitted, chiefly on
technical grounds.

The Burr affair, however, was but a trifle compared with the difficulties
arising from our relations with England. That country had always asserted
over the United States the right of impressment, a right, namely, to
search American ships, and to take therefrom any Englishmen found among
the crew. In many cases, Englishmen who had been naturalized in the United
States were thus taken. This alleged right had always been denied by the
United States, and British perseverance in it finally led to the war of
1812.

Another source of contention was the neutral trade. During the European
wars in the early part of the century the seaport towns of the United
States did an immense and profitable business in carrying goods to
European ports, and from one European port to another. Great Britain,
after various attempts to discourage American commerce with her enemies,
undertook to put it down by confiscating vessels of the United States on
the ground that their cargoes were not neutral but belligerent
property,--the property, that is, of nations at war with Great Britain.
And, no doubt, in some cases this was the fact,--foreign merchandise having
been imported to this country to get a neutral name for it, and thence
exported to a country to which it could not have been shipped directly
from its place of origin. In April, 1806, the President dispatched Mr.
Monroe to London in order, if possible, to settle these disputed matters
by a treaty. Monroe, in conjunction with Mr. Pinckney, our minister to
England, sent back a treaty which contained no reference whatever to the
matter of impressments. It was the best treaty which they could obtain,
but it was silent upon this vital point.

The situation was a perilous one; England had fought the battle of
Trafalgar the year before; and was now able to carry everything before her
upon the high seas. Nevertheless, the President's conduct was bold and
prompt. The treaty had been negotiated mainly by his own envoy and friend,
Monroe, and great pressure was exerted in favor of it,--especially by the
merchants and shipowners of the east. But Jefferson refused even to lay it