jesty has therefore no option,
under the present circumstances of this transaction, but to acquiesce
in the refusal of the President of the United States to ratify the
treaty signed on December 31, 1806." The settlement of the
"Chesapeake" business having already been transferred to Washington,
by the appointment of a special British envoy, this rejection of
further consideration of the treaty closed all matters pending between
the two governments, except those appertaining to the usual duties of
a legation, and Monroe's mission ended. A fortnight later he sailed
for the United States. His place as regularly accredited Minister to
the British Court was taken by Pinkney, through whom were conducted
the subsequent important discussions, which arose from the marked
extension given immediately afterwards by France and Great Britain to
their several policies for the forcible restriction of neutral trade.

Those who have followed the course of the successive events traced in
this chapter, and marked their accelerating momentum, will be prepared
for the more extreme and startling occurrences which soon after ensued
as a matter of inevitable development. They will be able also to
understand how naturally the phrase, "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights,"
grew out of these various transactions, as the expression of the
demands and grievances which finally drove the United States into
hostilities; and will comprehend in what sense these terms were used,
and what the wrongs against which they severally protested. "Free
Trade" had no relation of opposition to a system of protection to home
industries, an idea hardly as yet formulated to consciousness, except
by a few advanced economists. It meant the trade of a nation carried
on according to its own free will, relieved from fetters forcibly
imposed by a foreign yoke, in which, under the circumstances of the
time, the resurrection of colonial bondage was fairly to be discerned.
"Sailors' Rights" expressed not only the right of the American seaman
to personal liberty of action,--in theory not contested, but in
practice continually violated by the British,--but the right of all
seamen under the American flag to its protection in the voluntary
engagements which they were then fulfilling. It voiced the sufferings
of the individual; the personal side of an injury, the reverse of
which was the disgrace of the nation responsible for his security.

It was afterwards charged against the administ