=298. Madison’s Perplexities.=—Just before Madison’s accession to the Presidency the Embargo was supplanted by a non-intercourse law which permitted trade with nations not controlled by France or Great Britain. This legitimate trade and the large amount of fraudulent shipping that went on brought temporary wealth to American shipowners, and there even seemed to be a prospect of a treaty with Great Britain. People began to say that Madison was a better President than his predecessor, who continued to advise him. As a matter of fact, he was a weaker man, had a poorer Cabinet, and was soon involved in greater difficulties than those encountered by Jefferson. For British statesmanship was at that time at a very low ebb; the concessions agreed to by Erskine, the British envoy, were disavowed at home, and a new envoy actually ventured to insult Madison by accusing him of deception in negotiations relating to the prospective treaty. Yet party politics were at a still lower ebb in this country, as is shown by the fact that the Federalists showered social attentions on James Jackson, the envoy who had so grossly insulted the President. Nevertheless Congress, tired of legislation that seemed to produce no effect either on England or on France, did away with non-intercourse, with the proviso that if one of the two contending powers annulled its vexatious decrees and the other did not, non-intercourse should be maintained with the nation still holding out (“Macon’s Bill,” No. 2, May 1, 1810). Napoleon took advantage of this proviso, although really showing America very little favor. He showed enough, however, to make Great Britain appear most in the wrong, and on November 1, 1810, Madison issued a proclamation declaring trade suspended with that power. This was a sorry commentary on the proclamation of the preceding April renewing trade with Great Britain; for the sole result of the diplomacy of the year had been to let loose more American ships to be captured by the British or confiscated by the French. [Illustration: JOHN C. CALHOUN.]