ricans from their self-inflicted sufferings. Napoleon now
gave an interesting taste of his peculiar methods, for on April 17, 1808,
he issued the Bayonne Decree, ordering the confiscation of all American
vessels found in French ports, on the ground that, since the embargo
prohibited the exit of American ships, these must, in reality, be
English! Thus he gathered in about eight million dollars' worth. The
policy had to be abandoned, and in the utmost ill-humour Congress
repealed the embargo, on March 1, 1809, substituting non-intercourse with
England and France. Thus Jefferson left office under the shadow of a
monumental failure. His theory of commercial coercion had completely
broken down; and he had damaged his own and his party's prestige to such
an extent that the moribund Federalist organization had sprung to life
and threatened the existence of the Union.

{203}

From this time onward, the New Englanders assumed the character of
ultra-admirers of Great Britain. True, their vessels suffered from
British seizures; but no British confiscations had done them such harm as
the embargo, or taken such discreditable advantage of a transparent
pretext as the Bayonne Decree. Belonging to the wealthy classes, they
admired and respected England as defender of the world's civilization
against Napoleon, and they detested Jefferson and Madison as tools of the
enemy of mankind. They justified impressments, spoke respectfully of the
British doctrines of trade, and corresponded freely with British public
men. They stood, in short, exactly where the Republicans had stood in
1793, supporters of a foreign power with which the Federal administration
was in controversy. In Congress and outside, they made steady, bitter
menacing attacks on the integrity and honesty of the Republicans.

Under Jefferson's successor, the policy of commercial pressure was
carried to its impotent conclusion. At first the action of the British
government seemed to crown Madison with triumph. In the winter of 1809,
the majority in Congress had talked freely of substituting war for the
embargo; and at the same time the Whigs in Parliament, led by Grenville,
had attacked Canning for his {204} insolence toward the United States as
likely to cause war. Whitbread called attention to the similarity
between the conditions in 1809 and 1774, when "the same infatuation
seemed to prevail," the same certainty existed that the Americans would
not fight, and the