ister, was by no means
mild or conciliatory. Between them they did what they could to render
accommodation impossible.

To evolve a satisfactory and permanent peace from these conditions was the
task which confronted Mr. Webster, and he was hardly in office before he
received a demand from Mr. Fox for the release of McLeod, in which full
avowal was made that the burning of the Caroline was a public act. Mr.
Webster determined that the proper method of settling the boundary
question, when that subject should be reached, was to agree upon a
conventional and arbitrary line, and that in the mean time the only way to
dispose of McLeod was to get him out of prison, separate him,
diplomatically speaking, from the affair of the Caroline, and then take
that up as a distinct matter for negotiation with the British government.
The difficulty in regard to McLeod was the most pressing, and so to that he
gave his immediate attention. His first step was to instruct the
Attorney-General to proceed to Lockport, where McLeod was imprisoned, and
communicate with the counsel for the defence, furnishing them with
authentic information that the destruction of the Caroline was a public
act, and that therefore McLeod could not be held responsible. He then
replied to the British minister that McLeod could, of course, be released
only by judicial process, but he also informed Mr. Fox of the steps which
had been taken by the administration to assure the prisoner a complete
defence based on the avowal of the British government that the attack on
the Caroline was a public act. This threw the responsibility for McLeod,
and for consequent peace or war, where it belonged, on the New York
authorities, who seemed, however, but little inclined to assist the general
government. McLeod came before the Supreme Court of New York in July, on a
writ of _habeas corpus_, but they refused to release him on the grounds set
forth in Mr. Webster's instructions to the Attorney-General, and he was
remanded for trial in October, which was highly embarrassing to our
government, as it kept this dangerous affair open.

But this and all other embarrassments to the Secretary of State sank into
insignificance beside those caused him by the troubles in his own political
party. Between the time of the instructions to the Attorney-General and
that of the letter to Mr. Fox, President Harrison died, after only a month
of office. Mr. Tyler, of whose views but little was known, at