Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/243

1808. men of this country, and who consider her interests as completely identified with those of Great Britain. I conceive it to be of extreme importance in the present state of the public mind in this nation, and especially as operated upon by the embargo, such as I have endeavored to represent it in preceding despatches, to avoid if possible actual warfare,—should it be practicable consistently with the national honor, to do no more than retort upon America any measures of insolence and injury falling short of it which she may adopt. Such a line of conduct would, I am persuaded, render completely null the endeavors exerted to impress upon the public mind here the persuasion of the inveterate rancor with which Great Britain seeks the destruction of America, and would turn their whole animosity,—goaded on, as they would be, by the insults and injuries offered by France, and the self-inflicted annihilation of their own commerce,—against their own Government, and produce an entire change in the politics of the country. A war with Great Britain would, I have no doubt, prove ultimately fatal to this Government; but it is to be feared that the people would necessarily rally round it at the first moment and at the instant of danger; and an exasperation would be produced which it might be found impossible to eradicate for a series of years. Their soundest statesmen express to me the utmost anxiety that their fellow-citizens should be allowed to bear the whole burden of their own follies, and suffer by evils originating with themselves; and they are convinced that the effects of punishment inflicted by their own hands must ere long bring them into co-operation with Great Britain, whilst if inflicted by hers, it must turn them perhaps irrevocably against her."