Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/173

1806. Randolph next attacked Madison. He took up the secretary's late pamphlet and overwhelmed its argument with contempt. He declared that France was the real enemy of America; that England was acting under the dictates of necessity; that the situation of Europe had completely changed since 1793, and that England occupied the place which France then held: "she is the sole bulwark of the human race against universal dominion,—no thanks to her for it! "As for a policy, he proposed to abandon commerce and to amputate mercantile interests:—


 * "I can readily tell gentlemen what I will not do. I will not propitiate any foreign nation with money. I will not launch into a naval war with Great Britain. . . . I will send her money on no pretext whatever; much less on pretence of buying Labrador or Botany Bay, when my real object was to secure limits which she formally acknowledged at the Peace of 1783. I go further:  I would, if anything, have laid an embargo; this would have got our own property home, and our adversary's into our power.  If there is any wisdom left among us, the first step toward hostility will always be an embargo. In six months all your mercantile megrims would vanish. As to us, although it would cut deep, we can stand it."

Before closing this desultory harangue, the orator once more turned to taunt the President:—


 * "Until I came into the House this morning, I had been stretched on a sick bed; but when I behold the affairs of this nation—instead of being where I hoped, and the people believed they were, in the hands of responsible