edge, assures me that a rupture with France is inevitable and at hand."
That Robert Smith acted in the matter as negotiator for the President was afterward made known by Jefferson himself.[1]
Jefferson clung with touching pathos to the love and respect of his fellow-citizens, who repaid his devotion with equal attachment; but many an American President who yearned no less passionately for the people's regard would have died an outcast rather than have trafficked in their dignity and his own self-respect in order to seek or save a personal popularity. Perhaps Jefferson never knew precisely what was said of him by his Secretary of the Navy,—a passing remark by such a man as Robert Smith, repeated through such a medium as George Rose, need count for little; but the truth must be admitted that in 1808—for the first and probably for the last time in history—a President of the United States begged for mercy from a British minister.
In obedience to the President's decision, Madison yielded to the British demand on condition that the Executive should not be exposed to the appearance of having yielded.[2] He arranged with Rose the "bridge" which Robert Smith had previously prepared for the President to cross. In a "secret and
