There was no ground for the commissioners to stand upon; moreover the emperor and Count Nesselrode were absent from St.
Petersburg, Count Romanzoff being left in charge of the foreign relations.

The offer of mediation had originated with him.

His policy was to curb the maritime power of England, and to secure in the negotiation a modification at least of the offensive practice of Great Britain in her assumed police of the sea.
The war was in fact a legacy of the necessarily incomplete diplomacy of Washington's administration and the Jay treaty.

The determining cause was the enforcement of the right of search and the impressment of seamen from American vessels; a practice at variance with the rights and the law of nations.

Monroe, Madison's secretary of state, urged the clear and distinct forbearance of this British practice as the one object to be obtained.