Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/348

338 he was the most brilliant leader, and in the Senate, where he was heard with bated breath, he showed more than once a readiness to overbear opposition by methods too nearly resembling those of Canning; but as a diplomatist he contented himself with preserving the decorous courtesy which Canning lacked. He answered the explanatory letter of September 23 with so much skill and force that Canning was obliged to rejoin; and the rejoinder hardly raised the British secretary's reputation.

With this exchange of notes, the diplomatic discussion ended for the season; and the packet set sail for America, bearing to Jefferson the news that his scheme of peaceable coercion had resulted in a double failure, which left no alternative but war or submission.