at a moment when he should have been pressing complaints about the frigate "Impetueux," destroyed by the English within American jurisdiction, and when he should have been threatening the most fatal consequences if President Jefferson should sign any treaty whatever with England.[1]
In this temper all parties waited for the news from England, which could not long be delayed; until March 3, 1807, the last day of the session, a rumor reached the Capitol that a messenger had arrived at the British legation with a copy of the treaty negotiated by Pinkney and Monroe. The news was true. No sooner did Erskine receive the treaty than he hurried with it to Madison, "in hopes that he would be induced to persuade the President either to detain the Senate, which he has the power by the Constitution to do, or to give them notice that he should convene them again." Unlike Merry, Erskine was anxious for a reconciliation between England and America; he tried honestly and over-zealously to bring the two governments into accord, but he found Madison not nearly so earnest as himself:
- "The first question he asked was, what had been determined on the point of impressment of seamen, claimed as British, out of American ships; and when I informed him that I had not perceived anything that directly referred to that question in any of the Articles of the copy of the treaty which I had received, he expressed the
- ↑ Turreau to Talleyrand, May 15, 1807; Archives des Aff. Étr., MSS.
