Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/183

Rh English ship “Leopard,” within hearing of Old Point Comfort, poured broadsides into the American frigate “Chesapeake,” all unprepared and unsuspecting, killing three men and wounding eighteen, parties ceased to exist in the United States, and every voice that was audible clamored for bloody reprisals. “I had only to open my hand,” wrote Jefferson once, “and let havoc loose.” There was a period in 1807 when he expected war both with Spain and Great Britain, and his confidential correspondence with Madison shows that he meant to make the contest self-compensating. He meditated a scheme for removing the Spanish flag to a more comfortable distance by the annexation of Florida, Mexico, and Cuba, and thus obtaining late redress for twenty-five years of intrigue and injury. A partial reparation by Great Britain postponed the contest. Yet the offences were repeated; no American ship was safe from violation, and no American sailor from impressment. This state of things induced Jefferson to recommend congress to suspend commercial intercourse with the belligerents, his object being “to introduce between nations another umpire than arms.” The embargo of 1807, which continued to the end of his second term, imposed upon the commercial states a test too severe for human nature patiently to endure. It was frequently violated, and did not accomplish the object proposed. To