But all was in vain.

At length he determined on an embargo, as the only means of securing our commerce from the grasp of the unscrupulous mistress of the seas.

An act to that effect was passed in Dec., 1807.

This effectually prostrated what little foreign commerce had been left to the United States.
In these proceedings Mr.Jefferson was stoutly opposed by the Federal party.

Massachusetts, then the chief commercial State in the Union, resisted with its utmost influence the Embargo Act, as pre-eminently destructive to its welfare, and looked to its Senators and Representatives in Congress to urge an opposition to the extreme.