Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 3.djvu/87

1805. but warmly approved of his passing suggestion as to an embargo: —


 * "The efficacy of an embargo cannot be doubted. Indeed, if a commercial weapon can be properly shaped for the Executive hand, it is more and more apparent to me that it can force all the nations having colonies in this quarter of the globe to respect our rights."

This mental trait was closely connected with Madison's good qualities,—it sprang from the same source as his caution, his respect for law, his instinctive sense of the dangers that threatened the Union, his curious mixture of radical and conservative tastes; but whatever its merits or defects, it led to a strange delusion when it caused him to believe that a man like Napoleon could be forced by a mere pin-prick to do Jefferson's will.

Jefferson himself was weary of indecision. He had rested his wish for an English alliance on the belief that Napoleon meant to make peace in Europe in order to attack America; and this idea, never very reasonable, could have no weight after Napoleon had plunged into a general European war. No sooner did he receive Madison's letter of October 16, than he again changed his plan.


 * "The probability of an extensive war on the continent of Europe, strengthening every day for some time past, is now almost certain," he wrote October 23 to Madison. "This gives us our great desideratum, time. In truth it