Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/144

134 began to subside when men learned that Admiral Berkeley's orders had been issued without the authority or knowledge of his government, and would probably be disavowed. The news that came from Europe tended to chill the fever for war. The Peace of Tilsit, the Tory reaction in England, the bombardment of Copenhagen, the execution of the Berlin Decree in Holland, the threatened retaliation by Great Britain were events calculated to raise more than a doubt of the benefits which war could bring. In any case, the risks of commerce had become too great for legitimate trade; and every one felt that the further pursuit of neutral profits could end only in bringing America into the arms of one or the other of the Powers which were avowedly disputing pre-eminence in wrong.

The attack on the "Chesapeake," the trial of Aaron Burr, and the news from Copenhagen, Holland, and London made the summer and autumn of 1807 anxious and restless; but another event, under the eyes of the American people, made up a thousand fold, had they but known it, for all the losses or risks incurred through Burr, Bonaparte, or Canning. That the destinies of America must be decided in America was a maxim of true Democrats, but one which they showed little energy in reducing to practice. A few whose names could be mentioned in one or two lines,—men like Chancellor Livingston, Dr. Mitchill, Joel Barlow,—hailed the 17th of August, 1807, as the beginning of a new era in America,—a date