Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/245

1808. our own best citizens consider the interests of the United States to be interwoven with those of Great Britain, and that our safety depends on hers. . . . Of the opinions and reasonings of such men I wish you to be possessed."  He held out a confident hope that the embargo would end in an overthrow of the Administration, and that a change in the head of the government would alter its policy "in a manner propitious to the continuance of peace."  A few days afterward he placed in Rose's hands two letters from George Cabot.  Finally, on the eve of Rose's departure, March 22, he gave the British envoy a letter to Samuel Williams of London.  "Let him, if you please, be the medium of whatever epistolary intercourse may take place between you and me."

To these advances Rose replied in his usual tone of courteous superiority:—


 * "I avail myself thankfully of your permission to keep that gentleman's [Rufus King's] letter, which I am sure will carry high authority where I can use it confidentially, and whither it is most important that what I conceive to be right impressions should be conveyed. It is not to you that I need protest that rancorous impressions of jealousy or ill-will have never existed there; but it is to be feared that at some time or another the extremest point of human forbearance may be reached.  Yet at the present moment there is, I think, a peculiarity of circumstances most strange indeed, which enables the offended party to leave his antagonist to his own