Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/420

408 Such a change boded no good to the Americans. All Fox's influence could not counteract the Tory-instincts of Parliament; and what Fox could not do when the Whigs were strong could much less be done by Lord Howick when the Ministry was every day tottering to its fall.

November 11 the American negotiators wrote home that they had decided to disregard their instructions and to abandon impressments,—accepting, instead of a formal article on the subject, a note in which the British commissioners pledged their government to exercise the strictest care not to impress American citizens, and to afford prompt redress should injury be inflicted while impressing British seamen. Having thus made up his mind to violate instructions on the chief point of negotiation, Monroe found nothing to prevent his doing so in other respects. His progress under William Pinkney's influence was rapid; his good nature, in the face of Lord Holland's difficult position, was extreme; and at the end of a few weeks, Dec. 31, 1806, Jefferson's favorite diplomatic agent set his name to a treaty which, taking its omissions and admissions together, surpassed Jay's treaty in outraging Jefferson's prejudices and express desires.

That a people, like an individual, should for a time choose to accept a wrong, like impressment or robbery, without forcible resistance implied no necessary discredit. Every nation at one time or another had submitted to treatment it disliked and to theories