intended to do it," that a disavowal of Commodore Barron would be required.[1]
So cautious was Madison on his side that he offered to make a part of the required disavowals, provided these should be mutual. Rose declined this offer, but proposed nothing more, and seemed rather to invite a friendly failure of agreement. He ended the conversation of February 14 by addressing to Madison the usual words of rupture: "I will not dissemble that I leave you with the most painful impressions."[2] February 16 Madison closed these informal interviews with the dry remark that the United States could not be expected to "make as it were an expiatory sacrifice to obtain redress, or beg for reparation." [3]
The delay had strengthened Rose by weakening the President. The embargo was beginning to work. That the people should long submit to it was impossible, reported Rose; even North Carolina was turning against it. Monroe's influence made itself felt.
- "I learn this day," wrote the British envoy February 17, "that Mr. Monroe has been indefatigable in representing through Virginia the contrasted systems of Great Britain and France in their true lights, the certain destruction which must result to America from the prevalence of the latter, and the necessity of uniting for existence with the former. He has undoubtedly acquired
