Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/398

of a more decided nature at first; but that now they had no other means left but to continue it for a short time longer, and then in the event of no change taking place in the conduct of the belligerents toward the United States, to endeavor to assert their rights against both Powers." Gallatin—acting as Madison's Secretary of State—sketched an ingenious and plausible project which Erskine was to suggest for Canning's use. His leading idea was simple. The total non-intercourse with both belligerents—the measure recommended by Campbell's Report, and about to become law—must remove two causes of dispute with England; for this non-intercourse superseded the President's "Chesapeake" proclamation and the Non-importation Act of April, 1806, against British manufactures. Henceforward England could not complain of American partiality to France, seeing that America impartially prohibited every kind of intercourse with both countries. This mode of conciliation was but a fair return for Canning's conciliatory prohibition of American cotton, and if carried one step further must end on both sides in a declaration of war in order to prove their wish for peace; but Canning could hardly object to his own style of reasoning. After thus evading two English grievances, Gallatin arrived at his third point,—that Congress meant to interdict the employment of foreign seamen on American vessels, and thus put an end to all occasion for impressment. Finally, Erskine represented Gallatin as saying that the