ter
still, as long as it means only talk, not act.

Monroe comforted himself that, though Canning's note was "harsh," he
had obtained the "concession of the point desired."[191] he had in
fact obtained less than would probably have resulted from a policy of
which the premises were assured, and the demands rigorously limited to
the particular offence. Canning's note set the key for the subsequent
British correspondence, and dictated the methods by which he
persistently evaded an amends spontaneously promised under the first
emotions produced by an odious aggression. He continued to offer it;
but under conditions impossible of acceptance, and as discreditable to
the party at fault as they were humiliating to the one offended. In
themselves, the first notes exchanged between Monroe and Canning are
trivial, a revelation chiefly of individual characteristics. Their
interest lies in the exemplification of the general course of the
American administration, imposed by its years of temporizing, of
money-getting, and of military parsimony. President Jefferson in
America met the occasion precisely as did Monroe in London, with the
same result of a sharp correspondence, abounding in strong language,
but affording Canning further opportunity to confuse issues and escape
from reparations, which, however just and wise, were distasteful. It
was a Pyrrhic victory for the British minister, destroying the last
chance of conciliating American acquiescence in a line of action
forced upon Great Britain by Napoleon; but as a mere question of
dialectics he had scored a success.

When the news of the "Chesapeake" outrage was received in Washington,
Jefferson issued a proclamation, dated July 2, 1807, suited chiefly
for home consumption, as the phrase goes. He began with a recitation
of the various wrongs and irritations, undeniable and extreme, which
his long-suffering Administration had endured from British cruisers,
and to which Monroe alluded in his note to Canning. Upon this followed
an account of the "Chesapeake" incident, thus inextricably entangled
with other circumstances differing from it in essential feature. Then,
taking occasion by a transaction which, however reprehensible, was
wholly external to the territory of the United States,--unless
construed to extend to the Gulf Stream, according to one of
Jefferson's day-dreams,--action was based upon the necessity of
providing for the internal peace of the nation and the safety of its