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take so well-considered a position without meaning to support it by acts, was not probable. Acts of some kind, more or less hostile in their nature, were certainly intended by the United States government in case Great Britain should persist in contempt for neutral rights; the sudden change of tone at Washington left no doubt on this point. Edward Thornton, who had not yet been transferred to another post, wrote in consternation to the Foreign Office, fearing that blame might be attached to his own conduct while in charge of the legation:[1]—
- "When I compare the complexion of Mr. Merry's correspondence with that of my own, particularly during the course of the last summer, before the intelligence of the Louisiana purchase reached this country, I can scarcely credit the testimony of my own senses in examining the turn which affairs have taken, and the manifest ill-will discovered toward us by the Government at the present moment. . . . I believe that the simple truth of the case is, after all, the circumstance. . . that a real change has taken place in the views of this Government, which may be dated from the first arrival of the intelligence relative to the Louisiana purchase, and which has since derived additional force and acrimony from the opinion that Great Britain cannot resist, under her present pressure, the new claims of the United States, and now, from the necessity they under of recurring to the influence of France in order to support their demands against Spain. . . . The cession of Louisiana, notwithstanding that the circumstances under which it was made ought to
- ↑ Thornton to Hammond, Jan. 29, 1804; MSS. British Archives.
