But a mission like this, while it corresponds with the solemnity of the occasion, will announce to the world a solicitude for the friendly adjustment of our complaints, and a reluctance to hostility.

Going immediately from the United States, such an envoy will carry with him a full knowledge of the existing temper and sensibility of our country; and will thus be taught to vindicate our rights with firmness, and to cultivate peace with sincerity." To those who believed the interests of the nation to require a rupture with England, and a still closer connexion with France, nothing could be more unlooked for, or more unwelcome, than this decisive measure.
That it would influence the proceedings of congress could not be doubted; and it would materially affect the public mind was probable.
Evincing the opinion of the executive that negotiation, not legislative hostility, was still the proper medium for accommodating differences with Great Britain, it threw on the legislature a great responsibility, if they should persist in a system calculated to defeat that negotiation.

By showing to the people that their President did not yet believe war to be necessary, it turned the attention of many to peace; and, by suggesting the probability, rekindled the almost extinguished desire, of preserving that blessing.
Scarcely has any public act of the President drawn upon his administration a greater degree of censure than this.

That such would be its effect, could not be doubted by a person who had observed the ardour with which opinions that it thwarted were embraced, or the extremity to which the passions and contests of the moment had carried all orders of men.

But it is the province of real patriotism to consult the utility, more than the popularity of a measure; and to pursue the path of duty, although it may be rugged.
In the senate, the nomination was approved by a majority of ten voices; and, in the house of representatives, it was urged as an argument against persevering in the system which had been commenced.
On the 18th of April, a motion for taking up the report of the committee of the whole house on the resolution for cutting off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain, was opposed, chiefly on the ground that, as an envoy had been nominated to the court of that country, no obstacle ought to be thrown in his way.