Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/418

406 ears strained to hear the distant thunders from Trafalgar, and how such words would look to English eyes, dim with tears, as they watched their hero borne through the shrouded streets of London to rest in his glory beneath the dome of St. Paul's. That England was inflated with her triumphs, mad in her pretensions, intolerable in her arrogance, was true. A people that had swept the ocean of enemies and held the winds and waves for subjects could hardly fail to go mad with the drunkenness of such stormy grandeur. The meanest beggar in England was glorified with the faith that his march was o'er the mountain waves and his home upon the deep; and his face would have purpled with rage at the idea that Jefferson should dare to say that the squadrons of England must back their topsails and silence their broadsides when they reached the edge of the Gulf Stream.

With this picture before his eyes, Monroe could feel no great confidence either in his own success or in the good faith of the President's instructions, which tied him to impossible conditions. Nevertheless he accepted the task; and as he had gone to Spain with the certainty of defeat and mortification, he remained in London to challenge a hopeless contest. As though to destroy his only chance of success, on the very day of Pinkney's arrival Fox fell ill. His complaint was soon known to be dropsical, and his recovery hopeless. Two months passed, while the American envoys waited the result. Aug. 20, 1806,