Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/430

1804. of disputes entailed by the definitive treaty which closed the Revolutionary War in 1783. The calm which seemed to prevail throughout England in regard to her relations with America contrasted sharply with the excitement shown by the English people in all their allusions to the Corsican demon, as they thought him, whose regiments, gathering at Bourlogne, they might expect to see at any moment encamped at Hastings, where no hostile camp-fire had burned since the night, seven hundred years before when the body of an English king, hedged about with the dead bodies of a whole English aristocracy, lay stiff and stark on the bloody hillside, victims of another French adventurer. England was intent on her own imminent dangers; and under the strain which the renewal of her painful efforts brought with it, she was glad to leave America alone.

Yet calm as the atmosphere appeared to be, signs of future storm were not wholly wanting. Had Monroe been naturally anxious, he might, without seeking far, have found cause for anxiety serious enough to take away all appetite for Spanish travel, and to hold him close to his post until some one should consent to relieve him from an ungrateful and unpromising duty. The American minister at London in 1804 could hope to gain nothing either for his country or for himself, and he stood always on the verge of disaster; but when he was required to take a "high tone" in the face of a nation almost insane with anxiety, he challenged more chances of mortification