wing summer, at a dinner given to
representatives of the Spanish revolt against Napoleon, the toast to
the President of the United States was received with hisses,[232] "and
the marks of disapprobation continued till a new subject drew off the
attention of the company." The embargo was not so much a definite
cause of complaint, for at worst it was merely a retaliatory measure
like the Orders in Council. Enmity was recognized, alike in the
council boards and in the social gatherings of the two peoples; the
spirit that leads to war was aroused. Nor could this hostile
demonstration proceed from sympathy with the Spanish insurgents; for,
except so far as might be inferred from the previous general course of
the American Administration, there was no reason to believe that they
would regard unfavorably the Spanish struggle for liberty. Yet they
soon did, and could not but do so.

It is a coincidence too singular to go unnoticed, that the first
strong measure of the American Government against Great
Britain--Embargo--was followed by Napoleon's reverses in Spain, which,
by opening much of that country and of her colonies to trade, at once
in large measure relieved Great Britain from the pressure of the
Continental system and the embargo; while the second, the last resort
of nations, War, was declared shortly before the great Russian
catastrophe, which, by rapidly contracting the sphere of the Emperor's
control, both widened the area of British commerce and deprived the
United States of a diversion of British effort, upon which calculation
had rightly been based. It was impossible for the American Government
not to wish well to Napoleon, when for it so much depended upon his
success; and to wish him well was of course to wish ill to his
opponents, even if fighting for freedom.

Congress adjourned April 25, having completed embargo legislation, as
far as could then be seen necessary. On May 2 occurred the rising in
Madrid, consequent upon Napoleon's removal of the Spanish Royal
Family; and on July 21 followed the surrender of Dupont's corps at
Baylen. Already, on July 4, the British Government had stopped all
hostilities against Spain, and withdrawn the blockade of all Spanish
ports, except such as might still be in French control. On August 30,
by the Convention of Cintra, Portugal was evacuated by the French, and
from that time forward the Peninsula kingdoms, though scourged by war,
were in alliance with Great Britain; their