preferred to temporize, and build a few
gunboats,--which everybody laughed at.

Nor did the French government behave much better than the English. It
looked upon the United States as an unsettled and weak country, to be
robbed with impunity. At last, driven from the high seas, the Americans
could rely only on the coasting-trade. "One half the mercantile world
was sealed up by the British, and the other half by the French."

Jefferson now appealed to Congress, and the result was the
Non-importation Act, or Embargo, forbidding Americans to trade with
France and England. This policy was intended as a pressure on English
merchants. But it was a half-measure and did not affect British
legislation, which had for its object the utter annihilation of American
commerce. Neither France nor England was hurt seriously by the Embargo,
while our ships lay rotting at the wharves, and our merchants found that
their occupation was gone. The New England merchants were discouraged
and discontented. It was not they who wished to see their ships shut up
by a doubtful policy. They would have preferred to run risks rather than
be idle. But Jefferson paid no heed to their grumblings, feeling that he
was exhibiting to foreign powers unusual forbearance. It is singular
that he persevered in a policy that nearly the whole body of merchants
censured and regarded as a failure; but he did, and Congress was
subservient to his decrees. No succeeding president ever had the
influence over Congress that he had. He was almost a dictator. He found
opposition only among the Federalists, whose power was gone forever.

At last, when the farmers and planters joined with the shipping
interests in complaining of the Embargo, Jefferson was persuaded that it
was a failure, and three days before his administration closed it was
repealed by Congress. But even this measure did not hurt the party
which he had marshalled with such transcendent tact; for his friend and
disciple, James Madison, was elected to succeed him in 1809.

The Embargo had had one result: it deferred the war with Great Britain
to the next administration. That conflict of 1812-15 was not a glorious
war for America except on the ocean. It was not entered upon by the
British with any hope of the conquest of the country, but to do all the
harm they could to the people who had achieved their independence. On
the part of the United States it was simply a choice between insult,
insolence, and injury