possible facility or encouragement which we could give to prevail upon the American people either to evade the embargo by running their produce to the West Indian Islands, or to compel their government to relax it, would in my opinion be most wise."
The order was accordingly issued. Dated April 11, 1808,[1] it directed British naval commanders to molest no neutral vessel on a voyage to the West Indies or South America, even though the vessel should have no regular clearances or papers, and "notwithstanding the present hostilities, or any future hostilities that may take place." No measure of the British government irritated Madison more keenly than this. "A more extraordinary experiment," he wrote to Pinkney,[2] "is perhaps not to be found in the annals of modern transactions." Certainly governments did not commonly invite citizens of friendly countries to violate their own laws; but one avowed object of the embargo was to distress the British people into resisting their government, and news that the negroes of Jamaica and the artisans of Yorkshire had broken into acts of lawless violence would have been grateful to the ears of Jefferson. So distinct was this object, and so real the danger, that Perceval asked Parliament[3] to restrict the consumption of grain in the distilleries in order to countervail the loss of American wheat and avert a famine.
