Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/429



Chapter 18: England and Tripoli
aiding to negotiate the Louisiana treaty at Paris, in April and May, 1803, Monroe, as the story has already told, being forbidden by Bonaparte to pursue his journey to Madrid, followed his alternative instructions, to take the post which Rufus King was vacating in London. King left England in the middle of May, 1803; Monroe arrived in London July 18, when the war between England and France was already two months old.

The mild Addington ministry was still in power, and nothing had yet happened to excite Monroe's alarm in regard to British policy in the United States. On the contrary, the ministry aided the Louisiana purchase with readiness that might reasonably have surprised an American minister, while the friendliest spirit was shown by Lord Hawkesbury in all matters of detail. Except the standing dispute about impressments, every old point of collision had been successfully removed by the King, whose two conventions,—the one for discharging British debts recognized by treaty, the other for settling the boundaries of New England and of the northwest territory,—seemed to free the countries for the first time from the annoying inheritance