Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/432

420 Lord Grenville's administration was, as a vigorous Tory pamphleteer said, a piece of chicanery of which an attorney's clerk would have been ashamed, was a matter for English historians to decide. In England at that day none but a few merchants or Republicans believed in the honor or honesty of the United States government or people; but in this instance it was not the honor or honesty of Americans that the English critics denied: it was, on the contrary, the good faith of their own most distinguished and most trusted noblemen,—Lord Grenville and Lord Sidmouth, Earl Grey and Lord Holland, Lord Erskine and Lord Lansdowne, Lord Ellenborough and Earl Fitzwilliam; and in the light of such conduct and criticism, Americans could not be greatly blamed if they refused to admit the ground on which these English gentlemen claimed a better reputation for truth or honesty than they were willing to allow Napoleon. Robbery against robbery, the English mode of pillage seemed on the whole less respectable than the French.

The Whigs were liberal by tradition and instinct; well disposed toward peace and commerce with all nations, they knew that neutral ships alone could carry British manufactures to a European market. Every impediment put in the way of neutral commerce was an additional burden on British produce; every market closed to neutrals was a market closed