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HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
Ch. 17.
- "I ascertained from Mr. Madison," he wrote November 26,[1] "that . . . the Report of the Committee seemed distinctly to announce that the ULTIMATE and only effectual mode of resisting the aggressions of the belligerents would be by a war."
If Canning could be panic-struck by italics and capital letters, Erskine meant to excite his worst alarms. Perhaps Madison was a little the accomplice of these tactics; for at the moment when he threatened war in language the most menacing, the future President was trembling lest Congress should abjectly submit to British orders. Erskine's despatches early in December echoed the official words of Madison, Gallatin, and Robert Smith, but gave little idea of their difficulties. The same tactics marked his next letters. Jan. 1, 1809, he wrote to Canning[2] that the bill which was to carry into effect the Resolutions of Campbell's Report had been laid before the House:—
- "You will observe, sir, that the provisions of this bill are exactly such as this Government informed me would be adopted, and which I detailed to you in my despatches by the last month's packet. On these measures, and a strict enforcement of the embargo, the Government and Congress have determined to rely for a short time, in the hope that some events in Europe may take place to enable them to extricate themselves from their present highly embarrassing situation. It is now universally
