Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/195

1808. a sacrifice for a domestic man who left a wife and seven children behind him, and from whom he had never before been separated. Thus much I gathered from his conversation with me, which was marked with ease and candor; indeed with singular openness, as if I had been an old acquaintance. He expressed his surprise that the real state of the negotiation with Mr. Monroe had not become officially known to the people by an open communication to Congress. No minister of Great Britain, he observed, would have used such concealment as existed here. He manifested a solicitude even to anxiety for a pacific adjustment of all our differences. What our Government will demand as a reparation for the attack on the 'Chesapeake' I do not know, nor what Mr. Rose is authorized to concede; but I run no hazard in saying that nothing in reality will be denied, and that if after all a war with England should ensue, the fault will be our own."

In giving this account of Rose's singular openness and candor, Senator Pickering did not repeat his own remarks in the conversation; but they could be inferred from the rest of his letter.


 * "I wrote last week to Mr. Cabot that I had the best authority for saying that our Government had abandoned the ground taken in London,—to treat of the 'Chesapeake' affair only in connection with the old subjects of dispute. They have now determined to negotiate on this separately, and even say that it is an affair by itself and ought to be so treated.  Perhaps they may demand that Admiral Berkeley be brought to a British court-martial,—that at any rate he be removed from command; and that the three rascals of deserters who remain unhung should be restored.