Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/114

104 to explain how the government of the United States could evade war after it should fairly understand the impressment Proclamation of October 17, the Order in Council of November 11, and the Instructions of George Henry Rose,—who was selected by Canning as his special envoy for the adjustment of the "Leopard's" attack on the "Chesapeake," and who carried orders which made adjustment impossible. Such outrages could be perpetrated only upon a helpless people. Even in England, where Jefferson's pacific policy was well understood, few men believed that peace could be longer preserved.