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- "It is proper for me to notice," said Merry in his report of these remonstrances,[1] "that Mr. Madison gave great weight to them by renewing them on every occasion of my seeing him, and by his expressing that they were matters upon which this Government could not possibly be silent until a proper remedy for the evil should be applied by his Majesty's government. His observations were, however, made with great temper, and accompanied with the strongest assurances of the disposition of this Government to conciliate, and to concur in whatever means could be devised which should not be absolutely derogatory to their independence and interests, to establish principles and rules which should be satisfactory to both parties. . . . But, my Lord, while it is my duty to do justice to Mr. Madison's temperate and conciliatory language, I must not omit to observe that it indicated strongly a design on the part of this Government to avail themselves of the present conjucture by persisting steadily in their demands of redress of their pretended grievances, in the hope of obtaining a greater respect to their flag, and of establishing a more convenient system of neutral navigation than the interests of the British empire have hitherto allowed his Majesty to concur in."
The British government was aware that its so-called right of impressment and its doctrine of blockade rested on force, and could not be maintained against superior force; but this consciousness rendered England only the more sensitive in regard to dangers that threatened her supremacy. Knowing that the United
- ↑ Merry to Hawkesbury, Dec. 6, 1803; MSS. British Archives.
